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Soon: Biden To Sign Historic Deal On Climate, Tax, Health Care; Giuliani Expected To Appear Before GA Grand Jury Tomorrow; WAPO: Records Reveal Trump-Allied Lawyers Pursued Voting Machine Data In Multiple Battleground States; Voters Head To The Polls Today In Alaska & Wyoming Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 16, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: They're letting the states continue to talk to each other, but there's a round of automatic cuts that will kick in Tier IIA they're called now. It's receded so low here that now Arizona will see another 21 percent of their water supply cut. This is a place where alfalfa and cotton farmers already getting paid to let their fields go fallow this year, because of the water cuts.

On Nevada, we'll see an 8 percent cut, Mexico about a 7 percent cut. And because of some sort of fudgy math, because of a lot of water that was left up in Lake Powell and didn't come down to Mead, they're counting it as if it were in Mead. And as a result of that bit of accounting, California will not have to do its first mandatory cuts this coming year.

There was some hope in the upper basin states that California, the lower basin users, the big cities, the farmers would start to cut more. That hasn't happened yet. But here we are, Victor, Alisyn, you're 23 of a mega drought. There's no real relief in sight and so the watchword of the future to live in the American west is water conservation. Every single drop counts from here on out.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Wow, Bill, thank you for explaining all of that. The situation is obviously very dire. They need to find a way to compromise. Thank you very much for explaining it to us.

It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. It's good to have you.

So this hour, we expect to see the President at the White House. He'll sign a bill into law that one adviser calls a combination of the administration's effort toward building the economy.

The Inflation Reduction Act, as it's called, makes historic investments in the fight against climate change. It gives Medicare more negotiating power with prescription drug companies and imposes new taxes on some of America's biggest corporations. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins us live now. So Kaitlan, Democrats consider this a significant victory, though they certainly did not get everything they wanted here. KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's not

everything they wanted and it's very different than the Build Back Better bill, the proposal that we were talking about just last summer. But, of course, this is a far cry from what Democrats thought they were going to get.

But also, back in December, they were worried they weren't going to get anything at all, because negotiations had really stalled between the more progressive and more moderate members of the Democratic Party, certainly in the Senate. And, of course, it was last month when that surprise announcement came from Sen. Schumer and Sen. Manchin that they actually had an agreement on this, that really changed everything and led to that Senate passage, the House passing this last Friday, which of course has culminated here today with President Biden going to put his signature on this bill and sign it into law.

And so what you're going to see on the other side of this is the White House trying to sell this bill to voters to make sure they know what's in it, because they want to make this argument that this is one of the biggest legislative achievements that you've seen congressional Democrats have in some time now. They've talked about other bills that they've passed, but this really has to do with the core priorities, Alisyn and Victor, that you were just talking about. Letting Medicare negotiate drug prices for the first time. These climate investments, energy reform, this corporate minimum tax that they're going to use to pay for a lot of this.

And so you're going to see President Biden himself on the road, the White House says, selling this. Today is just going to be the signing, but they said they'll actually have a celebration come September, on September the 6th. They also say there's going to be dozens of visits by Cabinet members to states over the next two weeks talking about what's in this.

Because now that they've gotten this passed, the next challenge is trying to use it to boost Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, because that - conventional wisdom, of course, has been that they are going to be facing this uphill battle come November and President Biden's own poll numbers have suffered lately because of the economy, because of inflation. And so that is going to be something they're focused on.

I should note it is called the Inflation Reduction Act. It really has much more to do with climate, with health care. If you look at estimates from nonpartisan offices, they say it's not really going to do a lot to bring down inflation, certainly not in the near term. The White House is arguing that because it reduces the deficit, it will have this anti-inflationary measure to it.

CAMEROTA: Okay. We appreciate you explaining the name of it. That's really helpful. Kaitlan, thank you very much for all of that background.

So there are multiple developments in multiple investigations involving former President Trump and we begin with the House investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Two top Democrats now accusing the Inspector General of obstructing their probe into missing Secret Service texts from the period around the Capitol siege.

BLACKWELL: The lawmakers write in a letter their suspicion that Homeland Security IG, Joseph Cuffari, may be using his investigation to block their process. They write this: "We're concerned that you are now improperly using a criminal investigation that you only recently announced to hide evidence from Congress of your misconduct and mismanagement."

CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez is at the Justice Department. So how's the Inspector General obstructing these cases according to these two chairs of these two important committees?

[15:05:02]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Alisyn, the crux of this is that these investigative - these investigators on the Hill want to fight figure out what happened to these text messages from the from the Secret Service members around the time of January 6 and they say that they're being obstructed by the Inspector General of the Homeland Security Department who announced that he's doing this criminal investigation.

And as a result of that, he's saying he's not turning over documents to them. He's not going to allow members of his own staff to sit for transcribed interviews with these two committees that are chaired by Carolyn Maloney and Bennie Thompson. I'll read you just a part of what he says in response to these accusations. He says, "To protect the integrity of our work and preserve our independence, we do not share information about ongoing matters, like the information you request it in your letters. Similarly, we do not authorize our staff to sit for transcribed interviews with your committee about these ongoing matters."

The bottom line is that these members, these chair - the chairwoman and chairman of these two committees on the Hill want Cuffari - Joseph Cuffari to step aside, because he - they say that they can't figure out what happened here with these text messages if he's still in his position.

CAMEROTA: Okay, Evan. So now onto another investigation and as we now know ...

PEREZ: Right.

CAMEROTA: ... the DOJ is investigating why Donald Trump had classified and top secret documents inside his Mar-A-Lago home. The DOJ does not want to unseal the affidavit behind the search, but why were they willing to release, in that case, the search warrant and that receipt of property?

PEREZ: Yes, they went that unusual step, they say, because the former president was out there publicizing that there had been this search and, obviously, there had been days and days of misinformation about exactly what this is about. In this document that they that they filed in court yesterday, rejecting an effort by the members of news media, including CNN to have this affidavit released.

They say that this would pose a grave danger to the ongoing investigation and they use specific words to call attention to the fact that this is about classified information, highly sensitive, classified information. And I'll read you just a part of what they say in their court filing. They say, "Disclosure at this juncture of the affidavit would cause significant irreparable damage to this ongoing criminal investigation. Disclosure would also chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high profile investigations."

Alisyn and Victor, two things jumped out at me immediately when I saw this, one of them is the prospect of additional witnesses, people being brought before the grand jury for this criminal investigation. And then there's a reference to the fact that there are possibly other investigations that these same witnesses could have information about.

And again, this is why the Justice Department says it's important to keep this stuff secret Victor and Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: All right. Evan Perez for us, thank you. Well, investigation number three now tied to Donald Trump and this one is in Georgia. It concerns the former president and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

CAMEROTA: So Donald Trump's former attorney Rudy Giuliani is now responding to being named a target of the special grand jury in Atlanta. CNN's Nick Valanecia is there. So Nick, Rudy Giuliani is expected to testify before the grand jury tomorrow, what changes now that he's a target?

NICK VALANECIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, a lot changes, this is a significant development because it's the first member of former President Trump's inner circle that's been named as the target of this criminal investigation. But whether or not Rudy Giuliani will answer the questions from the special grand jury, that is a big outstanding question. And if it's last night's interview is any indication, he may not say much.

He's trying to initially anyway say that anything that he spoke to the former president about is protected under attorney client privilege, but since he's been named a target in this criminal investigation, a legal analyst will tell you it's not simply that cut and dry. What we do know is that Giuliani spoke before Georgia lawmakers here three times in the wake of the 2020 election to spread conspiracy theories. Just listen to the type of baseless claims he was repeating to lawmakers in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: The minute you separate the outer envelope from the ballot, you can no longer trace it, which is why the count - whatever the count in Georgia today is, it's totally ridiculous. They're counting the same fraudulent ballots.

How can they say there's no fraud? Look at that woman who could have taken those ballots out. Look at them scurrying around with the ballots, nobody in the room hiding around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALANECIA: So Giuliani expected to appear before the special purpose grand jury. He was supposed to appear last week but his attorneys filed a late motion for continuance saying that Giuliani had heart conditions that prohibited from traveling by air.

[15:10:02]

Ultimately, a Fulton County judge here ruled that he had more than a week to get here by alternative methods, though, we're still not clear whether or not he's going to invoke his Fifth Amendment right. His attorney in New York saying that the DA's office is playing hardball and they know how to play hardball too. Victor? Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: Okay. Nick Valanecia, thank you very much.

Joining us now is former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. He's also a CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst. And great to see you. We had Norm Eisen on last hour who said that he believes that now that Rudy Giuliani has been named a target of the investigation, it won't be long, or I guess, let me try to phrase this correctly. He can't see how Donald Trump wouldn't be named a target because they're so intertwined, do you agree? And in that case, would prosecutors have to disclose to Donald Trump sooner than later that he too is a target?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So I think Norm's analysis makes sense. Although I couldn't hope to put a timeline on when that might happen. The simple fact is why would they be investigating Rudy Giuliani for his actions involved in the aftermath of the election, but for the fact that Mr. Giuliani was doing those things, according to his own admissions at the behest of Donald Trump.

So the two of them are inextricably tied together in what might be a criminal conspiracy to alter the election in Georgia. That's, of course, what's being investigated. So I think it's certainly possible that he'll become a target.

Now, if you think about name - notifying him of the target status, it's likely that Giuliani was notified recently, because he was about to testify in front of the grand jury and that's the sort of notification you would want to give a witness or target before they testify, so they could make good decisions about whether or not they should claim their Fifth Amendment privilege to not speak.

So that might be a key if in the event that Donald Trump is requested to come testify, we don't know if that'll happen. But if it does, I would expect he'd be notified before that. If he's never requested to testify, it's quite possible he'll - he won't be notified.

BLACKWELL: Andy, let's turn to this letter that was just sent from the chairs of House Homeland Security and Oversight, accusing the direct - the Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security of obstructing their investigation into these missing text messages. Joseph Cuffari holdover from the Trump administration, do you see him as a good faith actor here?

MCCABE: It's very hard to see him that way, Victor, simply because the timeline of facts that we know at this point is so conflicting. First, I should note that inspectors general are typically very responsive to Congress. They are independent from the executive branch agencies, they police but they are typically very responsive to Congress, so this is an odd reaction.

Now, overlay that onto the fact that Mr. Cuffari seems to have acted strangely months and months ago in the aftermath of January 6, with respect to getting access to these texts. But we didn't know about any of this until just a few weeks ago, when he notified Congress, essentially, that he was complaining that the Secret Service had not been complying with his requests and not been responsive to him.

Then all of a sudden, he says, well, it's now a criminal investigation and therefore, nobody can talk to Congress and I'm not going to give you any information. So it's been a very conflicting back and forth pattern that he's had with Congress over the last few weeks, which I think draws some legitimate questions about his independence and what's really going on here.

CAMEROTA: Andy, how about this Washington Post reporting about this team of Trump lawyers who, as we know, were - wanted to overturn the election results and that they hired this forensic data firm to access county election machines in battleground states in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, can a third party firm access voting machines? How is this not just immediately illegal?

MCCABE: This is really, really disturbing to me, Alisyn. So what you have here, essentially, if these reports are true from plaintiff in the civil suit in Georgia, that you have these third party firms who were working at the behest of people who are trying to help the former president getting surreptitious access to voting machines in a way that's never really given to anyone.

And the only way they could have had access to these machines is if they had had some sort of cooperation or facilitation by election officials, people with love Gentleman access in those states.

[15:15:01]

So I think there's a lot of very questionable activity to be investigated here but whether crimes may have been committed in those different states over granting this third party access to machines that are essentially critical infrastructure, the maintenance and the isolation of those machines in their data is something that's very closely monitored for important reasons.

BLACKWELL: Andy, the head of the FBI Agents Association says that the threats against federal law enforcement they are real, they are imminent. This special agent Brian O'Hare who says that what we see today is unprecedented. It needs to come to an end without violence. What needs to happen now to bring that temperature down and just generally your thoughts about what we've seen over the last week plus since the search at Mar-A-Lago? MCCABE: Yes. So Victor, my thoughts are, first and foremost, I have

great concern for my former colleagues in the FBI and not just for the folks who are going to work every day, which is - which can be very dangerous, even on a good day, but for their families as well. This sort of activity targeting their loved ones is absolutely terrifying. I know that from my own experiences over the last few years.

In terms of what needs to be done, there's no question that our political leadership needs to get out and talk about this in a transparent and forceful way. People need to make clear on both sides - across the spectrum of the great political divide that this is absolutely unacceptable in a free and fair democracy. You cannot take the matters like this into your own hands by threatening violence against those folks that you have some sort of a disagreement with, whether in law enforcement or not.

When you're targeting law enforcement, you are literally targeting the institutions that we all rely on to keep this country on a straight narrow law abiding path in which we all respect the rule of law. I understand people are frustrated and concerned about what happened last week in Mar-A-Lago, but violence is absolutely not the answer and my heart really goes out to those folks I used to work with and still think about every day.

BLACKWELL: Andrew McCabe, thank you.

CAMEROTA: Well, Liz Cheney's political future is being decided today. Voters in Wyoming are going to the polls right now. We'll have a look at today's big races across the country next.

BLACKWELL: Plus, the First Lady diagnosed with COVID. New details on how Jill Biden is doing.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:46]

CAMEROTA: Voters are at the polls in Wyoming and Alaska today in another test of Donald Trump's hold on the GOP. Three of the most well known women in Republican politics are on the ballot. Alaska's Sarah Palin and Lisa Murkowski and Wyoming's Liz Cheney.

BLACKWELL: CNN Political Director David Chalian joins us now. So David, Wyoming first, Congresswoman Liz Cheney at the top of former President Trump's revenge list, what do we need to know?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. There's no doubt about that, Victor. The former President has made clear he wants to be responsible for Liz Cheney losing her job in Congress ever since she voted to impeach him in the aftermath of January 6 and then basically made it her daily mission in public life to try and eradicate Donald Trump from the Republican Party.

Now, she lost her job as House Conference Chair over this and she may lose her job in Congress over this. She's running in this primary against Harriet Hageman. Hageman, the Trump-backed challenger is the overwhelming favorite today. Liz Cheney would need a bit of a miracle here relying a lot on people like Democrats and independents changing their voter registration to Republicans to come out and vote for her.

Because in the Wyoming Republican Party, Liz Cheney, thanks to Donald Trump's efforts out there has become sort of persona non grata.

CAMEROTA: (Inaudible) us this, we heard that Liz Cheney voted this morning, but she didn't - she did so in Jackson, okay, not at the polling place closer to her neighborhood where the cameras were set up and some of her neighbors were there. Why? Do we know why she made that choice?

CHALIAN: Her campaign isn't saying why she chose to vote when she did, where she did, they just said that she did indeed cast her ballot. But it is known that Liz Cheney has not been able to hold a ton of public events in this campaign, Alisyn, largely due to security, because of her high profile role in the January 6 Commission and because sort of the ire she's drawn from Trump and his supporters doing big public events in a heavily Trump supporting state has been tricky. Most of her events have been sort of private house parties. I'm not sure if that played into today's decision or not.

BLACKWELL: Let's go to Alaska now, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, she voted to convict Trump after a second impeachment facing the Trump-backed challenger there, Kelly Tshibaka. Is she concerned as you have reason now to worry about his primary challenge?

CHALIAN: She probably doesn't have a ton of reason to worry today, Victor, just simply because of the way Alaska conducts its primary elections, the top four candidates today will head on to the November general election. Kelly Tshibaka you mentioned is the Trump-backed challenger on the Republican side. There's also the Democratic candidate and they all run on the same ballot and the top four advance and if nobody wins a majority in November, it goes to rank choice voting.

So it's a lengthy process in Alaska, but what Lisa Murkowski does have to be concerned about heading into the fall in her re-election battle is that the former president has sort of declared her a political enemy of his and somebody he's committed to see be defeated.

[15:25:04]

So the fact that he'll be out there trying to cause her political damage this fall is something she obviously needs to pay attention to. But it is not at all a sure thing that Murkowski is on a path to losing her seat.

CAMEROTA: Let's talk about Sarah Palin. So she's in this special election for this house seat in Alaska and Donald Trump went to Alaska last month, did he campaigned for her?

CHALIAN: Yes. So here's the one of these high profile Republican women we're talking about who actually does have Donald Trump's support. He endorsed her early in this race. This is to replace the late long serving Congressman Don Young out in Alaska. Her big Republican competition is Nick Begich there you see on the graphic and then there's a Democrat running, Mary Peltola.

So what Sarah Palin is trying to do here is engineer a political comeback. Her decision, you'll recall back in 2009, to vacate the governor's office is still political baggage she carries with her that she sort of left that office. Her opponents have used that in this campaign, but she's trying to utilize Donald Trump's support, the energy of his supporters and sort of portray herself as sort of Trump before Trump in modern day Republican Party politics. And she's hoping that'll do the trick to both not only the special election today to fill out the remainder of Don Young's term, but she's also running in the primary to serve in that seat going forward.

BLACKWELL: All right. David Chalian, thank you so much.

CHALIAN: Sure. Thanks, guys.

BLACKWELL: First Lady Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID. Now, she is isolating at a private home in South Carolina where she and the President had been vacationing.

CAMEROTA: She was last seen in public on Sunday on a bike ride, as you can see before the positive test. CNN's Kate Bennett joins us now. So Kate, what's the latest?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the latest is the President himself just said she was doing well. He got off the plane here in Washington without his wife, obviously. She started feeling poorly, the East Wing says, Monday night. She took a PCR test. It turned up positive. She is on Paxlovid which is the antiviral, of course, that should tamp down those symptoms. The President took it to when he had COVID.

But I'm told that she is working. She's working on some fall plans for the next semester of the community college where she teaches English nearby here in Washington. And she's also planning to return to Washington as soon as she's over her quarantine. I'm also told that the family members that she was vacationing with, with the President including Hunter Biden and his wife and their young son, so far, so good. They've all tested negative for COVID.

So it seems right now that just the First Lady is experiencing her first bout. She got her second booster shot back in April. And listen, from the administration, she's one of the many who've been out there across the country talking about vaccination and booster shots. So now she is isolating and doing what she's said to be told to do by the CDC and she'll be back to Washington when she can, guys.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Let's hope she doesn't have Paxlovid rebound as we know occasionally happens.

BENNETT: That's true.

CAMEROTA: Kate, thank you.

BENNETT: Thanks. BLACKWELL: We're now getting an update on the eight-year-old boy who

was shot and severely injured in the July 4th mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. A Cooper Roberts was left paralyzed from the waist down. He is still at a rehab hospital.

CAMEROTA: His family said today that while they are beyond grateful for his survival, they want people to know that Cooper is in 'constant pain' still on heavy painkillers and he's starting to recognize the severity of his limitations. He feels hopeless, sad and angry as the reality of his life is setting in. They add it is very hard to convince Cooper that he will be happy again.

That is just so heartbreaking, Victor. I mean, good for the family for not sugarcoating it and for helping everybody understand the lifelong consequences of gun violence emotionally and physically. I mean, he's one of the survivors. I mean, this is supposedly the good news that he survived and they are just, I think, speaking very plainly about what his life will look like.

BLACKWELL: Yes. He puts on a smile in this photograph, but explaining to an eight-year-old all that will take - that he'll have to invest over the next weeks and months and years is certainly heavy for any child to accept.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And that's just one family that has had to deal with that.

BLACKWELL: All right. CNN has just learned that the FBI interviewed former White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin as part of the investigation of federal records taken to Mar-A-Lago.

CAMEROTA: CNN is Evan Perez joins us now. Okay, Evan, welcome back. Thanks for scrambling here with this new news. When did they speak to Cipollone and Philbin?

PEREZ: It keeps on coming, guys. We know that there was a group of former White House aides who were interviewed by the FBI earlier this year in the spring to try to figure out what happened with these boxes, how they came - these boxes of federal records - how they came to be taken to Mar-A-Lago at the end of the Trump presidency.

[15:30:08]