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Redacted Affidavit Reveals DOJ Found 184 Classified Docs In 14 Of 15 Returned Boxes From Mar-a-Lago; Texas Has Bused Almost 9,000 Migrants To New York And Washington, D.C.; Biden White House To Release Details Of Student Loan Debt Relief Roll Out; Analysis Finds Biden's Student Loan Relief Will Mainly Help Working, Middle-Class Borrowers; Two Plead Guilty To Stealing, Selling Ashley Biden's Journal, Personal Belongings; MN GOP Nominee For Top Election Post Compared Changing Voting Rules In 2020 To 9/11 Terror Attack; Woman Says She Was Denied Abortion After Fetus' Fatal Diagnosis. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired August 27, 2022 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:14]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

Was America's national security put at risk as classified documents sat unsecured for months at Donald Trump's Florida home? That is the question the National Intelligence director wants to look at. She's telling top lawmakers her office will lead a damage assessment. This comes just one day after the Justice Department released a redacted version of the affidavit it used to get a search warrant for the former president's Mar-a-Lago resort.

In the affidavit, the FBI said it had found 184 classified documents in boxes retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January, including 25 marked top secret. Some documents had markings indicating the material was about human sources or spies underscoring fears that documents may contain some of America's most sensitive secrets.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins me now. And Natasha, what are we learning about the director of National Intelligence is taking this very seriously?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: She is, and rightfully so, right, because of all of the sensitive information that we believe was in these documents and we're learning that the director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, has written a letter to the Oversight and House Intelligence Committees telling them that she has begun a classification review and a review of the risk to national security that these kind of loose documents could pose.

Now, clearly this is kind of an escalation here. We weren't sure whether the intelligence community would be able to see the documents that had been retrieved from Mar-a-Lago because they are part of an active criminal investigation, and the FBI typically holds very closely any evidence in those probes. But obviously the risk here, the potential risk to national security contained in these documents is just too great for the intel community to not be made aware of what's possibly in this.

And of course we saw just yesterday that in these documents contain information about human sources. There are some documents that were obtained from Mar-a-Lago that have an HCS designation, and according to ODNI, just read for you here, in 2013 they said that this designation is designed to protect exceptionally fragile and unique human intelligence operation and methods.

So clearly the intel community wants to know, hey, were any of our sources burned here? Were any of our methods exposed, especially given how high traffic of an area Mar-a-Lago was, the number of people who could have potentially had access to this stuff. So clearly the intel community, they're going to be launching this review. It remains to be seen whether we're going to get any information about it, but the intel committees of course had been asking for this, and now they're getting it.

ACOSTA: Yes. They want to know, were spies put at risk as a result of these documents being kept at Mar-a-Lago.

All right, Natasha Bertrand. Thank you very much.

Evan McMullin joins me now. He is a former undercover CIA officer and an independent candidate for Senate in Utah trying to unseat incumbent Republican Mike Lee. And Senator Lee, we should note, he declined our invitation to join us today but he is invited of course anytime.

Evan, thanks so much for joining us. I want to get your take on the DNI's damage assessment that I guess we're going to be seeing, you know, launched as a result of all of this. What will the intelligence community be looking for in this review, and what are your thoughts? Do you think it's possible that the lives of spies were put at risk?

EVAN MCMULLIN, FORMER UNDERCOVER CIA OFFICER: Well, good to be with you, Jim. Yes, it is possible. I mean, information that is that highly classified is that highly classified often because if someone were to read it, they could perhaps determine who the source of that information was, and that can lead to the imprisonment or death of someone working closely with us, with the U.S. government, with the CIA, for example.

It can also lead to threats to our own officers who work with those penetrations of foreign governments or terrorist organizations, for example, and that's why this is so potentially dangerous to our national security. We depend on information that's gathered through these means to keep Americans safe, and the fact that these documents were found and hoarded by former President Trump in his residential basement, you know, which is also a club where plenty of people visit and people who should not have access to classified, especially not highly classified information, is a great security concern.

And so, you know, I'm personally eager to see how bad the damage is. We'll see what we learn, you know, as the public. I'm not sure, we probably won't receive the full report, of course, but obviously this is highly concerning. ACOSTA: And the affidavit revealed some of those classified documents

retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, the types of documents, they include the marking HCS, Natasha was just talking about this a few moments ago, which indicates the materials about human sources or spies that often work with the CIA. What do you make of this as a former CIA officer who was working undercover?

MCMULLIN: Well, the work of an undercover CIA officer is to live abroad most of the time, working a cover job, and at the same time engaging with people in foreign countries who have access to sensitive information that is useful for keeping Americans safe.

[16:05:16]

So it could be, for example, a senior military officer in Iran or in Russia or elsewhere who's providing information about planned attacks or planned efforts to undermine U.S. security or our interests internationally. And so they take incredible risks when those individuals work with CIA officers in order to keep the U.S. government informed of these issues. Incredible risks, I can't overstate it. They're putting their lives on the line for a greater cause.

And the CIA officers who meet with them are also putting their lives on the line in many cases, and so what we see here with the potential exposure of these documents to who knows who, and again, I don't know, and you know, the investigation is, you know, will determine who had access hopefully to those documents, but that can lead to the exposure of sources and officers that can lead to, you know, their deaths, their imprisonment, but also to a weakened ability to collect very necessary intelligence for American security.

And what it does also is this kind of news and this kind of development, what Donald Trump did also erodes people's confidence in our ability to keep really important sensitive information secret and to protect their lives and so for those officers who are serving out there now, it makes it much more difficult for them to do their jobs, for them to continue to recruit others to join the effort to be a part of our efforts to collect information and keep Americans safe.

ACOSTA: And I want to shift gears now to something very personal that you went through, and we're reporting this first on CNN. You are accusing a driver of pointing a gun at you and your wife during an incident back in April. The case appears to be heading toward a trial. It appears to be a pretty alarming situation that you experienced. Can you tell us more about it?

MCMULLIN: Well, yes, there's an individual that is being charged with threatening my wife and I with a weapon and aggressively pursuing us with his car. This is an incident that happened back in April. It is going to trial at the moment, and you know, look, it's something that I experienced serving overseas in the Middle East and other places like that, incidents like these, but this individual put the life of my wife at risk, and I'm going to do everything I can to protect her and my family, and to hold this individual accountable, and that's why he's being charged. ACOSTA: And we should note the attorney for the other motorist says he

disputes your version of events. He has pleaded not guilty in this case. But what do you hope to see happen as a result of this case?

MCMULLIN: Well, he's being charged because he, you know, threatened us with his weapon, and I correctly identified and described that weapon, and his own wife informed police officers that he did indeed have that weapon. So that's why he's being charged. I mean, you can claim that he didn't do it, but I think, you know, the facts are, you know, the facts do not support his claims. But regardless, you know, this is, you know, a case of someone who did something to put my family at risk, and I'm going to do everything I can do to cooperate with law enforcement to hold him accountable.

And there's a process for that, and you know, all of this is an individual who appears to have some, you know, sort of extreme proclivity to violence and that is of great concern to us, particularly he has a proclivity for political violence or for talking about political violence based on what appear to be his social media posts, and of course as I'm running for office and testifying in open court against him, you know, that's of concern. But we're going to continue to -- we're going to continue onward, and as I said, I'm going to do what I need to do to protect my family.

ACOSTA: All right, Evan McMullin, I know it was not easy for you to talk about this. It happened many months ago, and I know you were reluctant to talk about it because of the concerns for your family and their safety.

But, Evan, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

MCMULLIN: Thank you.

ACOSTA: And with me now is history professor and fascism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat who provided analysis to the January 6th Committee. She is also the author of "Strong Men: How They Rise, Why They Succeed and How They Fall."

[16:10:05]

Ruth, looking at the landscape right now from this terrifying situation that we just heard from Evan McMullin to the danger that Vice President Pence was facing on January 6th to the threats targeting the Department of Justice and election workers, do you remember a time in recent U.S. history when we would see public officials, elected leaders, undergoing this kind of threatening environment?

RUTH BEN-GHIAT, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, NYU: No, it's very concerning because the GOP is cultivating a climate conducive to political violence starting with seeing political opponents or including members of Congress, threats are up over 100 percent in the last year as an existential threat. And the history of political violence shows that if you want people to buy into violence or to commit violence, you have to get them to feel they're in mortal danger, and so we have great replacement theory that's espoused by many GOP lawmakers as well as Tucker Carlson hundreds of times on his show, says that whites are being extinguished.

We have all the discourses about the lawless Democrats who are going to bring crime and anarchy. So it's getting people into a state where they feel it's not just polarization, us versus them, it's us or them, and only one of us is going to survive. And so from that you get this mentality that leads people to think that they have to be OK with violence because there's no other way.

ACOSTA: And President Biden, Ruth, I thought -- I'm sure you saw this and thought it was interesting. He weighed in on this radical streak at the heart of the Trump movement right now, and he said it's like semi-fascism. Those are the words he used. Democrats can call this stuff out all they want and try to -- I guess try to bring down the temperature, but a whole segment of the population won't hear it. What do you think? Do you agree with Biden's assessment that part of the MAGA movement, much of the MAGA movement is semi-fascist?

BEN-GHIAT: I actually think that's the perfect term because it takes a lot from the leader cult, even though the leader's no longer in office, to the loyalty quotients to the party line, the GOP has a party line, and that's the big lie, right? It's acting like a fascist party and more broadly an authoritarian party. The semi part is interesting because today you don't shut down elections. You hold elections and then you fix them, right?

So that you -- you know, you have the appearance of democracy like Orban in Hungary, calls it illiberal democracy. So that's the part that's the semi-fascist. But yes, the tactics that they're using are straight out of the playbook that started with Mussolini.

ACOSTA: And I want to highlight this editorial from "The New York Times" about a potential Trump prosecution. The paper's editorial board argues, quote, "No matter how careful Mr. Garland is or how measured the prosecution might be, there is a real and significant risk from those who believe that any criticism of Mr. Trump justifies an extreme response. Yet it is a far greater risk to do nothing when action is called for. Aside from letting Mr. Trump escape punishment, doing nothing to hold him accountable for his actions in the months leading up to January 6th could set an irresistible precedent for future presidents."

What do you think, Ruth? Could the -- should the threat of civil unrest be a factor that Merrick Garland considers in all of this?

BEN-GHIAT: I think that the history of authoritarianism and individuals like Trump shows that, you know, getting away with it is the essence of illiberal rule, and if you don't stand up for rule of law and accountability it only emboldens people further. We've already seen that January 6th has radicalized the GOP further, and if you look at the history of authoritarian parties, you know, who's going out of the party?

It's people like Liz Cheney who stood up with rule of law. Who is coming in? It's lawless people, who will pose with assault rifles, talk about violence and even members of Oath Keeper groups are now making a career in the Republican Party. So the only way to stop this, you know, drift toward violence is to hold Trump accountable as the person who incited violence on January 6th.

ACOSTA: And if Trump is ultimately prosecuted for the classified documents investigation, I mean, this has been on my mind. That would not address his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. It's been compared to nabbing Al Capone on taxes. Do you think that would leave the door open for more election schemes from losing candidates, or do you think it would be better off for the country to see perhaps concurrent investigations, concurrent charges, perhaps a set for the classified documents, another set for January 6th and so on?

[16:15:04]

BEN-GHIAT: Yes, I think, you know, as many prosecutions as are needed to address the crimes are important. One of the problems is that the practice of election fraud has been institutionalized in the party. And if you want to get ahead in the Republican Party today, you have to espouse this party line of election denial but also refuse to concede, right? So all over the nation there are people who are refusing to concede. Some of them are already lawless individuals like Tina Peters in Colorado who's already indicted for election tampering and now she's refusing to concede.

This is exactly the type of person who's populating our political system now, so we've got to have as many prosecutions in as many areas of criminality in order to stand up for accountability and the rule of law in our country.

ACOSTA: All right, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, always great to talk to you. Always great to hear your expertise. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it.

And coming up, almost 9,000 migrants have been bussed from Texas to Washington, D.C. and New York. That's despite complaints from the Biden administration and Democratic mayors of those cities.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:23]

ACOSTA: Nearly 9,000 migrants have now been shuttled from Texas to several major northeast cities. And the busloads of migrants are still coming. Another one arriving in New York City just this morning. Despite complaints from Democratic mayors in New York and Washington, D.C., as well as the Biden administration, the Republican governor of the Lone Star State doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.

CNN's Polo Sandoval is following this story for us from New York. These buses just keep on coming, Polo.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They do, Jim, and these migrants continue coming to New York. Some of them are coming on their own, and there are many, many others that are taking up the offers that are being presented by the states of Arizona and Texas to come to the northeast, be it Washington, D.C., or here in New York City where we are finding that for many of these families, the hardships, they're far from over when they get here.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL (voice-over): To get merely an idea of what many of the people stepping off these border buses in New York City have experienced, just look at the images they're willing to share.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): We're resting here in order to continue our journey.

SANDOVAL: This video taken by Chrisman Urbaez and his partner Annabelle Gonzales earlier this summer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): It's May 17, 2022.

SANDOVAL: The young Venezuelan couple kept a video diary during their two-month, 10-country journey from Lima, Peru to New York City. They carried only a few belongings on their backs and occasionally their 6- and 9-year-olds as they track through the infamous Darien Gap linking South and Central America.

It's a place where the northerly path for many migrants often ends in tragedy, but not for this family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): We made it. We made it alive. We made it, thank God.

SANDOVAL: During the rest of their journey north, they swaddled their dog Max, still a pup at the time, like a baby to sneak him onto buses and into hotels fearing that they would be separated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): There goes Sebastian and Criszanyelis.

SANDOVAL: But the actual blood, sweat, and tears were all worth it for this moment as they recount, the day they waited across the Rio Grande.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through text translation): Go!

SANDOVAL: And on to U.S. soil for the first time officially requesting asylum. After a brief stop in Texas, it was on to a bus and the three- day drive to New York City where they wait for their asylum cases to be heard.

(On-camera): What was your first impression of New York?

(Voice-over): Annabelle tells me reality set in once they reach the urban jungle that is their new home, that as much as they want to start earning a living, they can't. You see, they're among the thousands of recently arrived migrants who have to petition for a work permit after submitting asylum applications. It's a process that is taking up to a year according to New York City leaders.

Chrisman says he hopes the government can help him be a better provider for his family. But more than anything else, he's pleading for the federal government to free his hands of the red tape that's keeping him from working legally.

MANUEL CASTRO, COMMISSIONER, NYC MAYOR'S OFFICE OF IMMIGRANT AFFAIRS: Most of the families that I've spoken to, they want to get to work. They don't want to stay in shelters. They want to contribute to society.

SANDOVAL: Immigration Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, an immigrant himself, echoing calls for a fast-track solution.

CASTRO: Immigration advocates across the country are calling on the federal government to make it easier and make it quicker for asylum seekers to obtain their work permits. That's by far the biggest obstacle.

SANDOVAL: The Urbaez family says they won't risk their asylum cases by working off the books. They'll have to depend on the city's already strained shelter system until they can get the government's green light to start living their American dream.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANDOVAL: And yesterday in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul said that she does have interest in helping these families, basically expedite the process of getting their hands on those work permits. However, she's calling on the federal government to potentially issue some sort of executive action coming from President Joe Biden so that she is able to do that, Jim.

You hear from New York City officials, they say that they are getting calls from business owners here in New York City that they are serious about offering employment opportunities for many of these families, and they know that the sooner they can begin to make a living and provide for themselves, then the sooner they will no longer have to rely on the shelter system that's already basically pushed to the brink -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Polo Sandoval, we know you will stay on top of it. Thank you very much.

Coming up, a massive announcement but with few details on rollout. What the White House is now saying about how Americans can apply for student debt forgiveness and when it will disappear from their loan.

[16:25:07]

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: An influential research group now says President Biden's student loan debt relief will help mainly working and middle-class borrowers. That's according to a new Penn Wharton Budget Model analysis. It earlier said that more higher income borrowers would benefit. We're learning more about how the plan will work and how much it will cost.

CNN's Arlette Saenz joins me now.

[16:30:00]

Arlette, the White House has been I guess trying to work on getting some of these exact details. What's the latest? Are we getting some of those details?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, the White House has tried to provide some answers when it comes to how much this plan exactly would cost.

With the White House projecting it's going to cost about $240 billion over 10 years. That estimate is based on their expectation that 75 percent of eligible borrowers would be participating in this.

That's a figure that they've seen that's similar to other loan forgiveness programs.

But there are some experts out there who say the price tag is going to be much higher. That Penn Wharton analysis projected that it could be $605 billion over 10 years and possibly over $1 trillion over the next decade.

The White House has pushed back on that saying that it's simply speculative, and that's on the higher end of things. Noting that there's been some reforms to parts of the program.

And also that analysis is taking into account that all 100 percent of eligible borrowers would participate.

Now, President Biden has said that he believes if simply 10 percent of eligible borrowers participate, that he would consider that a success.

And he's continuing to push back on those economic criticisms of his proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not going to cause inflation, number one.

Number two, it would generate economic growth, the opposite, because you got people who are, in fact, now going to be freed up to be able to go borrow money to buy a home, to be able to start businesses, and do the things that need to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: And the criticism has come from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats.

There's one top economist under the Obama administration, Jason Furman, who compared this to pouring roughly half a trillion dollars of gasoline on the inflationary fire.

Now, another big question for Americans who might be eligible for this program is when exactly they can start to see relief.

The White House says that they will start rolling out an application process that will be in place by early October. And then that once these borrowers start applying, they will start to see that relief in four to six weeks.

They are encouraging people to apply by November 15th in order to see relief before that pause on student loan payments is set to end at the end of the year -- Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, Arlette Saenz, thank you very much.

Two people have pleaded guilty in federal court to stealing and selling items belonging to President Biden's daughter Ashley. Among these stolen items the pair for thousands of dollars, Ashley Biden's own personal journal.

CNN Athena Jones has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ASHLEY BIDEN, DAUGHTER OF JOE BIDEN: I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and had a fairly normal childhood.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ashley Biden's tax records, cell phone, and a handwritten journal containing highly personal entries among the items two Florida residents admitted to stealing and selling to conservative activist group, Project Veritas.

Pleading guilty in federal court in New York to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you, Pennsylvania, very much. I'm thrilled to be here.

(CHEERING)

JONES: The latest revelation in a sordid tale that stretches back to the final weeks of the 2020 election.

In June 2020, court documents say Aimee Harris was a guest in the same room of a private residence in Delray Beach, Florida, where Biden's daughter had been staying with a friend.

Ashley Biden had departed a few days earlier but was temporarily storing her journal and other items, including a digital camera and a digital storage card containing private family photographs, at her friend's house, court documents say.

Harris stole Biden's property and later enlisted Robert Kurlander to help her sell it to the highest bidder.

First, they targeted the Trump campaign, attending a fundraiser to try to drum up interest. According to the filing, the Trump campaign rebuffed the pair.

Kurlander texting Harris, "Campaign can't use it. They want it to go to the FBI. It has to be done in a different way."

Kurlander then reached out to Project Veritas, whose founder, James O'Keefe, said in a November 2021 video:

JAMES O'KEEFE, FOUNDER, PROJECT VERITAS: Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming that a copy of Ashley Biden's diary. We had never met or heard of the tipsters.

The tipsters indicated the diary had been abandoned in a room in which Ms. Biden stayed at the time.

SAENZ: After the pair used an encrypted messaging app, as Project Veritas' request, to share photos of Biden's stolen property, the organization paid them to bring the property to New York City in September of 2020.

In New York, a Project Veritas executive agreed to pay Harris $10,000 for the material and asked for more of Biden's personal items to help authenticate the journal, promising to pay the pair for the additional material, the filing alleges.

The pair returned to Florida. Kurlander texting Harris, "I'm expecting that they're going to pay up to $100,000 each, maybe more."

Harris soon retrieved the additional Biden material and a Project Veritas employee flew to Florida to pick it up. The organization paid Harris and Kurlander $20,000 each.

O'Keefe saying the FBI had searched his employees' residences.

[16:35:01]

O'KEEFE: I woke to the news that apartments and homes of Project Veritas journalists or former journalists had been raided by FBI agents."

JONES: Neither the organization, nor any of its employees have been charged in the case.

And in a statement, Project Veritas insisted they did nothing wrong.

Athena Jones, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Injured little league player, Easton Oliverson, is out of surgery. And doctors say they're happy with the outcome.

The 12-year-old boy suffered a skull injury after falling from a bunk bed at the little league world series dorms earlier this month. And later suffered a second fall in the hospital while trying to use the bathroom without having any help.

Since then, Easton has made impressive strides in his recovery. We continue to pull for him. Go Easton. It's no surprise that going through the TSA these days has its

challenges. But for some travelers in North Carolina's Charlotte airport, there was a bit of a surprise.

Clark the bald eagle and his handler went through the security check before a return flight. The two were heading home to the World Bird Sanctuary in Missouri.

TSA says the airline notified them ahead of the pair's arrival so they could screen Clark and his handler before the flight. Clark was returned to his travel carrier after passing through security.

Birds of a feather traveling together there. My goodness. If you saw that in the airport, what would you do? Did he go through the mag? How did this work? I'm not sure. Hopefully, there was no frisking involved there for Clark.

A 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifact turned up at the port of Memphis, not the ancient Egyptian capitol, Memphis, but the one in Tennessee.

Experts determined this happy looking stone sculpture is the lid of a jar that was used to hold a mummy's internal organs, I guess something they used to do back then.

Which begs the question, where is the actual jar? The U.S. customs officers seized the lid for further investigation as it violates a law that restricts the import of certain architectural materials.

It also violates the principle with learned from "Night of the Museum," in Indiana Jones, which is nothing good ever comes from disturbing ancient tombs.

Up next, a "KFILE" investigation uncovering the GOP nominee for Minnesota's top election position, calling changing voting rules are 9/11. What's that all about?

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:26]

ACOSTA: To a CNN exclusive now on what has become a trend in this year's primary season. The number of Republicans who have either questioned, rejected or tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and now nominated to oversee future elections in their state.

You can see right there -- take a look at this -- at least 11 Republican nominees who have disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

CNN's "KFILE" editor, senior editor, Andrew Kaczynski, is joining us now.

Andrew, great to see you. One of these nominees in Minnesota has a history of making controversial comments. What more are you learning?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, "KFILE": Yes, that's right. Kim Crockett is an attorney and political activist in the state.

She does not believe the 2020 election was legitimate. She has called the Democrats cheats. She refers to that election as rigged, and the big rigged.

One of the more outlandish views that she has is that the post office shouldn't be allowed to touch ballots at all, which is millions of ballots every year.

Now, she's also very heavily against attempts from Democrats in the past couple of years to expand voting rights in response to, you know, several of those GOP controlled states, which have cut down on things like early voting, drop boxes, things like that.

As Democrats were attempting to pass these bills in Congress, she actually spoke of this in pretty stark terms, bringing up the September 11th terrorist attacks.

And we actually have a clip of that one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): I really appreciate all you do, Kim, being on the front lines of this and helping organize this and helping people get the information about these things.

KIM CROCKETT, (R), MINNESOTA SECRETARY OF STATE NOMINEE (voice-over): Well, our good friend and American Majority and Alpha News had just done an amazing job pulling it together.

Because, you know, we realized people are discouraged. And this is still an exceptional nation. We are still the American people. And I'm betting on it.

This is a challenge. Maybe we needed a wake-up call. This is our 9/11.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KACZYNSKI: So we reached out to the campaign, asked them about not just that comment from her but several other comments that are featured in our story.

She did defend calling the election rigged, but would not address, despite the fact that, we gave them a very long time to comment on any of the other things that she said.

Just sending us a statement saying, we weren't focused on policy, even though our article is based upon her statements about voting rights, things like that, which is the job of the secretary of state.

And she said CNN was just intent on character assassination. ACOSTA: Which of course, we're not.

But you know, I always wonder, Andrew, when you talk to some of these folks on the right about this and these allegations that the election was rigged, do they have any evidence? Do they have any -- I mean, what justification do they have?

KACZYNSKI: What's interesting about her is that there are some candidates, such as Mark Finchup in Arizona, who believed pretty outlandish conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election.

She's dabbled a little bit in things like that. She's suggested perhaps voter tabulators connected to the Internet changed votes.

[16:45:59]

She really has been against -- as we saw with the COVID pandemic, Democrats' attempted to make it easier to do things by mail because that was safer because of, you know, we didn't have a vaccine at that point.

And she believes that when people were changing these laws to make it easier to vote, that was actually attempts by Democrats to rig the election in their favor.

Even though theoretically these laws affect everybody both Democrat and Republican.

ACOSTA: And Crockett has also made some comments about President Biden?

KACZYNSKI: Crockett, obviously -- yes, she's not a Biden fan, but she actually thinks quite a bit worse of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Even suggesting in this clip here from 2020 that progressives are just going to get rid of Biden when the time is right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): -- after you and drive you out because you are not progressive enough. Joe Biden is not progressive enough for that wing of the party. And that's your rift. That's where you target.

CROCKETT (voice-over): Right, they're just going to put a pillow over his face when they get tired of him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa.

CROCKETT: So when --

(LAUGHTER)

CROCKETT: -- put a pillow over Biden's face. Oh, go quietly, Joe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KACZYNSKI: Wow. So you can see there she really obviously thinks even worse of the progressive wing of the party.

And again, we reached out to her, gave her plenty of time to address these clips. Only heard back about her claims that the election was rigged.

ACOSTA: All right, very disturbing material.

Andrew Kaczynski, always great work. Great to see you again. Thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Up next, a woman in Louisiana says she was denied an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. Her story is next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[16:51:26]

ACOSTA: Two months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a string of new laws that will dramatically reduce access to abortion are kicking in across the country.

An Oklahoma law took effect today imposing higher criminal penalties for those performing illegal abortions. And starting Thursday, so- called trigger bans will effectively outlaw abortion in Texas, Tennessee, and Idaho. Those measures were set to automatically fall into place 30 days after the Supreme Court ruling.

Altogether abortion rights groups estimate that these new laws will deny abortion access to nearly 10 million women in the United States. Pro-choice activists are pushing hard for legal actions that could minimize some aspects of the bans.

Restrictive abortion laws are having an impact on many women. Just 10 weeks into her pregnancy, a Louisiana woman was told there was no way her unborn child could survive due to a rare birth defect.

But she says she was denied getting an abortion doctors said she needs. Instead, she'll have to wait and travel hundreds of miles to get help.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher has her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Nancy Davis found out last month that her unborn child would not survive. At the 10-week ultrasound, doctors diagnosed the fetus with something called Acrania. It is a rare lethal birth defect in which the skull does not form in the womb.

Doctors recommend that she get an abortion but then told her she'd probably have to go out of state because they did not believe they could perform it in Louisiana due to the state's new near total ban on abortion. Acrania was not listed as one of the narrow exceptions to that law.

Now, in the weeks since, Nancy Davis went public. Lawmakers have said Acrania, even though not listed, should fall underneath the medically futile exception.

Doctors say this is where the problem is with the law and many of the other laws around the country since Roe v. Wade was overturned, claiming they are vague and confusing, with criminal penalties attached to them for doctors that perform, quote, "illegal abortions."

Now, Women's Health in Baton Rouge, which said it could not talk about their patient's specific case, claims this is all very complex.

Saying, quote, "We look at each individual patient's circumstances and how to remain in compliance with all current state laws to the best of our ability."

"Even if a specific diagnosis falls under medically futile exceptions provided by the Louisiana Department of Health, the laws addressing treatment methods are much more complex and seemingly contradictory."

And that is what Nancy Davis's attorney, Ben Crump, said on the steps of the Louisiana state House, that the law is, quote, "as clear as mud," and has caused his client to go through excruciating pain over the past six weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY DAVIS, DENIED ABORTION FOR NON-VIABLE FETUS: Basically, they said I had to carry my baby to bury my baby. They seemed confused about the law and afraid of what would happen to them if they performed a criminal abortion according to the law.

Now I am preparing to go out of state for this procedure next week. I want you to imagine what it's been like to continue this pregnancy for another six weeks after this diagnosis.

This is not fair to me. And it should not happen to any other woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: And that last bit there is why she and her attorney stood on the steps of the Louisiana state capitol calling for lawmakers to come back for a special legislative session to clarify and amend that near total ban on abortion so other people don't have to go through what she is going through right now.

[16:55:06]

Now, as for her situation, she has said she will travel in the coming week out of state for the procedure.

She will likely, according to her GoFundMe, come right here to North Carolina, one of the only states in the region where, at 16 weeks pregnant, she can still legally have that procedure done.

Dianne Gallagher, CNN, Charlotte, North Carolina.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Coming up, is Ukraine on the brink of another nuclear disaster? Fears rising there this week after the largest nuclear power plant in Europe was cut off from the grid. A Chernobyl first responder joins us to break down exactly what risks we're dealing with.

We're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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