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Second Woman Claims Herschel Walker Paid For Her Abortion; No Update On Shooting From TX Public Safety Official; Prosecutors, Trump Lawyers Wrap Up Secret Hearing At Federal Courthouse Over Seized Mar- A-Lago Docs. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired October 27, 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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[15:01:16]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM, so good to have you, I'm Victor Blackwell.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN HOST: And I'm Bianna Golodryga.

Well, less than two weeks until Election Day and new twists may shake up some key races in Georgia where the tied U.S. Senate race could determine which party will have a future control. Republican candidate Herschel Walker is facing a second allegation that he paid for an ex- girlfriend's abortion. Walker is calling this a lie.

The unnamed woman says she is an independent who voted for Donald Trump and was Walker's mistress in the early 90s.

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JANE DOE: He has publicly taken the position that he is "about life," and against abortion under any circumstances, when in fact, he pressured me to have an abortion and personally ensure that it occurred by driving me to the clinic and paying for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And in Arizona, Phoenix Police say they've made an arrest at a Democratic candidates headquarters specifically here we're talking about the campaign offensive Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor. Hobbs' campaign blames rhetoric and dangerous misinformation for that burglary, but a Republican rival, Kari Lake, mocked the Hobbs' camp for tying the crime to the election calling it Jussie Smollett part two, which refers to the act are convicted of lying to police.

GOLODRYGA: We are also watching President Biden this afternoon. He is expected to speak this hour from Syracuse about the economy and the election.

BLACKWELL: Joining us now CNN Political Analyst Margaret Talev and CNN Political Director David Chalian. Good to have both of you with us. This Herschel Walker news, and I'll start with you, Margaret, he's now making jokes about it. He says that, well, I didn't kill JFK either. It doesn't seem like it from Eva McKend that the voters in Georgia, the Republican voters are making any moves based on this. And the Republican, I guess, establishment isn't making any moves because it comes down to an equation and they need Georgia.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Victor, I think that's right and I think the calculation in terms of the GOP is that this is sort of baked in now and it's not like what - strategically what's their next option. But having a second accuser come forward with a lot of the same details, the signing of the note with an H and a lot of the same patterns, it certainly makes the first accuser more credible.

I think we're at a stage now, a week and a half out from the election, where some of the polling and interviews just suggest that Herschel Walker's character are forthcoming in this on his past relationships with women or his past stances on abortion is not really the pivot point around a lot - what a lot of these voters are going to base their decisions on.

I think it's too soon to know whether it's going to have any nuanced impact, but because it's GA and because you're looking at the potential for a runoff that creates sort of a barrier to - it creates the possibility that we just want to know the answer to this election on Election Day or even the day after it, so we'll see what happens.

These - in a normal year, in a normal race would be, they would have been shocking allegations the first time around and a second accuser would have been additionally shocking. There are just different circumstances surrounding this race at this moment.

GOLODRYGA: So in a normal year, a normal race, Georgia would probably be tight, Pennsylvania would be tight. But David, did you ever think that the gubernatorial race from the state of New York would be tight? And not only that race, but with the race for Sean Patrick Maloney's seat as well.

[15:05:02]

Now you have President Biden campaigning with Gov. Hochul and you have the first lady who's going to be campaigning there for Maloney in trying to weigh in and help his campaign. What happened there? Is it mostly related to crime?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, that is certainly a big issue in the New York race and a big issue, quite frankly, around the country, Bianna. Listen, what I'm hearing from Democrats is a rising level of concern with each passing day now that there is this potential red wave building and that this midterm election season may perform to form like we have seen in previous midterm cycles with a first term president, which is that everything at the end potentially just collapses in the direction away from the president's party and there's real concern among Democrats that that may be happening here.

Well, you noted about where the President is going today, to New York. I mean, here is - we're 12 days away from Election Day. We know President Biden's approval ratings are upside down. He is more unpopular than he is popular broadly across the country. So where can he go?

Well, he can go to a district like this one up in Syracuse that he bested Trumpian by like 78 percentage points, so high single digit margin of victory and yet there he is, perhaps, to try and - it's a Republican old seat right now, there's a retirement there and with redistricting, perhaps a seat the Democrats eyes - Democrats eye as a potential pickup of a Republican seat.

And as you noted, that gubernatorial race between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin is uncomfortably close for Democrats in deep blue New York. But that is where the President can sort of go and show up at this moment, because in a lot of the true toss up races, he's just not being welcomed there right now.

BLACKWELL: David, let me stay with you and talk about the rallies announced by the former President Donald Trump. He's got four rallies: Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, put an asterisk behind Florida because he's not campaigning for both of the top Republicans there. Some of these are really tight races, candidates who have been trying to moderate their positions or messages since the primary, does he help in Oz in Pennsylvania? Does he help Vance advance in Ohio with its so close in their attempts to kind of play to those independents?

CHALIAN: Yes, the Trump team, as you can see from the map you just showed, they target where to send him very, very carefully and deliberately, to places where the landing of Trump's plane, and he can hold a rally there that could juice Republican turnout. So he goes to a Republican area or where there are a big base of Trump-aligned voters and he can turn up their participation in the election.

We saw them do this when he was president and it is what helped the Republicans have sort of a surprise victory in some House races in the 2020 cycle and that's sort of how they're deploying him now. I do like that you caught that Florida detail, Victor, that he's on that one just go in there for Marco Rubio, but Ron DeSantis doesn't seem to have been invited there as they continue this sort of shadowboxing pre-2024.

GOLODRYGA: Quite a difference in that relationship from where it was four years ago where you had the former president endorse him. Things have changed on that front.

Margaret, how are things looking in Pennsylvania for Democrats? How are they feeling after that debate for Fetterman? Because it really was his election to lose up until Tuesday night.

TALEV: Well, they're feeling very, very anxious and the trajectory before the debate was closing in. Fetterman had a significant lead in earlier polling when Oz was still strongly identified around Trump and as the general election season has progressed, that lead was narrowing to within really the margin of error depending on whose research you're looking at. The debate was a gamble and most of the Democratic strategist that we have talked to have concluded that in the best case scenario, it probably did not help him with people who were trying to make up their mind based on their perceptions of his health or his - the trajectory of his recovery.

I will say that Pennsylvania has been one of the states where we've seen a significant amount of early voting and that the early voting numbers as of the night of that debate, something like three quarters of those who had early voted, were Democrats. So a lot of - there has been a good number of people who already had cast their ballot, perhaps already had made up their mind.

The reality is, we don't know. We've heard anecdotally from some Democrats who say that they felt more sympathetic to Fetterman afterwards because it was brave of them to take the stage.

[15:10:03]

But for many who were saying, I really liked the guy, but I want to see how he's doing, he's halting this, his sort of trouble on the fly may have hurt him, we just don't know. We will see. But Democratic strategists are concerned.

GOLODRYGA: And I believe that some 600,000 Pennsylvanians have already cast their vote in that Commonwealth. Margaret Talev and David Chalian, thank you.

CHALIAN: Thanks.

GOLODRYGA: Well, the New York Police Department is advising elevated vigilance ahead of the city's midterm elections. A bulletin from the NYPD warned of a complex domestic threat environment but said there are currently no credible threats known.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Brynn Gingras joins us now, so what do you know?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, guys. So this is an internal memo that went out within the Intelligence Bureau of the NYPD. These memos sort of get disseminated a lot of times, specifically, if we're coming up to a big parade, so to speak, but it's very notable that it's coming out right before this midterm election, specifically, because Bolton says that we're in a complex domestic threat environment. And it brings in real world examples of things that they're keeping their eye on ahead of these midterms, not just here in New York, but really across this country.

One thing they bring up is the tailgating that we're seeing that Kyung Lah has reported on so well in other states. They've also brought in intelligence they're seeing online and encrypted apps and chat rooms about threats to poll workers. Again, it is important to note there is no immediate threat that they're seeing against a poll worker or a polling site or any candidates.

However, this again is just so notable because it is warning everyone to be alert when those midterm elections come up. I want to read one part of what this memo says. It says given the elevated domestic violent extremism threat landscape throughout the United States, uniform members of service are advised to maintain heightened situational awareness when deployed citywide in support of the upcoming midterm elections.

So again, this just speaks again and it says it in this memo of the environment that we are in right now created by January 6, of course, with the election deniers that we've been talking about for years. So again, they're just getting ready for what's to come in just less than two weeks.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, we're seeing it all over the country really, these heightened threats. And staying in New York, separate story, but we're getting reports now of a hijacked bus city - New York City bus that subsequently crashed.

GINGRAS: I mean, crazy and terrifying incident that happened this morning in a morning commute. Basically what happened we've learned from officials that a 44 year old man jumped in front of a city bus as it was moving was able to board that bus with what officials say appeared to be a gun. Luckily this bus driver had - is a veteran, had years of experience, kept the doors open. So about 20 to 25 people who were on board that bus were able to get off but then that suspect allegedly told the driver keep driving, go, someone is chasing me, threatening the driver.

The driver was able to get about 30 to 35 with this guy before jumping out the window next to the steering wheel of the bus and then the suspect apparently took over the wheel and then ended up subsequently crashing. No one got injured, no one on board, the bus driver, the suspect but still just a crazy story that happened in the city today.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it's remarkable no one was injured.

GOLODRYGA: And it's incredible.

BLACKWELL: Yes. All right. Brynn Gingras, thanks for the reporting.

GOLODRYGA: Well, in Texas today, emotions and outrage from families of the Uvalde School massacre. They attended a Texas Public Safety Commission meeting expecting an update on the police response from top law enforcement official, Colonel Steve McCraw, during his first formal testimony since June, but he made no mention of it at all.

BLACKWELL: CNN's Shimon Prokupecz was there today. Shimon, tell us what happened during this event today.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Victor, certainly they were expecting this briefing, they thought that they would get new information. The officials at the DPS indicated to family members that there would be some kind of high level briefing that they would get information, new information, families traveled here to get that information and quite simply, it didn't happen.

It was an important moment for family members because they got to vent their frustration, their unhappiness, their grief, their pain of just continually being denied this information. It's sort of cruel. They make them come here, sit through this, explain themselves and then they get no information.

The other thing really - the big thing here was that the family members have called on the director to resign, Steve McCraw, the Director of the Department of Public Safety to have resign and really was just kind of one of these moments here where he was trying to explain it himself. And he then tells the family as well there was no failure on the part of the DPS as an institution. Take a listen to how he described that.

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COL. STEVEN MCCRAW, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY: You're right, one of our core values is accountability, accept responsibility, plain and simple. And I did make that statement this evening and I can tell you this, if DPS as an institution failed the families, failed the school or failed the community of Uvalde, then absolutely I need to go.

[15:15:00]

I can tell you this right now, DPS as an institution, okay, right now is - did not failed the community, plain and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: It's just - after all these months, five months that we keep talking about the police failures here for him to come out and say that certainly did not sit right with the family members. They're upset over it. They feel, of course, there were failures. Everyone feels there were failures. It's very obvious and documented.

His response there that was really interesting because it comes on the heels of when we questioned him back in October last month. We found him. We went and we asked some questions about the response and whether or not people were going to be fired and he said to us, well, if anyone is found culpable at the DPS then I would resign. Well, where are we today, we have a firing of a sergeant at the DPS, other DPS officials who are under investigation. And yet now it's like McCraw is trying to play cute here and say, well, we didn't fail as an institution, individuals failed, so therefore I'm not resigning.

BLACKWELL: Understandably frustrating for these families that have been waiting months for some answers. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you.

GOLODRYGA: With me now is Adam Martinez. He is a parent of a student who was at Rob elementary school the day of the shooting. Thank you, Adam, so much for joining us. I want to get your reaction to the day as a whole. But first, your response to Col. McCraw saying that the DPS as an institution has not failed.

ADAM MARTINEZ, UVALDE PARENT: Yes, I think he's changing his statement. Unfortunately for him, we have him on camera. So when he said if they had culpability, last time I checked culpable means having fault. And like Shimon mentioned, they fired already a couple of people, so that means that they were culpable, so it's plain and simple.

But we're trying to put the puzzle together and he's holding some of those pieces. And when he does give us those pieces, they're inaccurate, they don't fit. So we need transparency and he could easily just release that body cam footage and let us decide what actually happened?

GOLODRYGA: What's your reaction to the fact that no real update was released today? I know one had been expected and many in your community had been hoping to hear some more details.

MARTINEZ: Once again, I said it's not really surprising. I think from the beginning, they wanted to withhold information. That's why they said that they were - they did a good job. They ran to the subject. When they started releasing this footage, that's where that it turned into a problem for him.

GOLODRYGA: Do you think Col. McCraw should step down? Do you feel safe living in that state with him as head of the DPS?

MARTINEZ: Absolutely, he should step down. And you know what, we didn't tell him, he said it himself. If he said something, he needs to be a man of his word. You look at DPS and you think integrity and he's saying this, and then he decides to walk his words back. So I mean, like I said, he said it himself and now he has to stick with his word.

GOLODRYGA: I know you opted to enroll your children in virtual learning for this semester, how are they doing? How much - how aware are they of all of this?

MARTINEZ: We talked to them daily about it, but they're doing well. The schools aren't that safe right now, so we feel better they're safer at home. They're happy. We're probably going to go back after Christmas, if everything goes well, but there's still a lot of issues so we're trying to take it day by day.

GOLODRYGA: There's still a lot of issues. I know you're trying to do your best to protect your children and give them a sense of normalcy. I hope they have a happy and fun Halloween. Adam, thank you.

MARTINEZ: (Inaudible) ...

GOLODRYGA: Adam Martinez, thank you for joining us.

MARTINEZ: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Lawyers for former President Donald Trump were in federal court this morning for a sealed hearing about the Mar-A-Lago document's investigation. We've got details on that.

GOLODRYGA: And at any moment President Biden expected to deliver sharp criticism of Republicans blaming them for rising costs. We'll have much more on this final pitch to voters, that's coming up.

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BLACKWELL: We're expecting in just minutes President Biden will make a speech about the economy and make his closing pitch to voters as Election Day nears. He's expected to highlight the success of his economic agenda while calling out Republicans for not doing enough to lower costs.

GOLODRYGA: CNN White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond is with the President. So Jeremy, what more can we expect to hear? I know he's likely to tout the CHIPS Act.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, officially, Bianna, President Biden is here to tout those a hundred billion dollars in investments in semiconductor manufacturing by that company, micron, right here in Syracuse. But what we're told is that President Biden is actually going to spend a lot of this speech sharpening this contrast message that he's been - begun to lay out over the last couple of weeks with Republicans.

We are, after all, 12 days away from those midterm elections and every speech at this point, whether it's a rally or an official events, is in effect, a political speech by the President's and that's what we're going to hear from him doubling down on this message, to set up this contrast not just to talk about what he has done, what he has accomplished, but to warn voters about what Republicans would do should they win back a majority in Congress.

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The President is going to talk about the fact that Republicans want to repeal key cost cutting provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, including prescription drug provisions, as well as some other aspects of that law as well. The president, we know, is facing these lower approval ratings and he would like to at this point, that's why we haven't seen him on the trail with a lot of Democrats, but he's going to be using this event to set up that contrast.

He's also going to be playing a very delicate balancing act. He's coming here on the heels of some very positive economic news in terms of those GDP growth numbers rebounding this morning. But at the same time, he wants to make clear to voters who have shown that their top priority right now, as they go to the ballot box is inflation and the economy, that he understands their pain, he understands their concerns and so to talk about the progress that has been made, but talking also about the work that still remains to be done.

BLACKWELL: All right. We will head back to Syracuse as soon as we hear from the President. Jeremy Diamond, thank you.

Lawyers representing Donald Trump left the federal courthouse in Washington a short time ago after private hearing in the investigation into documents found and recovered by the FBI at Mar-A-Lago.

GOLODRYGA: CNN's Katelyn Polantz joins us now. So Caitlin, this Trump legal team usually appears in court in Florida or New York, what can we read into this D.C. appearance? KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Victor and Bianna, what we know now is that there is some sort of new dispute before a federal judge, the chief judge of the D.C. District court that's happening in this Mar-A-Lago documents investigation. So our team at the courthouse today did see the whole crew of lawyers who are representing Donald Trump in that particular investigation, entering and leaving the courthouse that was Jim Trusty, Evan Corcoran and Lindsey Halligan. And there were also national security prosecutors working on that exact case here as well.

They went into the courtroom of the Chief Judge. They were in there for about two hours and then they left. They didn't say anything. No one would give us any comment about the reason why we're here. We still don't know if there was any sort of resolution today or how it would affect this investigation.

But what we do know if we step back is that what this means is it's a sign that prosecutors are working to move forward in this investigation into the documents found at Mar a Lago into a potential obstruction of justice, into the potential mishandling of national security materials and there is a situation that is involving the federal court now that the judge is going to have to decide related to that.

We also know in the background that the Justice Department has been demanding that the Trump team returned any other documents with potential secrets that they might have in their possession. We don't know if that's part of this today and we also know that there's been a lot of Grand Jury activity in recent weeks around this case as well.

There has been no one charged, but we're going to have to wait and see exactly how - what happened today may or may not play into the long- term of this investigation and whether there are any charges ultimately, Victor and Bianna?

GOLODRYGA: All right. Katelyn Polantz will be following this for us, thank you.

The man who attacked former D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the January 6th insurrection was sentenced to more than seven years in prison today. Albuquerque had - is his name.

BLACKWELL: Video shows the man pulling Fanone away from other officers inside this tunnel. And according to court documents, the man then wrapped his arms around Fanone's neck and beat the officer unconscious. And it can be heard of Fanone's body cameras. The footage there yelling, "I got one," as he grabbed him, assaulted the officer. Before handing down the sentence, the judge, Amy Berman Jackson said that these were some of the darkest acts on one of our darkest days. He was your prey. He was your trophy.

GOLODRYGA: This time later it's still so hard to watch that footage.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Today, Vladimir Putin said the world faces the most dangerous decades since World War II and he's accusing the West of playing a "dangerous, bloody and dirty game." We'll have more on that up next.

BLACKWELL: And Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure are being felt around the country. Kyiv has now implemented severe outages to try to avoid a complete blackout.

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