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Interview With Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC); 911 Calls From Trump Assassination Attempt Released; Michael Flynn Turning Conspiracies Into Cash. Aired 11:30a-12p ET
Aired October 24, 2024 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:01]
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Listen to what Flynn had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you seen any evidence that you would consider credible, Mr. Flynn, that Eric Coomer played a role in rigging the 2020 election, yes or no?
LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN (RET.), FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I have not, no.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe that Eric Coomer rigged the 2020 presidential election?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection to foundation.
FLYNN: Yes, I mean, no idea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you seen any evidence that makes you suspect that he rigged the 2020 presidential action?
FLYNN: No idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: CNN's Zach Cohen part of the great reporting team on this story, he joins us now.
Zach, it's remarkable footage. What more are you learning?
ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jim, this is really the first time Michael Flynn has said on the record that he has no evidence to back up what was a key part of some of the election of fraud claims that he and other Trump allies were trying to use the pretext to overturn the 2020 election.
You might remember those draft executive orders that called for the military to seize voting machines. Those documents, which Flynn had a role in helping put together, specifically name-checked Eric Coomer, the Dominion executive who Flynn's being asked about in this deposition. Now, look, this hasn't stopped Michael Flynn from continuing to claim that 2020 election was rigged over the last three-plus years. And, in fact, just one month after this deposition was taped, Michael Flynn went and did an interview. And he once again broadly claimed that the 2020 election was full of fraud and warned that 2024 would be the same.
Take a listen to what he told Chris Cuomo just one month after his deposition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FLYNN: I think that the 2020 November election was filled with fraud and there's all kinds of evidence that shows that, Chris. I mean, it's undeniable now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: So, we heard something similar from Flynn prior to this deposition video being brought up in court and obtained by CNN.
Look, Flynn has not proved to show any evidence to support any of his broader fraud claims. But, again, he's been one of those vocal amplifiers of these baseless claims that the 2020 and now the 2024 election will be ridden.
And he's also used that to sort of to raise money, and lots of it, over the last four years. He's gone on a nationwide speaking tour, where he's been paid fees to espouse similar on theories about the 2020 election. Election denialism is really the core of what's turned into a cottage industry, and Flynn has been the forefront of that.
ACOSTA: Yes, it's been a real dog and pony show for him. There's no question about it.
And, Zach, there's a chance -- is there a chance that Trump would include Flynn in his administration if he gets put back into office?
COHEN: Yes, Jim, when I talk to you both foreign diplomats, including of allies, and as well as other people in Washington, D.C., and in the political realm, that is one of the biggest questions that they ask. They ask, who will be in a Trump Cabinet or in a Trump administration?
And the next question is, will Michael Flynn be a part of that? Trump aides have tried to distance the former president from Michael Flynn whenever I have asked directly about that question. But, listen, Donald Trump has said as much from the rally stage during the campaign cycle. So take a listen to one time when he did call out Michael Flynn by name during a rally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: General Flynn, he's some general. He's some man. He took abuse like nobody could have handled and he came out bigger, better, stronger than ever before. We love him. He's a leader. General, you just have to stay healthy, because we're bringing you back. We're going to bring you back.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: So either way, it's interesting because it seems Flynn has remained in Trump's good graces because of his persistent and consistent claims about the 2020 election.
It's also interesting because, given the current conversation about what General John Kelly has said about Donald Trump, comparing that to Trump's affection, apparent affection, toward Michael Flynn is just an interesting side-by-side there, especially as there's more questions about who could be in a Trump Cabinet or who would have influence during a second Trump administration.
ACOSTA: All right, yes, election denialism is definitely a requirement to work for Donald Trump these days.
Zach Cohen, thank you very much. We appreciate it.
This just into CNN. CNN has obtained some of the 911 calls from the assassination attempt on former President Trump. We will bring you some of that audio next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:38:28]
ACOSTA: This morning, "The Washington Post" is revealing a pervasive and disturbing trend in the 2024 election.
A new "Washington Post" analysis shows more than 230 Republican candidates have questioned the integrity of the upcoming election. That's nearly half of Republican candidates for Congress or state top offices.
Here are some examples. Kari Lake, the Republican nominee in Arizona's Senate race, asked on TRUTH Social: "How many more elections will we allow them to rig before we say enough?"
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene stated bluntly on Facebook: "Democrats have already cheated in the 2024 election."
Clara Morse is a political data reporter at "The Washington Post."
Clara, thank you very much for joining us.
You not only highlight how many Republicans are spreading falsehoods, but who is the most prolific. Here's your top three. Not surprisingly, Kari Lake has more than 250 posts on election interference. Greene has more than 150, same as New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.
What do you make of the numbers that you were able to dig up, Clara?
CLARA ENCE MORSE, POLITICAL DATA REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": We were able to find that almost half of these Republican candidates have already called into doubt the outcome of the 2024 election before it's even happened.
And they're doing this in a bunch of ways. Some raise the idea of widespread noncitizen voting. Some talk about Trump's legal struggles as a form of election interference. Some talk about Kamala Harris' nomination as a coup or a stolen nomination.
[11:40:00]
But this sort of widespread rhetoric could lay the groundwork for some Republicans to challenge election results come November.
ACOSTA: And a lot of the rhetoric echoes Trump and his falsehoods. Is this an orchestrated campaign? Are a lot of Republicans just parroting the party's leader because that's what he wants to hear? Is it both? What are you picking up on?
MORSE: Some of it is definitely directly echoing or even in some cases directly retweeting or reposting Trump's own rhetoric. Some comes from organic or more organic ideas at a county level or a state level about particular, say, mail-in ballot fraud alleged in particular locations.
But it's certainly all a part of a broader trend towards Republicans, the Republican Party as a whole already casting doubt on this 2024 election before voting has even concluded.
ACOSTA: And, not surprisingly, there's a partisan divide. More Republicans than Democrats now doubt election integrity. And I guess folks at home might listen to that and say, oh, you guys are just going after the Republicans.
But are you finding that there are Democrats who are claiming election fraud and that sort of thing, these baseless claims? What are you -- are you finding any of that?
MORSE: So for this analysis, we just examined Republican candidates for Congress and these statewide offices. Certainly, there have been instances of Democrats doubting the integrity of certain elections.
But what we found was that, at scale, right, almost half of these Republican candidates are already casting doubt on the 2024 election. And this is certainly something that the Republican Party has invested a lot of time, money, effort into, is preparing for potential legal challenges to the outcome on Election Day.
ACOSTA: All right, Clara Ence Morse of "The Washington Post," thank you so much to you and your team for doing that analysis. We really appreciate it.
Just into CNN, officials in Butler County, Pennsylvania, just released recordings of 911 calls from the Trump assassination attempt in July. Here is one of them. Take a listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) CALLER: Get me a paramedic.
911 OPERATOR: Where at?
CALLER: OK. Well, we were OK. I think we're going to get a paramedic now.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
CALLER: Somebody passed out. There's been a shooting.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Where is the person that needs an ambulance at?
CALLER: Right here, right in the green section, in the green section. They will know where to go. You just tell them the green section.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
(CROSSTALK)
CALLER: They're trying to evacuate us. Pardon?
911 OPERATOR: This female just passed out?
CALLER: Yes. They just tried to kill President Trump. You might want to make a note of that. Thank you.
911 OPERATOR: OK. Yes, well, we're already aware of it, so just flag down the paramedics whenever you see them.
CALLER: We're in the green section waiting. We already found a -- we found a state trooper.
(CROSSTALK)
911 OPERATOR: Yes, we're getting the paramedics over there.
CALLER: OK, we found a state trooper. They're evacuating us.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
ACOSTA: And CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller joins us now.
John, I mean, obviously very startling to listen to that call there. What are we learning from these calls?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what we're not learning is new information. The story has been very well told, but what we are seeing for the first time or hearing really is a visceral sense of the panic and fear.
You hear the callers, but you hear the screaming and yelling in the background and the challenge faced by the 911 operators, who were being deluged with these calls. Butler County isn't the kind of place where they're going to have an army of call-takers, like a major city. So you can tell that the operators in these 13 calls we have reviewed
zero in on, are you with a person who was injured? Is anyone around you shot? Where are you located? And then they all basically tell the callers, we're aware of it. The police are taking care of it, because they need to move on to that next call.
Unlike so many of those operators where we have heard these calls where they start to ask a long list of questions with the intent of keeping the caller on the line and getting details, it gives you a sense of the urgency that the call takers were using at the 911 center, as well as the fear and panic on the ground.
What you don't hear in the calls, Jim, is anybody saying, I saw the shooter, I know where the shots came from. This is the real sense from the audience where they are among people who have passed out or who have been shot, including one man, as you know, who passed away.
ACOSTA: Yes.
And, John, I mean, there's been so much discussion about the way Secret Service handled it, the way law enforcement handled it. Based on what you're hearing in this limited audio, did the dispatcher here handle this properly? It sounded like the dispatcher was pretty cool and calm here, but what do you think?
MILLER: Now, the call-takers -- the 911 call-takers always amaze me, because, even under this kind of pressure, they are the voice of calm. And here they were being very tactical, which is they were getting the instant information.
[11:45:10]
Is there someone who shot who needs medical help? If you're just telling me there's been a shooting, they tend to close that call out very quickly. If someone's been injured, they zero in on, where are you? So I think they did a good job.
But, as you point out, this is a moment in time that gives us kind of our first window other than the videos we have seen, which are all focused on the stage, as to what they were going through in the audience, and an incident that, of course, has been overshadowed by a DHS report on the Secret Service, the Secret Service's own report, which was very tough on itself, talking about gaps in communications, gaps in coordination with other law enforcement agencies, and gaps in preplanning for this event.
ACOSTA: Yes, absolutely. And a lot has been gleaned so far to help fortify things the next time around to make sure that our presidential candidates are safe out there on the campaign trail. This piece of audio will certainly add to that.
John Miller, thanks, as always. Really appreciate it.
MILLER: Thanks, Jim.
ACOSTA: All right, we will be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:50:20]
ACOSTA: A group of lawmakers from hurricane-ravaged states are calling for a congressional investigation into the spread of hurricane misinformation social media platforms following Hurricane Helene and Milton.
In a letter, the group writes: "Misinformation not only delays the recovery process, but also erodes public trust in institutions that are essential to helping our states to rebuild."
I want to bring in Representative Wiley Nickel of North Carolina. He's one of seven members who penned this letter.
I guess let me jump right into this, Representative. Where does your request for an investigation into all of this currently stand? Because we have been chronicling this on this program. The amount of misinformation out there about these storms has just been unbelievable.
REP. WILEY NICKEL (D-NC): No, it's a real problem.
And it's hampering our efforts to respond and provide disaster assistance to folks. My office continues to get inundated with calls about stuff that's totally bogus. Much of it is generated by folks like Donald Trump lying about FEMA money going to immigrants and Marjorie Taylor Greene saying Democrats control the weather.
But Russia is behind so much of this. We have seen this playbook over and over, where they continue to sow mistrust in our elections. Any time there's funding for a disaster, whether it's the Key Bridge or now in wildfires, they say, oh, they're giving money to Ukraine, rather than whatever the disaster is.
This is Russian interference. We have seen it before. And we're seeing it again right now in real time.
ACOSTA: And I do want to play some of the misinformation that we're talking about to our audience. Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our government is confiscating American citizens' land after they have already had a horrendous heartbreak.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are bulldozing Chimney Rock, bulldozing the whole damn town. They are getting rid of it. Bodies, trees, buildings, it doesn't matter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Congressman, I mean, it's just outlandish stuff, wild stuff, but what effect are you seeing from this? NICKEL: Well, we have seen an arrest in Rutherford County with
someone making threats against FEMA workers. We have seen a delay in their efforts.
It's not helpful. And the fact is, disaster recovery is a very bipartisan thing. Folks in the state, federal and local levels, are doing everything they can to respond to Hurricane Helene. I will be part of a bipartisan CODEL on Friday going to see the areas affected firsthand.
But we're seeing a great response. But this is all partisan. This is all designed to attack Vice President Harris and her campaign. And it's totally not true. And even Republicans continue to speak up on this, those in these areas affected, because they know it's totally false.
But we need the social media companies to do much more. They are not doing enough to crack down on this misinformation. And it's having very real effects here in North Carolina and beyond.
ACOSTA: Yes, and you have also requested -- and you kind of hinted on this -- requested a national intelligence briefing from the director of national intelligence, citing your concerns about potential foreign governments' involvement and spreading and promoting storm misinformation.
Are you getting any feedback on this, any results on that? What can you tell us?
NICKEL: No, we haven't heard back from Avril Haines yet.
But this is information the American public needs to know before the election. But we're already getting that information. We just saw an A.I. deepfake about Governor Tim Walz that was viewed five million times by allegedly a student that we now know was never a student.
But that information is there. And, that particular one, the Russian government was behind that A.I. deepfake. So I need to -- we need to get that message out for folks who are seeing this just absolute B.S. on social media.
And the social media companies, a big point of the letter, need to do much more to crack down on it. But the problem is, some of this is on Twitter, and Elon Musk is someone campaigning for Donald Trump right now, using his platform to (AUDIO GAP) misinformation.
He's retweeted this stuff which is totally bogus. It is a huge problem and a big symptom. But we got to get out good, positive information about Kamala Harris. I just heard on your program talking about General Kelly calling him a fascist.
That's the information that -- the stuff we should be talking about right now and the real danger and the real choice we have in this election in just a few days.
[11:55:05] ACOSTA: And, Congressman, we just have a short amount of time left.
Are you concerned that this could have an impact in your state on voting?
NICKEL: You know, all we can do -- try to do is get out positive information.
What -- the information I have about Western North Carolina is, our Board of Elections is doing everything they possibly can to allow all options for folks to cast their votes. We're in the business of making sure everybody can make their voice heard in this election.
Everything that I'm seeing that's going on in North Carolina is very positive to that end. I'm going to be on the ground tomorrow to see for myself. But folks in Western North Carolina are tough. They're going to make sure they make their voices heard.
ACOSTA: Yes.
NICKEL: And that's what we need in this election, more people getting out there, because the stakes are so incredibly high as we cast our ballots here in North Carolina.
ACOSTA: Yes, all right, we certainly want everybody to vote. And we absolutely want everybody in North Carolina to get back on their feet after the terrible storm.
Congressman Wiley Nickel of North Carolina, thank you so much for being with us.
And thank you for joining me this morning. I'm Jim Acosta.
Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.
Have a good day.
