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CNN: Crowley Wins Wisconsin Dem. Governor's Primary; New Details On Trump's Air Force One Secret Operation. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 12, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

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POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, everybody, welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. Another election night in America has come and gone. We've got updates on the big races and finally, a projected winner in Wisconsin. And President Trump is speaking out about his Air Force One shell game triggered by an Iranian threat while he says he went along with it.

And how scientists plan to use today's solar eclipse to test a new instrument that could change how they study the sun.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from New York, this is CNN Newsroom with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: All right, everybody, 4:00 a.m. here in New York, 3:00 a.m. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After a very long night of ballot counting, CNN can now project Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley will be the one to advance to the governor's race after he secured the Democratic nomination for governor. He had been locked in a very tight race with state assembly member Francesca Hong. Crowley had dropped out of the race in early June, but then reentered just days later with support of Wisconsin's outgoing governor. Later this year, he's set to face Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany, who does have the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

And we're also following races across five other states, including South Carolina. The special Republican Senate primary there will be going to a runoff and this after no candidate secured a majority of the vote. CNN projecting Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, and Congressman Ralph Norman will compete in that runoff election in just two weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): I want to thank the Republican voters of South Carolina for having confidence in me. I look forward to the next two weeks meeting with you, listening to your concerns and telling you more about me and my conservative values.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: All right, let's go to Caroline Heldman, who is a Democratic strategist and professor of critical theory and social justice at Occidental College. She joins me live from Los Angeles.

It's always great to see you, Caroline. Another long night of primary election results.

CAROLINE HELDMAN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yes, indeed. Great to see you, Polo.

SANDOVAL: So, let's start with David Crowley. I mean, he went from being out of the race to getting back in the race and now being the one to advance to face off the Republican in the race for the governor of that state. What's your initial reaction and what do you think this matchup will look like as he gets ready to face the Republicans come November?

HELDMAN: Well, Crowley pulling it out is actually pretty surprising. Hong was so far ahead, Francesca Hong, the Democratic socialist candidate was so far ahead in the polls, you know, very similar to what happened in Michigan in the primary last week. Although El-Sayed was able to pull it out, Hong was not. I mean, she's pulling well ahead. And then the centrist Democratic candidate ended up clinching the Democratic primary nomination moving forward.

And I think, you know, it really comes down to one primary thing, which is electability. So even though a lot of voters may have told pollsters that they were supporting more the Democratic socialist agenda, maybe it was some of the more inflammatory things that Hong said. But at the end of the day, they went with a candidate that was simply more electable.

SANDOVAL: This also reminded me of -- you know, you and I were talking not too long ago with the Stevens-El-Sayed primary race there, and then, you know, you and I were discussing the lingering question now about how both campaigns would be able to unify their supporters against their Republican opponent. I'll pose the same question here. How do you see the David Crowley campaign uniting with some of the members of at least Francesca Hong supporters? Is that pretty easy to do, you think?

HELDMAN: I do think it's easy to do because as hard fought as these primary campaigns are, once you're headed into the general election, you have a unified opponent, or villain, if you will. In the contemporary political age, we're really talking about villainizing opponents. And so I would imagine will not be an issue for these candidates to come forth and perhaps campaign together. What we see is this fight right for the new soul of the Democratic Party, whether it's the centrists versus the Democratic socialists or in some cases just the socialist label.

[04:05:08]

Francesca Hong supporters were very vocal. She was popular in the state as a restaurateur who went from one location to the next, really doing, you know, pressing the flesh. So even though she has lost this race, it was so close that Crowley will definitely need those votes headed in the -- into the general election.

And when I talked about electability earlier, it's really -- I think a calculation where voters in Wisconsin and elsewhere, while these Democratic socialists have very popular platforms in terms of universal health care and a number of other policies, at the end of the day, they're looking to see who is going to beat a Trump backed Republican come the general election.

SANDOVAL: Do you see Democratic socialists looking at Francesca Hong's performance and taking something away that they could lead them to reconsider their approach in future elections, you think?

HELDMAN: I actually think that this was much more about the particular candidate. It was about Francesca Hong --

SANDOVAL: Yes.

HELDMAN: -- who had talked about maybe not celebrating Thanksgiving, about defunding the police, about maybe abolishing the Senate. So she had taken these much more extreme positions mostly in her online history. And so while she walked a lot of that back, you'll notice that she didn't get endorsements from Bernie Sanders or AOC, really the stars of the Democratic socialist movement right now.

And so I think when you see the victory of someone like Dr. El-Sayed compared to Francesca Hong, it really maybe came down to that particular candidate not being able to distance herself enough from the so called woke one agenda that AOC referenced earlier this week.

SANDOVAL: Yes, Hong stumbles, especially towards a tail end, really curbed that momentum that she had. You also talked about just a little while ago, we may see from Republicans. Wisconsin Republicans did have their hopes on a race against Francesca Hong. How are you expecting them now to go after Crowley for the next several-- for the next several months?

HELDMAN: I think their strategy is pretty clear, which is to essentially drag every Democratic candidate over into the Democratic socialist camp, right? And paint them as being maybe more extreme than they are and paint them as being out of touch with the electorate. It's a very successful strategy, I think that we've seen certainly in terms of a unified message from the Republican Party, which they tend to be very good at doing.

And in this particular race, you know, Polo, you point out that they wanted to -- they wanted Tiffany to go up against Hong in this general election because they just thought he would have a much better chance. But at the end of the day, you know, the money that the Republican Party threw in to support Hong's candidacy just didn't get her across the line. Those voters in Wisconsin are really looking, I think, forward to November and saying, yes, I like her issues even -- you know, maybe she didn't distance herself enough, but at the end of the day, they see Crowley as being maybe more electable running against a Trump backed Republican.

SANDOVAL: Let the real race begin now in the state of Wisconsin. Caroline Hellman, as always, always look forward to your perspective and your analysis. Thank you so much for joining us.

HELDMAN: Thank you so much.

SANDOVAL: We're also learning new details about the covert operation to get President Trump on a secret flight out of Turkey last month. The New York Times reporting that the U.S. had identified a threat of an Iranian assassination plot which potentially included a surface to air missile targeting the presidential jet. President Trump spoke about that secret plane swap on Tuesday night and said this.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. So I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it. So I do it.

I do what they say.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why was it too dangerous for you to fly on Air Force One, but not too dangerous for the press?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know. I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk. I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that we -- that they would be more likely to go for.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you worried about a shoulder-fired missile?

TRUMP: I don't worry about anything, to be honest, whatever it is. You know, my attitude, whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: So how did this covert switch play out? CNN's Alayna Treene with those details.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: CNN is learning of this elaborate ruse that the president and his team had designed to move him onto a separate plane back when he was traveling in Turkey for the NATO summit. Essentially, we see the president boarding the old Air Force One last month to lead that summit. That's what we were told at least. But if you look closely, there was a catering truck that's highlighted under Air Force One.

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Minutes after stepping aboard the plane, a U.S. official told CNN that the president secretly moved into a truck in a clandestine move to protect him. Now all of this was unfolding as journalists and even some White House staffers were still boarding the plane and were told that the president was on that plane as well. I can't say just how remarkable an operation like this is and how atypical and really unprecedented it is.

I'd remind you that the president had initially traveled to that NATO summit in Turkey on the new Air Force One that was gifted to the president from Qatar last year and had all the new bells and whistles that the president has loved to publicize. But then they learned that they were going to be taking an older plane, the former plane that was used for Air Force One, when leaving Turkey, and then they would stop in the United Kingdom for a refueling stop before heading back to Washington.

The president had initially said that the reason for that was because there were U.S. Service Members on the ground in England who wanted to go on board and tour the new Qatari jet. However, CNN have reported in recent weeks that it was actually because of a threat from Iran. We had also reported that Israel had briefed some of the president's team on this threat before departing, but it was not known that the president had taken a separate plane known as a C-32A, that is a military aircraft, and he had done so all in the way of decepting (ph) the media on board.

I do think what this shows is just reflective of how serious and credible the White House believed these threats from Iran were. I also think it raises questions about the capabilities that Iran has to target the most secure plane in the world. I will say in retrospect, hindsight is 2020, that when you're looking at some of the signs that had happened on the ground that day, there were some things that were suspicious. One of them had been, and we got this from the great reporters who sent their pool reports throughout the day while in Turkey that staff on board the plane had asked reporters to lower the shade to their windows. Not something typical for flights like this.

We also know that once the flight had landed in the U.K. for that refueling stop, they had also taken an unusually long amount of time to have press leave the back of the plane. Later, of course, you did see the shot of Trump deboarding the plane. So clearly they had brought him back onto the plane to see him exit. All to say, we have not gotten any confirmation from the White House, but we also have not gotten a denial to this. And I will note that in the past we have seen some presidents be a little bit deceptive about their travel, but not to the extent of four weeks and really a month now, arguing that the president had traveled on a plane when he didn't.

Alayna Treene, CNN, the White House.

SANDOVAL: Joining us now is Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran Program with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Behnam, thanks so much for joining us.

BEHNAM BEN TALEBLU, SR. DIRECTOR IRAN PROGRAM, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES: Pleasure to be with you, Paolo. Thank you.

SANDOVAL: So I'm sure you've been following that reporting closely. And some of this latest round of reporting from the New York Times that now shows that during the president's trip to last month's NATO summit, U.S. intelligence learned of a threat that was essentially two pronged, that there was a specific threat of a surface to air missile against Air Force One or whatever aircraft the president was aboard. And then this one that the Iranians knew specifically where Mr. Trump was staying in Turkey. So they covertly flew him out on that secret flight, as we all know, and as the president confirmed late Tuesday.

But I'm more interested in just the seriousness of this threat. I mean, clearly the Secret Service considered it serious enough that they move forward with this operation. So what does it tell you about Iran's capability in the region? I mean, the Trump administration has repeatedly asserted that Iran's regime has been severely debilitated.

TALEBLU: Well, great to be with you. And it's a pretty crazy story because we're learning more as it really develops. The Washington Post and NBC, some pretty important exclusives and scoops on this. But ultimately, this is a story more about intention than capability.

You know, this is a regime that has hired, you know, guns for hire in the past to try to go against dissidents and foreign targets. But for many years now, they've been talking about actually wanting to kill the president. They've raised money, they've issued fatwas, they've issued threats, officially and unofficially from government authorities and also from religious centers and media centers.

But this story is a little bit different because clearly the Secret Service is acting on even the slight probability or the slight chance of the regime being able to do one of those two things in the story that was reported by NBC and by the Washington Post about the president hiding in, you know, a catering container and, and moving planes, for example, that, too, just tells you how seriously, you know, government authorities in the Secret Service were taking it and not leaving things to a low probability, high impact chance.

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SANDOVAL: And then on the reporting from the New York Times that the Iranians knew specifically where the president was staying in Ankara, including even the floor of the building, according to that reporting, just how concerning is that is that to you? I mean, should that kind of information be easy to get, especially for the Iranians that have threatened the president in the past?

TALEBLU: I mean, if at that granular level the Islamic Republic knows this or its authorities or proxies or agents or guns for hire know it, it's a problem. You know, and it's a problem because, A, how did the information get out? B, was this inadvertently put out publicly and then removed? Or C, did they use local sources?

Unless we forget, Turkey is a very permissive jurisdiction for Iran backed intelligence activity and proxy activity. In the past they've been, you know, deportations of Turkey of political prisoners that were Iranian or refugees that were Iranian that actually folks worried about meeting a fate perhaps worse than death back in Iran. Inside of Turkey, of course, as you know, there's also been the long arm of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. So there's certainly some level of security state penetration by a neighbor of Turkey, which by the way is a NATO country. But to bring it back to what you mentioned earlier about the dichotomy between this long arm of Iran backed terror or this intentionality of doing something and what the White House has long talked about, which is this diminishing capability, I think we're seeing two things quite quickly converge, which is that this can be a less capable regime, but it is still a pretty confident regime. And this is a regime that might be on the surface, on the macroeconomics of it, on the conventional military side weak, but on the asymmetric side, quite lethal.

SANDOVAL: And given those abilities and just looking back at last month's visit to Turkey, do you think that the president should have accepted the Turkish president's invitation to attend that summit looking -- you know, considering everything you've just laid out?

TALEBLU: Considering everything I said, certainly I think it's always wise to go to the territory of aid on a NATO country. But perhaps it does underscore two things. One, the problems of course, with the switcheroo given the fact that, you know, the president had to board a different plane and the fact that he actually boarded the Qatari newer Air Force One back when he was in London. So it shows, you know, some of the initial concerns about that first plane were actually quite valid and quite true.

And second, I would also say here, by the way, you don't want this to fit in the mind of any adversarial state that the territory of any NATO country is not a safe country to go to. But that being said, Turkey is not necessarily a NATO country in the best standing given its kind of mixed foreign policy orientation of other issues that the rest of the alliance is pretty solid on. And here I'm not talking about Russian issues, I'm talking about Middle Eastern issues.

SANDOVAL: Behnam Ben Taleblu, thank you so much for joining us as always and providing all this analysis.

TALEBLU: Thank you.

SANDOVAL: Well, the U.S. president says that Iran would, quote, "get blown away if it tries to do something in the Strait of Hormuz." And this comes as Donald Trump that the U.S. still has total control over the critical waterway.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration now warning of higher oil and gas prices into next year. The latest shakeup in Iran's military leadership. It could be a sign that Tehran and Washington are far from striking a deal. Iran's supreme leader reportedly appointed six hardliners to top security positions this week.

Rescue teams across Colombia are racing to find survivors after Monday's devastating earthquake. Still ahead, a volunteer describes how crews were able to rescue a baby from the rubble.

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[04:22:46]

SANDOVAL: A check in now on election results, including out of the state of Wisconsin, where CNN is now projecting that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley will be winning the state's Democratic primary for governor. It had been a very tightly locked race between him and state assembly member, Francesca Hong. Crowley will now face Republican Congressman Tom Tiffany of the general election.

To South Carolina now, two Republican Senate candidates are advancing to a runoff after a special primary. It followed the death of longtime Senator Lindsey Graham. Well, his sister Darline, who was appointed to fill his seat, has now qualified for the August 25 runoff. She'll be facing off against Representative Ralph Norman in two weeks.

All right, now to this developing story and the devastation across Colombia after the country was hit with the largest earthquake in a decade. Recovery teams are looking for victims beneath the rubble after dozens of buildings collapsed in several major cities on Monday. Well, the U.S. says that it has sent a disaster assistance response team to help support those efforts. Meanwhile, Mexico is preparing a large shipment of humanitarian aid along with 255 specialized search and rescue troops.

And then there are these glimmers of hope that continue emerging as communities rally in support. Here you see a woman who was rescued alive after spending 36 hours beneath the rubble of what was once a hotel. And this video showing a baby being rescued in the hard hit city of Cali. Earlier, CNN spoke with a volunteer who says that he was led to that specific spot in the devastation, led there by whispers of a survivor.

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BRIAN OSARIO ZULUAGA, HELPED RESCUE BABY FROM RUBBLE (through translator): It sounded like a whisper, yes, I'm here, I'm with a baby. But it was like a very soft whisper. So I said silence, silence. Because the noise from the girl and everything from the people who were there at the moment, who were the neighbors from the area, they all went quiet. And thanks to the cries of the person, the man who was shouting that he was with the baby, I was able to identify where he was.

And that's when I started to act. There is a person at home with a baby, Beckham (ph). So they started coming closer. We began moving some very large pieces of rubble, really heavy ones. We started moving debris.

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And there was a piece of the building slab that had fallen quite wide, very large. The seven of us tried, but on the first attempt we couldn't lift it.

Unity is strength because no one person alone could have lifted that piece of rubble. It was so large and so heavy. Let's say that at that moment it was about taking the initiative. And thanks to that, I would say that was the greatest contribution I made, taking the initiative.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SANDOVAL: And CNN's David Culver is in Colombia in one of the hardest hit cities, gives us a closer look at the recovery efforts.

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's been hours in the relentless scorching 90 degree plus heat. And you look around and you'll notice the vast majority of all these folks aren't officials, but they're volunteers. They believe there's still signs of life coming from within the rubble here.

Pereira is a city of about a half million, roughly the size of Minneapolis. The airport's damaged and closed, so getting here from Bogota took us eight plus hours.

Sun's just coming up. We've been driving all night.

Arriving, you find destruction spills into nearly every street in the city center. While much of the city is still standing, the facades have shattered onto the sidewalk or even onto parked cars. And amid the rubble, life and death.

She says as of last night they had pulled out seven bodies and five survivors from this collapse right here. Another believed to be still inside this once hotel. At least they heard her voice three hours earlier.

He's -- again, he's asking, they need the machinery to be able to move this. They just don't have sufficient equipment to do it. But until then, this city known for how friendly its people are, are using their bare hands to clear the paths of destruction as time and heat is working against them. Hope that's really is what motivates them to push forward.

SANDOVAL: All right, our thanks to David Culver and his whole team for reporting there form (ph) devastation. Look for more of his reports, of course, in the hours ahead.

And for more information on how you can help the earthquake victims in Colombia, go to CNN.com/impact. There are plenty of resources there.

And up next here on CNN Newsroom, election results from the state of Wisconsin. CNN has now made a projection in the race between David Crowley and Francesca Hong in the Democratic primary for governor. Stay with us.

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