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Washington Post: Trump Moved To Secret Plane Amid Iran Threat; Soon: Polls Open In Wisconsin Democratic Primary For Governor; Trump Admin Scales Down Vaccine Recommendations For Kids. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 11, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:08]

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AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: So, Trump's security team reportedly smuggled the president onto a secret plane to dodge would-be assassins last month. How are we just learning about this now?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN LAMOTHE, REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: The Air Force One jet landed with the Air Force One call sign, despite the president not being on board, that there's a serious shell game of sorts that occurred there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the president says nothing bad can happen related to his order to cut recommended vaccine schedules for kids. But what do doctors say?

And the "cancel Thanksgiving" candidate could score a huge win for progressives today in Wisconsin. But where would that leave moderate Democratic Party voters in that state?

And Tucker Carlson, face to face with Hunter Biden, bonding and talking about regrets. Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: Things that I now regret advocating for --

HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN: Particularly the things that you said about me.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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CORNISH: Remember when President Trump switched planes in Turkey last month? What happened is he had to move from the new Air Force One to the old Air Force One. Well, we've learned today that was all a decoy. The president wasn't on either one.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and we begin with new reporting around a clandestine mission to keep Trump safe.

Now, "The Washington Post" has learned that there was a credible threat against President Trump from Iran during his visit to Turkey. So we're showing him he got on the old Air Force One, but then turns out he was secretly moved.

And several minutes later, the president was put on a catering truck, taken to a smaller plane, and a U.S. official tells "The Washington Post" this that day, Trump waved off concerns from reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Are you aware of any credible threat by Iran against Air Force One?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have threat all the time. I'm number one on their list. Before you. But if I go, you go, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Mario Parker, managing editor at "Bloomberg News"; Ashley Davis, former White House official under George W. Bush; and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist.

Thanks, everybody. Thanks for being here.

So, Mario, what I want to start with you is why reporters started digging into this. It seemed as though they would have been on the plane that was under threat. But is it more than that? What is it that's upsetting -- what is it that drove reporters into looking into this more?

MARIO PARKER, MANAGING EDITOR OF ECONOMY & GOVERNMENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Well, I think the first thing the first tell, Audie, was the Q&A that the president had at that time in Ankara, where he had sent the tweet, the post saying that he was going to send the new Air Force One over to Britain just to -- for the troops and their families to be able to enjoy it.

That I remember vividly just kicked off a range of questions. He -- I remember "The New York Times", "Bloomberg" was there as well. Many reporters just asked questions about whether there was some type of security threat behind it. The president, as reported in "The Washington Post" piece, did waive some of those concerns off.

CORNISH: Yeah.

PARKER: And then -- but the extraordinary ruse this was, the secret -- putting the secret in Secret Service, if you will, right?

CORNISH: Isn't that a good thing, right?

ASHLEY DAVIS, FOUNDING PARTNER, WEST FRONT STRATEGIES: Yeah.

PARKER; Like I want the Secret Service to do its job to protect the president against threats.

DAVIS: Yeah. And I don't know what else he was supposed to say. This is a man that's been, you know, attempted assassination three times. And one of them, like, really, really, really real. I mean, he was shot.

So, I think that even though he's supposed to be or America wants to see him telling the truth, you can't -- in regards to security.

CORNISH: Also because is the Qatari gift, is the juice worth the squeeze? The amount of money, the effectiveness in a crisis? I think people are looking at it and saying, you know, maybe you wouldn't have to do all this if you were just --

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: As an American, I'm glad the president is safe.

CORNISH: Yeah.

SEAWRIGHT: I think that's first and foremost, regardless of whether or not I agree with him on any or everything. In fact, we disagree on 100 percent of the things.

But I do think there's an element of transparency here that needs to happen for the sake of the process. Because if it if it happened to Trump, it could happen to a future president. So, there's some sort of transparency needs to be added to the process.

And I would just say to my Republican friends who, any time these things have happened, they make the case for a ballroom, all these political things that happen. This is where you separate and you say, you know what we need to like, stay out of the politics and deal with the reality.

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CORNISH: Yeah, but there's also what you're revealing to, quote/unquote, "the enemy". And this --

SEAWRIGHT; To reveal it in order to deal with transparency and safety, to prevent it on the front end.

DAVIS: That's like the Secret Services job to figure that out. And the rest of the American people in the world shouldn't know that we know or the president knew, or the security knew about the threats. I mean, that's -- we're showing our cards if we do that in my mind.

CORNISH: Okay. Well, two things. First, I want to play for you, the reporter from "The Washington Post", the Pentagon reporter who sort of explains a little bit more context. So let me show you that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAMOTHE: My understanding is there was some White House staff that did not know this was kept close hold in a small group. The C32 simply did not show up in flight tracker data at all, at least in the publicly available information we had and the Air Force One jet landed with the Air Force One call sign, despite the president not being aboard that that there's a serious shell game of sorts that occurred there, you know, to keep the president safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: To be clear, the Qatari gifted jet, the reporting was that it isn't equipped with missile detection countermeasure systems of older jets. So, they've got to fix that up.

But here's the last bit. I want to talk about the Justice Department, then sending out a subpoena to reporters, basically trying to force them to reveal their sources on this, which of course they had to drop because it was a violation of First Amendment rights. Why not let it go?

SEAWRIGHT: Well, let me step back -- let's step back for a second. The Trump administration, Republicans will reveal what they want to when it comes to transparency and the president's threats. We've seen them reveal other threats. And so, I don't know how you separate these two.

But I think one of the things we have to understand is this not Iran's or Iran's first time dealing with America and the way they want to. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the Minnesota hack, if you will. The president waved that off. Weve seen them attack water systems across the country as a potential threat.

Now, is this? So I think we have to have a serious transparency conversation around security of America, including the American president. That's the point I'm making on transparency.

DAVIS: This reminds me a little bit of when. And you remember this, of when President Bush wasn't allowed to come back on 9/11 and everyone was criticizing him for not coming back. And fortunately or unfortunately, I was part of that work time, and there. And he wanted to come back. But everyone said he was weak. And he, you know, he was trying to avoid running the country and all of that. But that's.

CORNISH: Where images of him like looking out the window or whatever, like he's somehow --

DAVIS: But the Secret Service and the military actually took over and didn't allow him. So, we don't know, and I'm not sure if we deserve to know if the military and the Secret Service were the ones that said, you get in the catering truck and get to the next plane.

CORNISH: To picture Trump volunteering to do that.

PARKER: This is just emblematic. I think what we're getting at of this current moment to this, this conflict and this conflict and contrast that we have between the president, this Republican administration, this president, and some of the norms there, but also press freedoms, right?

So, two things can be true. The president, who has had several assassination attempts, including from Iran, can protect his safety. At the same time, this was extraordinary.

To your point, the fact that the press did not know and was told, actually, that the president was on this plane. And that's something that --

CORNISH: Yeah, and now the attempt to punish them for learning. We're going to talk more about this relationship in a bit. I want you guys to stay with me. But coming up, we're also going to talk about Mayor Mamdani because of course, in New York, he campaigned on taxing the rich. Well, there's a judge that put one of his signature policies on hold.

So, we're going to talk about the reality of governing as a Democratic socialist.

Plus, it's primary day in Wisconsin. What will voters there tell us about the future of the Democratic Party?

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[16:13:40]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CROWLEY (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: It's great to have again the governor, the governor's endorsement. But we have to go earn each and every single vote.

FRANCESCA HONG (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: It is the people, the voters, that give me confidence not only to win tomorrow, but to win on November 3rd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Okay. So, the polls open soon in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor. Another Democratic socialist Francesca Hong looks to take down an establishment backed candidate.

Now, three candidates have dropped out of this race, including David Crowley, before he rejoined the race and got the outgoing governor's endorsement. Hong has spent the closing days of her campaign answering for her past views, including calls to defund the police, abolish the U.S. Senate, and cancel Thanksgiving.

So, it's up to Democratic voters weighing electability versus policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Democrats didn't get their act together to try to figure out who should be a viable candidate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What they're calling socialist policies aren't necessarily socialist. It's working for people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think there's anything wrong with being a Democratic socialist, but she has come out so strong that I think she's going to scare people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that's why you're seeing maybe somebody who maybe has some bigger ideas, some bold ideas that might seem a little bit crazy, but its like, hey, let's give it a shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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CORNISH: Let's give it a shot.

Okay, so group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this for two reasons. Yes, Antjuan, I will not say moderate Democrat. I know or -- no, establishment.

SEAWRIGHT: Establishment.

CORNISH: Establishment is now a slur in the authenticity era. But I want to play this for you. Hong was talking about her past tweets and here is how she responded to having to defend them now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HONG: So, I learned then you have some hot takes, sometimes bad takes on Twitter, and I let my feelings out into the world. And right now, as governor, what I'm most serious about are the issues that voters are telling me they want solutions for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, can I ask you about this? Because the 2020s were a time and the hashtag activism was a time, and people were just like, defund, send, you know, like, and it was everywhere. And now these same folks are trying to run for office, and all this stuff is coming back.

And how do you handle it? Do you say, actually, I didn't believe that? Or like she said, hey, they were just hot takes? Like, help me understand how the progressive left is reckoning with its own legacy from the 2020s.

PARKER: Well, I think AOC, who is the leader, arguably the leader of the progressive left, you saw her. You saw her this week cite one of her colleagues, Chi Osse from New York who said, "Woke one was crazy."

And I think that's what you're seeing now. Now you're seeing them tack back a little bit toward the middle, right. You see the president and Republicans using the progressives and this fight between centrists, not establishment, seizing on that and turning the screw ahead of the midterms.

And you see some of the progressives saying, wait a second, maybe we you know, you see her -- I mean, Hong saying, I do not want to defund the police. I like Thanksgiving.

SEAWRIGHT: You know, when I saw that interview on Sunday, the positivity in me rose to new levels because I did not -- I did not think it was funny then. I don't think it's funny now because we as a party took it unnecessary beating for no reason, because people wanted to have this style versus substance conversation.

CORNISH: People wanted change and they thought being more combative was the way to do it. When I think back to that time and how people spoke to each other online at that time.

SEAWRIGHT: It is people who were searching for political relevance, searching for attention, and people thought that we -- our homework is graded the same as Republicans. That's not the case.

What you say and what you do can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion when it comes to Democratic candidates. That does not apply to Republicans. So, with that being said, in this moment where we're having similar style versus substance conversation.

Now, the reality is starting to hit. We have to win general elections. We have to win outside of New York and blue state primaries. And so, you have to make adjustments, and it's hurting us.

CORNISH: Well, David Axelrod said something kind of similar to what you were saying. He said she's a font of zany liberal faculty lounge exotica. She responded in a tweet saying, this way. This is an example of how the consultants class keeps losing elections. They're totally clueless.

She says, I've spent more time in kitchens than in faculty lounges, and I think this pursuit of people who can -- who are wage workers, who can associate with wage workers, continues.

Republicans, in the meantime, spending a lot of money in support of her. You've got pro-Republican PACs, including the Republican Governors Association, spending money on her so that they can face her in November.

DAVIS: Which they should. I mean, this is kind of the --

CORNISH: But didn't Democrats do that a bunch of times with maga candidates? And sometimes those MAGA candidates just won?

DAVIS: Yeah, but here's what I think. I do think she's going to win today. But I also think that she's a much different candidate than El- Sayed. I think El-Sayed -- he was on with us a couple of weeks ago. He actually is a communicator. He actually connects with people much differently than she does.

She struggles with that a little bit more. I think that she's a weaker candidate in general, no matter what her views are. But no ones talking about the fact. And if I were in Wisconsin today and Democrats, I would be like, go and vote. Because who lost in Michigan were the polls once again? I mean, they had El-Sayed winning by 10 points.

So, if you were going to support Haley Stevens, you're like, why am I even going to go vote today?

CORNISH: Well, I want to add that because it comes down to enthusiasm and I want to play one more thing to come to you, Mario. David Crowley, who we said jumped out of the race, came back in. You only come back in if you got some numbers somewhere that tell you that's a good idea.

Here is what he had to say on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: And so many workers, so many farmers, rural communities, people of color, women students, older folks, you name it, we haven't lifted up their voices to be able to be a part of the solutions. And that's what's different from my campaign. We've been able to build the type of coalition that's not only going to help us conquer on August 11th, but ultimately defeat an election denier from becoming our next governor here in Wisconsin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, I want to ask you. This Democratic socialist movement has not addressed the issue of older black voters or more moderate black voters or rural voters.

[06:20:09]

They seem to be talking about expanding the electorate, not catering to the one that has sort of turned out in elections repeatedly. What are you going to be watching for in Wisconsin?

PARKER: Well, it's exactly that, right? Does Francesca Hong does she run up the numbers in places like Madison, right? How does she perform in places like Oshkosh? David Crowley, how he performs in Milwaukee as well. To your point about black voters, we saw some of that play out last week with Haley Stevens over performance.

And if you speak to the -- to the Crowley campaign, that's what they're pointing to. They're saying, to your point, Ashley, the polls last week were off. If we could overperform there. And again, reaching out to Black voters, reaching out to those rural voters, one of the things is A.I. data centers.

And he's saying rather than eliminate them, lets figure out a way to harness some of that revenue and help it benefit some of those communities.

SEAWRIGHT: Mario, elections are about coalitions and constituencies. Yes. We have to have strong base turnout both in the primary and the general election. But you know what else? What else we have to have in Michigan and Wisconsin and all these battleground states, we have to win over some independent thinkers, and we have to win over some moderate Republicans because we have a multifaceted coalition in the Democratic Party.

CORNISH: Yeah. Well, the debate is on about what it will take to do that. I want you to stay with me, because we are going to talk about more of this election. We are going to have election night in America here on CNN.

There's primaries in six states, including South Carolina, where the race is on to see who will take Senator Lindsey Graham's place on the November ballot. Antjuan is watching that, and I hope he's going to be watching CNN for our special live coverage and analysis.

"Election Night in America" begins tonight at 7:00 on CNN. You can also find that on the CNN app with all our breaking news.

And coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, this, President Trump ordering changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, what this could mean for you and your family.

And then I want to say good morning to our viewers in New York City, a live look at Uptown.

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[06:26:27]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Vaccinations for hepatitis B, COVID 19 and influenza, among others, are no longer recommended for all children. Nothing bad can happen from what we're doing. Nothing bad can happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, the Trump administration is changing the children's vaccine schedule. On Monday, the president signed an executive order that would reduce the total number of immunizations. So basically, instead of 17 shots which are recommended, it would go down to 11.

Dividing the vaccine schedule into three categories and split the mumps, measles and rubella shot known as the MMR vaccine, into individual shots instead of just one.

Now there's little scientific evidence to support these changes. Broad confidence among Americans and vaccines like the MMR shot so far. But for parents, the question this morning is what to believe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANDREW RACINE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: Nothing has changed. The science behind vaccines is the same today as it was yesterday. The security that we have with vaccine safety has not changed. The risks that the children in this country face for vaccine preventable diseases has not changed. And when you have people in the United States in positions of

authority that are feeding into confusion and fear, that is doing no service to those parents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK. Dr. Chris Pernell, director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity and public health physician, thank you so much for being here.

So, I remember being a new parent, seeing the tray of needles and being like, do we need to do all of these at once? And then the person would explain and say, yes. Help us understand why the recommended schedule is what it is

DR. CHRIS T. PERNELL, DIRECTOR, NAACP CENTER FOR HEALTH EQUITY: Sure. Good morning, Audie.

I think what's most important for those of us in public health and health care is to reassure the public and reassure families and parents that vaccines are safe. Vaccines are effective, and that decisions around vaccines should be made by physicians, health care providers and scientists. And those decisions should be informed by years, decades of rigorous research and study. And time and time again, you've heard other physicians say it, and I will say it clearly this morning.

This is settled science. There is no new information that suggests we should change the vaccine schedule. The changes that we are seeing --

(CROSSTALK)

CORNISH: OK, well, let me play for you what Trump has to say, Chris, because I think --

PERNELL: Sure.

CORNISH: -- that it's actually quite common to hear this argument that he's making. So let's give people a sample of it and see if they recognize it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Very simply, large amounts of vaccine, large amounts of vats of vaccine are currently pumped into your child's body. I saw this early on and I've seen proof of it where they have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child's body, and bad things happen in many cases. In too many cases, because this is an explosion. This is an epidemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Okay. Meanwhile, you had Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who's a doctor, saying this on social media. He says breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots, and that it will increase hesitancy and make children safe.

So help me out, because I'm already confused, right? Like first I hear we're getting a lower number of shots. Then someone says, actually it's more shots. Like what is the difference here?

PERNELL: Yeah, I think it's most important -- important to first say that babies' immune systems are very strong.

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