Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Karoline Leavitt Steps Down: Who Will Take The Job?; Voters Punish Incumbents As 10 Lose Primaries; Police Defend Flock Cameras As Company Catches Flack. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 13, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: Formed roughly 50,000 years ago.

[06:00:03]

It's nearly as deep as four Statues of Liberty stacked up. Are you in? Well, you better sign up for the guided tours ahead of time.

Officials warn it's a strenuous two hour hike into the mile-wide crater. Or you can just enjoy it from the rim.

That does it for "CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS". I'm Brad Smith.

CNN THIS MORNING WITH AUDIE CORNISH starts right now.

(MUSIC)

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat, Trump's biggest defender leaving the White House. Karoline Leavitt says she's stepping down. Are her shoes too big to fill?

Plus, some Democrats try to bury the past, as ideas like defund the police come back to haunt them on the campaign trail. How's that going?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, HOST OF "THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW": Woke one was crazy. Hard pass.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And ICE plans to give agents electric shock gloves? Is that going to lead to de-escalation?

And the backlash against A.I. surveillance cameras on street corners? Police are saying they help solve crimes. Is it worth the cost of your privacy?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They can just look you up and where you're going without a warrant for any reason. Are we in (EXPLETIVE DELETED) North Korea? (END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Isn't she great? Is Karoline great? When she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don't stop, pop, pop up like -- like a little machine gun. She's got no fear.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Help wanted at the White House. Karoline Leavitt heads for the exit. So who's next for the gig?

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish.

We're going to start there with the search for a new White House press secretary. President Trump says one of his most loyal soldiers, Karoline Leavitt, is leaving to spend more time with her kids. She will remain a top advisor.

But replacing her, that might be difficult. A successor would join just months before the midterms. They need to help Trump justify the war in Iran, defend high prices and the president's low approval ratings. And they would join in the wake of Trump's secret plane switch, for example, which saw the White House telling reporters there was no security threat only to find out there was one.

So, let's talk about the main qualifications. They've got to be loyal, fluent in MAGA and ready to dismiss reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Of course, the president supports peaceful protest. What a stupid question.

President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell.

Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter. It has rave reviews because the president just tells it like it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So today in the group chat, we've got Sara Fischer, CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter at "Axios": Mike Dubke, former Trump White House communications director; and Meghan Hays, former Biden White House director of message planning.

So, before we get to our candidates for the job over here, Sara, I want to talk to you about -

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: -- a frontrunner -- CORNISH: -- about the job obviously, because she was not -- she

didn't become a national joke like a Sean Spicer. She didn't. Well, he --

DUBKE: He's a -- he's a friend of mine. Be careful.

CORNISH: Okay. You can defend him when I come back. But he ended up with "Dancing with the Stars" and not in the history books.

DUBKE: That's a nice shirt he had on.

CORNISH: I'm saying that.

DUBKE: Yes.

CORNISH: But in the meantime, you had someone like Karine Jean-Pierre who had a very combative, rough reputation with the press. What is her legacy?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Incredibly responsive. If you reached out to Karoline Leavitt or anyone in the Trump press team, you got a response and you got it quickly. So that matters.

I think people understood the role that she played was to defend the president beyond educating reporters. However, I don't think most people who deal with her felt like they didn't come back with answers. If they weren't the answers you like, that's one thing. But you got responses.

And then the last thing is she's just a very eloquent speaker. Karoline Leavitt was easy to understand. She used plain, simple language that not just the press could understand, but the American people watching clips of her on Fox News could understand. So, she was a very skilled communicator. She's going to be a very, very tough act to follow.

I'm curious to see if Donald Trump is eager to put somebody in who the press can get along with, or somebody who's just going to defend his message to death because I think the press getting along with your press secretary and respecting them, it actually does wonders. I think Karoline Leavitt is a good example of that.

CORNISH: I also want to give an example of some of the moments she had with reporters, because, as you said, she was like, yes, you should get back to you. But in the room, she gave as good as she got. So here's an example of what she was like on the job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The question here is, is this setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use?

LEAVITT: If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. REPORTER: Why wouldn't Trump just take the call from Putin while the

other leaders were in the room? He said it would be disrespectful to do that. But why is that disrespectful?

[06:05:01]

LEAVITT: With all due respect, only a reporter from "The New York Times" would ask a question like that.

REPORTER: What did the president mean when he called a reporter piggy?

LEAVITT: Look, the president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Okay, my communications people, who should be next. What qualities do they need to have?

DUBKE: I actually quite curious as to how long it takes them to fill this job. I mean, it --

CORNISH: Can they afford to wait with midterms coming?

DUBKE: Absolutely. The president is his best press secretary. He'll tell you that. And I think that's kind of the world that that we lived in, but to the -- to the point that's being made about -- about Leavitt is she really had this dual ability to stand at the podium and give as good as she got, as you all are saying, but then doing the background work and she came across as much better with the press and in a much better relationship than, frankly, most of the press secretaries I can think of. And in Trump, 1.0 in terms of, you know, being a different person when behind closed doors and upper press.

CORNISH: Interesting.

DUBKE: So this is -- this is one of those. This is one of those places where weird times in Washington, you know, we've got this code when somebody leaves under scandal, will they want to spend more time with family? I actually believe this explanation that she wants to spend more time with family.

CORNISH: She's also talked publicly about it. I mean, obviously she has been pregnant in the White House. Like people have been watching those pregnancies. And I think she talked about it with Megyn Kelly last year. I don't know if we have that. Oh, here's an example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEAVITT: Is it a tough choice? Absolutely. You know, as a mother, you want to be with your child 24/7. I would reject that you can't be a good mom and be good at your job. I think you can do both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And I think a lot of moms out there are sympathetic when you actually finally have to choose and take a break.

MEGHAN HAYS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: These jobs are completely unforgiving. They are the average life of a staffer in the White House is 18 months. You spend every waking moment thinking about work, being at work, or dealing with work. You wake up at 6:00 in the morning and you could have 100 emails. I can't imagine what she goes through as being a new mom. Just the lack of sleep that she feels from just being a new mother.

So, I don't think she's actually leaving under scandal at all. And I do think part of the role of the press secretary is to actually work press behind the scenes. The podium job is sort of the secondary job. That's where you get a lot of like recognition --

CORNISH: That's why no question that Trump doing it himself part, because I actually think that would be a massive --

HAYS: But they also don't have to have briefings, right? We've seen different -- we've seen different models here where I think one of the press secretaries and Trump 1.0 never had a briefing the entire time. Their job is to make sure that they are working stories, making sure reporters have the information they need.

If it's true or not, that's to be debated, but they have the information. The podium job is secondary, I think, and I think it will take a long time to fill, but I think it will take a long time to fill because Trump is on his way out. And this is a reputational harm for somebody to step in, unless you are a true believer.

CORNISH: Before I go, I want to talk about those potential somebodies. Prediction markets who, of course, are on everything these days, are looking at a long list.

They've got Anna Kelly, just the deputy press secretary. Next person up, right. Lara Trump, the president's daughter in law, Fox News host. Alina Habba, the former acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. And then, Scott Jennings, CNN political commentator.

He was actually asked about it last night

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you throwing your hat in the ring?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Who do you -- yeah. Well, first of all, are you throwing your hat in the ring?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And will you serve, Scott? Answer the question.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. Look --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Answer the question.

JENNINGS: I don't know.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Let me help, Scott. Democrats are afraid of Scott Jennings becoming press secretary.

(LAUGHTER)

SELLERS: There you go. Now, you got the job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I mean, that is kind of the criteria, but what are your last thoughts on this?

FISCHER: I think it would be tough for somebody like Scott to exit the role that he's playing now, where he can be an outside analyst. That's a really great position for him to be in.

CORNISH: Not reputational harm, which I thought was --

FISCHER: Exactly, I think for some of the former Trump officials and allies, this actually is a great opportunity. Of course, you're walking into the fires then, but most press secretaries and communications directors are in this role for a year or two.

So, the way I look at it for them is if you can survive that year or two, the opportunities on the other side are enormous. It just depends on whether or not you're going to blow it.

HAYS: I mean, look at Karine. I just don't think the opportunity -- I just don't think the opportunities are the same.

FISCHER: Look at Kayleigh McEnany -- look, there's a lot of people who've actually come out on the other side and going back to Sean Spicer, he now has his own show. He's been able to create a media career out of it.

Even Anthony Scaramucci, the mooch lasted 10 days, but mooch is still on CNBC and is all over the place. So, I don't think --

HAYS: He had a company long before. I mean, just the reputational damage for someone who is not a media personality before going into this is really hard. If you want to continue to work in politics, you are at the tail end of someone's administration who is not, has a really low approval rating.

DUBKE: I'm going to give Governor Sarah Sanders a call after this show and ask her how it worked out.

CORNISH: Okay. Sean Spicer, I learned my lesson doing good. Congratulations.

Group chat, stay with me. We've got a lot more to talk about later.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, there's a historic number of incumbents, people in their jobs who are actually losing their primary.

[06:10:01] So, can either party actually capitalize on the voters' hunger for change?

Plus, you've got Ukraine's Zelenskyy telling CNN that he can destroy all of Putin's ballistic missiles with a little help from the U.S.

So why isn't the White House offering?

And ICE has a new tool for deescalation, electric shock gloves.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:00]

CORNISH: All right, so there are a lot of house members losing their primaries. And we're talking at a rate not seen in decades. Ten incumbents have lost primary challenges for their current seat.

Now that's the most since 1970. And seven of them are Democrats. The latest loss for an incumbent happened in Connecticut, when Congressman John Larson lost a bid for a 15th term in the House. The 78-year-old lost to Luke Bronin, a former mayor of Hartford.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUKE BRONIN (D), CONNECTICUT HOUSE CANDIDATE: I need to see a Democratic Party that's bringing a whole different kind of energy to this fight right now. And that's being a lot clearer and bolder about the issues that we're fighting on. I just think we'd be a stronger party if more of our leaders recognize that part of leadership is knowing when it's time to pass the torch, that, you know, we -- and that we can't be for democracy and not for competition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this because a few weeks ago, I was talking about all the exits of House Republicans, people who were just retiring or leaving.

But in this case, people are essentially getting kind of pushed out, right? They're losing their primaries. Is it the age issue? Is it the Democratic socialists versus moderate issue? What do you see as the dueling tensions there?

HAYS: I think it's a little bit of both. But I also think this is an anti-incumbent election season for both Democrats and Republicans. People are tired of the status quo and they want something different.

CORNISH: Can I put up the list of faces again and just see I can have you guys help me figure out if any of these folks have anything in common. Because the truth is, this is not a bunch of gray hairs. This is a real mix of people who were able to win at this point and suddenly are on the outs with their voters.

HAYS: Yeah. I mean, some of these people lost to DSA members who are further left than they were. But in the case in Connecticut, you know, he was not -- he was a very pragmatic. He's a new deal leader. He is someone who is respected and very moderate. So, I think that had to do with age or people just wanting something different.

But I just think you'll see a lot more of this. I think people will lose in the general because people want something different. They're tired of their government.

CORNISH: We looked at the polling. If most members were replaced, Congress would be -- your options were better off, worse off the same. And now you've got 51 percent saying better off. That number has been creeping up since 2006.

DUBKE: Actually, I think this is fantastic. And I'm going to sound --

CORNISH: A little like a term limits type.

DUBKE: No, I hate term limits.

CORNISH: Oh.

DUBKE: I hate term limits because in my mind, if you have term limits for elected officials, that makes the bureaucrats more powerful. So, we could have a whole debate about this. And I think term limits are terrible. We do have term limits for house members every two years. And that's what we're seeing.

And I think this is good. But I want to point something out. When you put those numbers up of the number of people that voted, it was less than 50,000 in a house race that I don't know the exact number of voters in that House district, but it's over 800,000. It's probably somewhere between 800 and a million, and only 50,000 people, or less than 50,000 people turned out for that primary.

So, what you're seeing and what we need to remember is that in race after race after race, where either a Republican loses because they've been -- they were pushed out by Trump in the case of Massie or the DSA in the case of several of these Democrats, where you've got this momentum by a small group of people that then win a primary and then potentially lose the general.

Now, in a lot of these deep blue states --

CORNISH: Yeah, but I do hear that argument a lot.

DUBKE: -- are going to lose.

CORNISH: That primaries are such a small group.

DUBKE: It's such a small group.

CORNISH: But, you know, Trump is where he is because --

DUBKE: Exactly right.

CORNISH: -- staunch, loyal group of people were supportive.

FISCHER: Yes. But the Trump endorsement doesn't always get you somewhere. I mean, look what happened with Mike Lindell.

CORNISH: Yeah.

FISCHER: And I don't know that necessarily --

CORNISH: By the way, says he doesn't believe "The Associated Press" and therefore he is questioning the results of his election.

FISCHER: Oh, the irony, right?

CORNISH: Extremely on brand.

FISCHER: Of course. Right. He rose to the top because of the denialism in 2020. But I think that there's this element of primary voters tend to be the most passionate. They're the ones that are the most tuned in. So they're the ones that are going to come out and you're not necessarily always representative of the broader population, which tends to be more moderate.

I'm just curious to see that for the people who are knocking out incumbents, some of the newbies, how they do in the general, you know, and some of these cases, too, if you're not a newbie, but you're just the non-establishment candidate. I think about Ken Paxton, for example, in Texas. Very curious to see how that plays out actually.

CORNISH: Actually, yeah. In reality, and for me, I have to say, in defense of the primary voter, I see them as the canary in the coal mine. If there's a trend afoot. This is your warning sign of what's going on in your party.

All right, after the break on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to be talking about your car, your license plate, the location, because all of it is probably being logged, thanks to Flock cameras, which are popping up across the country. And police, well, they're saying it's helping them to crack cases. What happens when they're not used as intended?

And in the meantime, good morning to our viewers in Boston. Live look at my hometown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:24:09]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLICE OFFICER: Some of the concerns I think, are outweighed by the -- by the incredible benefits to our community.

POLICE OFFICER: They're very obvious. We're not trying to hide them. They're just there in order to help with our investigative leads.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Okay. Police say that surveillance cameras help solve crimes, but a lot of people are asking if that's all those cameras are doing. So, you might have seen a Flock safety camera on a corner near you because frankly, they're in every state but Alaska.

Critics say the license plate reading surveillance cameras actually double as a massive government tracking network, and three former deputies were actually arrested this week in Georgia, for example, for allegedly using the cameras to stalk people.

Now, across the country, there are a lot of people that want to block Flock

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'd like to ask for an immediate removal of the cameras and for the contracts to be canceled as soon as possible.

[06:25:01]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have no right to follow us, to document every single move we make in this town, nor anywhere in this country.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really is just a naked violation of privacy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm once again here to request all funding for Flock Safety cease.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Okay. Joining me now is Joseph Cox, reporter and co-founder of 404 media. He's done a lot of reporting on this.

Joseph, thank you so much for being here.

I want to start with just why this is upsetting people so much, because it has moved almost like data centers, where you have people who don't seem very politically active, being very upset about these cameras.

JOSEPH COX, REPORTER & CO-FOUNDER, 404 MEDIA: Yeah, I think the data center comparison is a really, really good one. And I definitely put them in the same conversation. I think a lot of people are upset about this because these cameras are marketed as a way to catch missing people or kidnaped children or something like that, you know, really important use cases and legitimate crimes and legitimate investigations.

But what we've seen from our reporting and from others is that in a lot of cases, law enforcements are actually abusing their access to this technology. They are looking at the location of their ex- girlfriends or their ex-wives or something like that, which is obviously not a legitimate investigation. That's just one part of why people are so angry about these cameras.

CORNISH: Now, the CEO of Flock Safety actually has put out a statement on the company website. This was last year because there's been so much reporting of this. And at the time they said, "We have a system that puts much of the responsibility for public safety on local law enforcement, and that is who Flock is built to serve. We work with thousands of local police departments in red states and blue."

So, can you ta about that? Like you're bringing up these issues. Are those just bad apples, so to speak, or growing pains? Or are they saying, look, it's up to the locals to have their own guardrails?

COX: I think that's how Flock may characterize it. But there is a key component here that often gets lost in the conversation, is that law enforcement do not require a warrant to look up this data, to query this massive amount of data so they can, at least technically speaking, use it for whatever they want.

Now, obviously, some law enforcement officials are going to get caught when they do that. Flock does keep a record of all the searches, and we've been able to obtain many of those. And that's why we've done so much reporting on this company.

But the fact is, there's no real technical limitations in place, which are stopping a law enforcement official from looking up their ex-wife or something similar.

CORNISH: So, the thing is, you're talking about sort of people taking these actions, right? Inappropriate use. But the argument is also that this doubles as an expansion of a surveillance state. So, what is it that people think that this creates a much broader issue?

COX: Yeah, I think one of the key parts there is that last year, in May 2025, we reported that local police were performing lookups in Flock that is, typing in a license plate and seeing where that vehicle, and by extension, the person has been. But that data wasn't for them. They were then giving that data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or HSI, another part of ICE, or just for immigration- related purposes.

So, similar to the ex-wife problem or the stalking problem, people were sold the technology on one premise finding missing people, finding kidnapped children. And it turns out actually, no, this is being used as a way to get data to the federal government.

And as for it being a much sort of wider version of surveillance and a piece of surveillance apparatus, what makes Flock really interesting from a law and law enforcement perspective, is that many of these cameras are connected across a national network. When a law enforcement officer say, in Texas, search Flock cameras, they're not just searching ones in their own neighborhood or their own city, or even their own state. They can search cameras across the entire country.

And that is, I think, a fundamental shift when it comes to this technology, that people aren't really ready to accept.

CORNISH: Okay. That's Joseph Cox of 404 Media. You've been doing great reporting on this. I really appreciate it.

COX: Thank you.

CORNISH: And straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to talk about the basic lack of food and supplies. And now, reports of sailors trying to jump overboard. Why isn't the military stepping in to find out what's going on, on the USS Abraham Lincoln?

Plus, Ukraine's Zelenskyy has a plan to take out Russia's ballistic missiles, but he needs Trump's help. So, is he going to get it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)