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Erin Burnett Outfront
Six States Voting: Soon First Results In South Caroline Senate; Trump Won't Rule Out Declaring Emergency To Enact Voting Limits; Air Force One Investigation. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired August 11, 2026 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:25]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
Breaking news, polls closing in key states. Right now, we're going to bring you the first results as Trump refuses to rule out declaring a national emergency over elections.
Plus, a CNN investigation you'll see first OUTFRONT. Trump's covert Air Force One operation. So, we're going to show you exactly how this whole embroglio went down, how Trump was whisked off Air Force One using a catering truck.
And Governor J.B. Pritzker is our guest. Does he think another Democratic socialist is about to win a major contest tonight?
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett. And welcome to this special edition of OUTFRONT, Election Night in America.
Polls closing in multiple states right now, including South Carolina, where Lindsey Graham's sister is trying to hold on to her brother's seat. Also voting tonight, some of the country's most watched races in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So, you can see yellow, we're watching a whole slew of states, right?
Tonight's crucial votes come as Trump makes a chilling threat 84 days before the actual midterms. Just listen to it. This is an interview Trump did with right-wing host and conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Roop.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT, HOST: Let me put an idea in your head, okay? Because it's so hard to get the Senate to do anything, now they're on recess, they don't get anything done. If they never get the SAVE America Act done. You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail in ballots. And you don't even need the Senate.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me just say the strangers that have happened, okay? I'll leave it at that.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BURNETT: I'll leave it at that. Obviously refusing to rule it out, opening the door, throwing, you know, fuel on the fire. You heard what he did on declaring a national security emergency about election fraud.
One person was all too happy to echo Trump on this, and that's Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder. He's on the ballot tonight and could be the next governor of Minnesota.
Trump posted today, Mike Lindell deserves a big win in Minnesota today. Nobody has worked harder and given up so much in fighting for free and fair elections. So, what does Trump mean by that?
Let me show you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE LINDELL, MYPILLOW CEO: There were so many down tickets that were taken. There was over -- there was four senators stole, about nine congressmen, judges across the country.
If you're not thinking about fixing 2020 first, you're not going to win anyway, and shame on you. If you don't know Donald Trump won that election, you've been living in a cave, and you're not going to win.
I've been all in trying to find the machine fraud, and we've found it. We have all the evidence.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: If Mike Lindell wins his primary tonight, he'll face Senator Amy Klobuchar in the governor's race. And we're watching Minnesota, which is a state Democrats, need to hold if they want to try and win control of the Senate.
Right now, Angie Craig, a moderate, is facing off against the state's progressive Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, in the Senate primary. And in Wisconsin, the clear frontrunner in the Democratic primary for governor is a 37-year-old Democratic socialist named Francesca Hong. Moderate Democrats are worried that some of her past statements about things like abolishing police raising taxes could turn independents away this November.
John Avlon, Nina Turner, Astead Herndon and S.E. Cupp are here with me this hour to break it all down because literally I said we've got several polls closing here as I speak.
I want to start therefore with Jeff Zeleny, though, because he's OUTFRONT at a polling location in Madison, Wisconsin, where polls are closing shortly, Jeff.
So, what are you hearing from voters that are coming in and out? And I'm always curious as you look at it, it's 6:03 p.m. Central Time. What's your feeling of energy and turnout?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, there are two more hours left to voting, and people have been coming in and out of here. Just one polling location in Madison at a pretty rapid clip to work here. And I can tell you there. There's excitement on behalf of French Hong supporters. They believe that this is a true time for change. They believe that her call for a one-year moratorium on data centers, for example, is something that they are very interested in.
But supporters of David Crowley are worried. They are worried about a surge that she will be potentially having. They're worried about what that could mean for the electability in the fall.
Well, as we've been talking to voters all day long, that question of electability, which is always so elusive, certainly is resonating with some Hong voters who told us this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS BOOTZ, WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC VOTER: Well, I personally think that arguments about electability have been used very much by party elites, for example, to control the outcomes of primaries.
[19:05:01]
This allows us to vote for someone. And I think that it's something that in particular, because I have often voted Democrat, mostly voted Democratic, whether reluctantly or not, with the whole lesser of two evils thing.
ZELENY: Do you think that she can win in November?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZELENY: Well, she hopes so, and that is really the central question here. All of these hopes that are being placed into Francesca Hong, who is this Democratic socialist, certainly are high, but, Erin, the establishment here is really looking for those undecided voters here in the final hours of this race. Is there enough concern about the potential of Republicans winning this governor seat?
The Republican Governors Association, we should point out, has spent nearly $4 million on ads, effectively trying to boost Hong's candidacy. That has given Democrats a lot of pause, but just talking to voters as they come in and out, here's another voter right here. Right now, there is excitement for Hong's candidacy.
It's the same change argument we've been hearing in state after state, but this would be different. a Democratic socialist, a proud Democratic socialist. How does that play statewide? Erin?
BURNETT: All right, Jeff Zeleny, thank you. And everyone's here with me, going to be with me throughout the hour on this election night. Nina Turner, let me start with you. So, what Jeff just mentioned, that
Republicans have spent nearly $4 million on ads to try to boost Francesca Hong's candidacy because they obviously think that if she wins the primary, they can kill her in the general, right? That's the strategy.
I remember when Democrats were doing this to election deniers a few years ago, OK? So that now --
NINA TURNER (D), FORMER OHIO STATE SENATOR: Both parties play that game.
BURNETT: So -- so do you think they're -- are they right? Are they making a mistake?
TURNER: I think they're making a mistake at their own peril. Inflation is up. Wages are down. People's anxiety about what they can afford.
People are anxious about whether or not their children, if they have any, going to have a better future than they do. Over 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. So her message is resonating throughout that state in that primary. When people talk about electability, I mean, she wins the primary. Doesn't that show in that one marker that she's electable?
I didn't hear the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party talk that smack, if you will, when it came to 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost or 2024 when Vice President Harris lost. Those are corporatist type Democrats.
Only when it comes to the progressives and progressives are always told shut up, any blue will do. Well, my message to the more corporatist wing of the Democratic Party is that Francesca Hong has the wind beneath her wings in this primary and what they ought to do if she wins the primary, ultimately, if their goal is to beat the Republicans they need to get behind her and help to ensure more likely than not that she could win in that general.
BURNETT: It's interesting you mentioned affordability and Jeff Zeleny, Astead, mentioned that she supports -- Francesca Hong supports a one- year moratorium on data centers.
ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah.
BURNETT: That might be the most bipartisan popular thing that you can say in America right now. Both of those things, but not like in data centers is top of the list.
HERNDON: Yeah.
BURNETT: OK, but that's not all Francesca Hong stands for. OK? She has written back in 2020 on X. She supported defunding the police as the first step towards abolishing the police. In 2021, she said police exist, uphold white supremacy, defund, then abolish. She said it again. And she's called on other things because of her views on racism in America, canceling Thanksgiving, one of them that's gotten a lot of attention.
HERNDON: Yep.
BURNETT: Okay, does this matter in a general election? In a general election where Nina's talking about affordability, Jeff mentioned data centers, but you also got this.
HERNDON: Listen, of course, it matters in the general election, but --
BURNETT: You also have.
HERNDON: But the thing is, the Republican on this side would have run the same campaign no matter what, whether it was Francesca Hong or David Crowley or Mandela Barnes, he would have said that they're too radical for Wisconsin to try to run up margins in those suburbs in the way that Republicans have been successful in before. It might be successful in again.
But Francesca Hong is betting on is that there is a base for a moratorium on data centers. There's a base for kind of bottom versus top version of affordability, and so that when those attacks come as they will, that she's drawing from a place of support.
So, and so I think that, like, I think the ideological inconsistency of progressives has been litigated over and over again, and I part of the reason I think it's our Democrats lost in 2024. I would say I think it's actually more important right now that people are responding to the attacks that Donald Trump is going to be the central figure of November.
And if Francesca Hong can show herself in the contrast with him, that puts her in a much better place for in the general election. This will not be, I think, a referendum on her.
BURNETT: So that -- okay, that's a question. You a new op-ed out in Rolling Stone where you talk about this moment. I'm not saying specifically this race, although I'm curious whether you think it applies, but the moment that we're in, which is to learn from your former party's mistakes and the Tea Party, and when you put people who are too extreme through a primary into a general election.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
BURNETT: Is that what we're seeing now? Or is it different, like what Nina just said?
[19:10:00]
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And when you -- the lessons I learned of the 2000 aughts in my former party was when you purge, primary, and purify, you weaken your party. And we did that. We got to a point in 2008 and 2012 when we had two of the best candidates I think politics has offered Republicans in John McCain and Mitt Romney, and the Republican base had been conditioned by Republicans to distrust them. They were not conservative enough, and so Republicans stayed home in those two elections. Republican turnout went down. I am concerned for Democrats that the same thing is happening, that
this internecine fight between progressives and moderates and the purity testing and the purging in the primary is going to weaken the party, and that will leave it open for Trump and Republicans to exploit those weaknesses.
I put Francesca Hong in this category, She's of the category for me of the play stupid games, win stupid prizes election.
I put Ken Paxton in the same category. Ken Paxton is a terrible candidate, and you had John Cornyn right there. I don't think Francesca Hong is a great statewide candidate. She was clearly good -- I think she'll do well in this primary. But the conversation she's had on Twitter and in progressive circles are about to be heard by the whole of the state, and they're going to sound differently to a lot of Wisconsin voters.
JOHN AVLON, HOST, "HOST TO FIX IT WITH JOHN AVLON" PODCAST: Yeah, and look, we are seeing the beginning of a left-wing Tea Party, and the right-wing Tea Party costs probably eight Senate seats.
CUPP: That's right.
AVLON: From, you know, Sharon Angle, you know, Christine O'Donnell. O'Donnell, that's right. It's that temptation and a primary to say, we're going to really feel good about going to our base without worrying about electability. There is a constituency for data centers. I'm not sure there's a constituency for banning Thanksgiving and defund the police in Wisconsin. And I think the key step --
BURNETT: Defund as a step to abolish.
AVLON: As a step to abolish, which, you know, tell me how that's going to work as a governor. It's not.
The other thing to keep in mind, though, here, first of all, Crowley, her likely strongest second component, is an executive of Milwaukee. He says he's got competence. He's had to do an executive job, which matters if you're running for governor.
And he's not a corporatist. He's just an alternative.
And so, we are seeing a center versus left, but the key stat is the one that Jeff mentioned. Republicans are spending $4 million to promote you, to promote Hong, it's because they know she's easier to beat in November.
HERNDON: I think we just don't think that's the key stat. To me, the key stat is the primary result. And if David Crowley and Mandela Barnes and the establishment wing of the Democratic Party cannot incite their own base enough to overcome Francesca Hong in this primary, I think the burden of proof about electability is on them. They are not speaking to the issues in which their base are most speaking at, which is why they're losing.
TURNER: And people are suffering. I mean, the woman, when you speak as an activist type versus speaking when you know you got to govern. We know she's been interviewed, she said, I see things differently.
Now, it remains to be seen, does she see things differently because of the election or does she truly see things differently? But the bottom line here is that the material conditions of the American people have not changed, as a matter of fact, they've gotten worse.
And Jessica Hong is --
BURNETT: Francesca.
TURNER: I'm sorry, Francesca. I have a friend named Jessica.
BURNETT: Oh, good, no.
TURNER: Francesca Hong, Representative Hong, is speaking to that pain point.
BURNETT: But you keep mentioning that. You're hoping it comes back to that.
TURNER: I do. I mean --
BURNETT: But how do you keep the message on that when you're someone who said abolish Thanksgiving and abolish the police? I'm sorry, whatever, abolish --
TURNER: No. Listen, no one is talking about how she said abolish Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, quite frankly, is not the happiest holiday for a whole lot of people.
CUPP: Everybody's talking about it. And that's a problem.
TURNER: No, no, what we're going to see is that are the voters in Wisconsin, they care about that, not us.
CUPP: But the argument you two are making would make sense if this were a blue state. It's a swing state.
HERNDON: But I don't think -- I don't even think we proven that swing voters care about these kind of things.
AVLON: But the media does.
HERNDON: As much as I think -- I think the kind of woke one versus woke two is an intellectual consistency that bothers a certain type of liberal a lot more than it bothers the working class base.
She is proving in this primary that she is speaking to that group of people, even if it's not the version of liberal politics that I think.
AVLON: I don't know what virtue of liberal politics of abolishing Thanksgiving is, but I don't even think that fits.
TURNER: I mean --
AVLON: The point here is that -- HERNDON: I'm saying there's not a penalty that --
AVLON: Republicans clearly want to run against her for a reason. And there's a certain giddy thrill of going over a cliff before you hit the ground. And this is what Republicans learn from the right-wing Tea Party, and it's what Democrats will eventually learn from the left- wing Tea Party.
Wisconsin was within one point the last three presidential elections. This is not a deep blue state. It's not a deep blue district.
BURNETT: And you're all going to stay here. Our conversation is going to continue.
And next, we have Trump's secret flight. We've got a new investigation that you're going to see first here OUTFRONT. And what you're going to see is a complete breakdown of how the Secret Service did this. How did they get Trump on Air Force One and then get him off on the catering thing that comes up as a complete breakdown of how the Secret Service did this. How did they get Trump on Air Force One and then get him off on the catering thing that comes up and sticks its head into the front of the plane with the food?
[19:15:03]
Anyway -- Trump, the whole thing is just so undignified.
Okay. President Trump today also comparing the MMR vaccine to a nuclear weapon. I'm speechless. This came a day after he signed an executive order saying some crucial vaccines are no longer recommended for children.
So, the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, is going to speak about that next.
And breaking news, search and rescue crews scrambling to find people who are still trapped after the devastating series of earthquakes in Columbia. Our David Culver is actually there. He's on the ground with the latest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, we have new details about Trump's secret plane switch as he was facing what was perceived by U.S. intelligence to be an imminent threat as the White House and administration face a multitude of questions about how they handled the scheme.
[19:20:07]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, did you put Americans at risk by having them flying Air Force One when it was under threat? How persistent would you direct the president?
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: The smile and walk away.
A U.S. official tells CNN that after boarding Air Force One in front of the camera so everybody could see him do it, Trump then secretly hid inside a catering truck next to the plane, and then that catering truck wheeled him over to another plane, a smaller plane, and that's how he left Turkey.
Now you can see the reporters boarding Air Force One. They did not know there was an imminent threat to any plane that Trump was on. They certainly didn't know that Trump was then removed from the plane without anybody who was going to instigate threat knowing that he was removed from the plane. And nobody knew any of this. So they were on a decoy plane under supposedly imminent threat.
Kevin Liptak is OUTFRONT with everything we know about how the ruse was pulled off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (voice-over): At 7.54 p.m., preparations get underway at the Ankara Airport to execute the subterfuge. You can see in this video, airport catering trucks begin getting into position at the side of the blue and white Legacy Air Force One that Trump said he was using to return to Washington.
At 8:24 p.m., Trump's motorcade arrives to the tarmac. As it speeds towards Air Force One, another smaller plane, a C-32A, is parked nearby. This shot is the best vantage of how the two planes are positioned on the tarmac.
As the motorcade rounds the corner, you can see the two catering trucks at the side of the jumbo jet lifted up on hydraulics to doors on the right side of the plane. A few minutes later, Trump climbs the staircase and waves before entering his cabin. You can see the catering right there beneath the fuselage. At the back of the plane, reporters and staff line up to get on board.
Once they're in their seats, the Secret Service tells them to keep their window shades down. Agents even come to the cabin, which faces out toward the smaller C-32A to make sure all the shades are lowered.
And this is when the shell game begins. A U.S. official says Trump was whisked off the plane and into a waiting catering truck. At 8:28 p.m., you can see a man in a suit climbing into the truck's cab. The container is lowered and the truck pulls out a minute later. The truck drives away from the bigger plane across the tarmac and pulls up to the C-32A.
By zooming in, you can see it right there behind the engines. A person in a suit steps out of the cab, walks to the stairs and gets on board. The bigger plane, now without the president on board, takes off at 8:44 p.m., passing right past the smaller plane with Trump inside. The smaller plane taxis away a minute later.
As for the third plane, the Boeing 747 donated by Qatar, which Trump has been using in the US and actually flew to Turkey on, it departed a few hours earlier, which can be seen here with the other two planes.
Trump claimed at the time he wanted to show it off to troops in England. Flight tracking data shows that former Qatari jet landed at Mildenhall Air Force Base in the 6:26 p.m. local time. It bore the call sign SAM-33, short for Special Air Mission.
Forty minutes later, the legacy Air Force One plane, the blue and white one, appears on radar near Istanbul with no call sign. Tracking data shows that as it flies over Romania, the plane begins using the call sign AF-1 for Air Force One, though the president was not on board. It lands at Mildenhall at around 10:29 p.m. local time.
LIPTAK: The smaller plane, the one Trump is actually on, doesn't show up on publicly available flight trackers, but video from YouTube shows it landing at Mildenhall at around the same time as the bigger plane. We don't know exactly how Trump moved from the smaller plane to the bigger one, but it took about 20 minutes for reporters to get off the plane once it had touched down plenty of time for President Trump to sneak back on board.
By 10:56 p.m., Trump can be seen descending the stairs of the legacy Air Force One, this time in view of the cameras.
LIPTAK (voice-over): He walked across the tarmac slowly back to the Qatar jet for the flight home to Washington. On the way home, he was asked about some of the unusual security precautions.
TRUMP : You're probably on a dangerous flight because if this lease bags that we have to deal with, but if I go, you go right? So perhaps -- perhaps someday, you want to change professions.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LIPTAK: So, he says there if I go, you go. In fact, that's not at all what would happen if disaster had struck on this particular flight. Those reporters, as well as the staff who were left on board, essentially left to be unwitting decoys for the president's plane.
Now everyone who travels on Air Force One knows that they are not the security priority. That's just implicit in the arrangement. But I've covered this building for 15 years. I've talked to people who have covered it for much longer, and no one can remember another instance of being put on a plane without the president that was the subject of an active threat -- Erin.
BURNETT: Thank you very much, Kevin.
Yeah, I mean, and the whole reason happened, it was an imminent threat.
I want to go now to the Governor of Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker.
And, Governor Pritzker, I appreciate your time.
I mean, you know, you hear Trump on the on the final leg home from this trip saying to reporters, knowing that they had flown on the decoy plane that was under an imminent threat and that he had not, right? He says, quote, "If I go, you go, right?"
You know, what do you even, how haunting is that statement given what we know now as you look at all this, this whole thing that was pulled off with catering trucks?
GOV. JB PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: Well, it's obviously not true if I go, you go. That's not what happened, in fact, it was a bait-and-switch. He put people in harm's way to save himself. That's who Donald Trump is.
And he's willing to put our troops in harm's way and they were in Iran, even though he shouldn't have done that in the first place. He's also somebody who obviously -- I mean, he slinked away literally in a catering truck while the reporters and his own staff were on a plane that apparently was under threat.
BURNETT: You know, it's his own staff. I mean, it is pretty incredible. And then not only governor that, right, they made a point of showing him board Air Force once everybody saw him do it. So, everybody believed -- the reporters believed he was on a plane.
But then when he got off the plane, they stuck him back on so he could walk off the plane. They're hoping that nobody would ever know this had happened.
I just want to be clear here. "The New York Times" reporting originally was extremely clear, right? It was that the imminent threat was to whatever plane Trump was believed to be flying on. So, the White House made every effort for everyone on the planet to believe that the plane that Trump is on was the plane that all the reporters were on and his own staff was on even though they took him off. right? I mean, that's -- that's the -- that's the fact of the situation.
You know, how do you make sense of this? Do you think that anyone on that plane had the right to be briefed on this, even though they're not the primary security focus?
PRITZKER: He did not need to put his staff and those reporters in harm's way. He literally could have warned them and taken them off the flight. There were other ways to handle this, but instead he was okay with the idea that maybe that plane would be shot down or maybe there was some other security threat to that aircraft. That's clearly what all of this indicates. He really doesn't give a darn about the people on that plane.
Now, remember, he was also slinking away and ending up on his new Qatar paid for and apparently personally received 747. That's -- I mean, that total act of corruption. He's accepting money and gifts from foreign governments.
This is at a moment when people can't afford food. People aren't going to have Medicaid. to cover them, to give them health care. And he's taking all those things away from them. And meanwhile, we're all talking about this ruse and what he's doing to the people around him.
We all ought to be focusing on what's best for the people of the United States who are frankly under threat by Donald Trump and H.R.1.
BURNETT: So, there are a couple of other things I want to ask you about. When you talk about the future of America, we have a whole bunch of elections tonight, Governor. One of them that's getting a lot of talk, of course, is the one in which 37-year-old Democratic socialist Francesca Hong is expected.
We'll see what happens. We'll see if the polls turn out to be the case. But it looks like the front runner to win the Democratic nomination for governor of Wisconsin, obviously borders your state.
Throughout the campaign, Hong has had to defend past social media posts, as you're well aware of, in which she has called to defund the police as a step towards abolishing the police multiple times. She's talked about abolishing the Senate, abolishing ICE, and abolishing Thanksgiving.
Now, she's tried to walk some of this back, but, you know, this is an important moment for a Democrat like yourself. Do candidates like Hong, are they good for Democrats? Do you think that if she wins tonight, she can win in November? And do you back her?
PRITZKER: Well, I don't agree with a lot of the things that you've said she's articulated. But I can tell you this, the candidates that are winning are the candidates who are talking about affordability, who are talking about trying to help people pay their electric bill, pay their rent. send their kids to college -- those candidates are winning and the candidates that are on team fight, that is to say the people who are standing up and pushing back against the MAGA Republicans and that in the end is what we're all aiming at as Democrats.
BURNETT: So --
PRITZKER: We've got to win in November and the candidates that are articulating the things that really matter are the ones who not only going to win those primaries but also the general.
[19:30:01]
BURNETT: Well, it's interesting because we were having conversation at this table as to whether affordability was going to matter or whether the one thing that people would remember about Francesca Hong when it comes to the general election was oh that's the person who said get rid of Thanksgiving.
I mean, do you think someone can get past saying that?
PRITZKER: Well, she's -- she's not the only one in the race. Let's point that out. And people are going to make a decision tonight about that.
I think in the general election, honestly, what people are really going to be asking is, are you going to help me live my life? Are you going to make life easier for me and my family? Those are the questions that really matter to people. BURNETT: I want to ask you about something else I know important to you, which is something you just signed. children. And Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has responded. He's released a lengthy memo talking about his vision of the future for AI, OK? And he says that the government should get access to resources it needs to protect security, but that there should be no delays in building data centers or releasing advanced models, A.I. models, OK?
And he writes, quote, any policy that slows American model releases even by a month could add significant risk to American leadership while letting foreign models race ahead.
You could just be direct here, he's talking about China. But he's saying more government, the government getting involved to try to slow this down is a bad thing. What do you say to that?
PRITZKER: It's not about slowing it down. It is about putting guardrails up. Our A.I. safety measures act is really all about stopping the challenges that we're clearly going to face, potentially existential challenges, putting an emergency plan in place so that those A.I. algorithms don't get out to control without our ability essentially to kill it. And of course, our legislation, which is more comprehensive than the one that was passed in California and in New York, requires an audit of the algorithm. regularly.
So, look, we're doing everything we can at the state level. But let's be clear: Donald Trump is failing and the MAGA Republicans in Congress are failing to put any guardrails up.
And we know A.I. can be dangerous. Why are they doing this? It's because, frankly, Donald Trump is getting wealthy off of those owners like Mark Zuckerberg, the owners of the A.I. companies. And he doesn't want to do anything to interfere with his ability to get money from them.
And then I want to point out that, you know, you had Mark Zuckerberg on the screen and I can say, you know, we passed a law here at the same time as the A.I. Safety Measures Act called the Illinois Children's Online Social Media Act. And that act is about making sure that we're stopping the addictive algorithms that are aimed at our kids. It prevents financial scams and it gives parents more control.
Those are all things that we need to be doing. Look, the economy is evolving. Technology is taking over. We're going to have to change the way we deal with these problems. And in Illinois, anywhere, we're trying to stay ahead of it. What we need is a national government that's helping us.
BURNETT: All right. Governor Pritzker, I appreciate your time, and thank you very much.
We have breaking news after this. We are getting results out of South Carolina. Polls closed there, so we're getting results. That's where Lindsey Graham's sister is trying to keep her late brother's Senate seat after Trump endorsed her. John King is live at the magic wall. And our K-File uncovering videos from a top Democratic Senate
candidate that he doesn't want anybody to see anymore. So why did Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed question fireworks on the 4th of July and security on the southern border? You'll see.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:37:55]
BURNETT: Breaking news, the first results coming out. South Carolina, polls are closed, and we've got some results here at CNN. Darline Graham, sister of late Lindsey Graham, who's finishing out his term in the Senate right now, is fighting in a crowded and contentious primary. President Trump has complicated the race, angered his own party because he jumped in and endorsed Darline Graham to run for a full term.
I want to go to John King OUTFRONT at the magic wall.
So, John, as I said, polls closed. You've got some results early on here, but what are you seeing?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A couple of interesting things, Erin. Let me start with the fact that it is early, only about 13 percent of the vote. And what you're seeing on the map, I'll get closer to explain it in just a second, is mostly early votes.
If you had to make a guess right now, we're going to a runoff. We don't know that yet. We need to count all these votes, but you need 50 percent plus one to get to a runoff. Darline Graham, the appointed senator, as you noted, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, is at 30 percent right now.
What you have is four candidates, Darline Graham, two Republican members of Congress, Ralph Norman, Russell Fry, and a former Republican member of Congress and the former governor or the candidates in this race.
And, Erin, what we have so far as you know, the old cliche politics is local. Well, you see the dark red up here. This is Russell Fry where he's leading. That's roughly his congressional district. You see all this yellow over here? That's Ralph Norman. That is roughly his congressional district.
Remember Mark Sanford before he was governor? He represented Charleston. That's roughly his old congressional district.
So we have a lot of all politics is local at the moment, anywhere where there's not a congressman or the former congressman on the ballot. That's Darline Graham, the appointed senator, winning in those areas.
So just an interesting quirk as we go through the early votes. But if this holds and Ralph Norman does very well where he's well known, Russell Frye does very well where he now is well known, Mark Sanford does very well where he is best known, then you're heading for a runoff.
It's early votes right now. Trump has obviously endorsed Darline Graham. You're dead on, angered a lot of South Carolina Republicans when he did that. But here we go.
And so, the question is, can she get to 50 plus one or can any of them get there at 13 percent? We do have a lot of votes to count, but my early bet would be runoff.
BURNETT: Certainly from the math and I know only 13 percent in, but the math there certainly looks that way.
All right, the other race taking a lot of air out of the room, right, everyone's talking about this, is in Wisconsin, where Francesca Hong, a Democratic socialist, is a strong contender to win the gubernatorial primary for Democrats.
[19:40:11]
And that would make her the first Democratic socialist governor ever in American history if she wins both tonight and again in November, right?
KING: Right.
BURNETT: So -- and this is a crucial battleground state. So, as we've been saying, it's not as if this is some deep blue state where it's going to be. What's your flavor of Democrat winning? So, what do you see here?
KING: And Erin, just to add to the emphasis to your absolutely correct point, it comes right after Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed in that Senate race, right? He's not a Democratic socialist. He doesn't identify as one, but he runs on pretty much the same agenda as Bernie Sanders in the Democratic socialist.
Can you win a Senate race in Michigan Will we have that same question? Can you win a governor's race in, again, very, very purple Wisconsin? What are we looking for?
The two main candidates, David Crowley, the former Milwaukee County Executive, Francesca Hong, as you noted, this here is also going to be a little bit of what I just went through. All politics is local.
Francesca Hong, the Democratic socialist, the insurgent, is from Dane County. That is the biggest liberal county. It's not the largest by population, but it's the most liberal county in the state of Wisconsin.
University of Wisconsin here, Dane County here. It's about 10 percent of the population. That is her home base. That is where she needs to run it up.
There are more people. It's about 16 percent of the population that live here in Milwaukee County. That is where David Crowley has been again in local politics there, about 15 percent, obviously a very deep blue county as well. That's where you have the African American base of the Democratic Party and other Democrats as well.
So those two counties early on, Erin, when the votes come in is where you look first. But it's a big, complicated state. It's largely if you go back to the presidential race, there are not a lot of blue counties in Wisconsin, right? They're mostly down here in the southern part of the state.
But if we get into a tight contest going deep into the night, then you're just looking for who can turn out the votes. That's where the Hong campaign believes it has the advantage. It believes, like Abdul El Sayed, that the Sanders organization, the Democratic Socialist organization, has the text, the technology and the context to motivate and actually get people out to vote. But we're going to see.
One other quick point, early voting was open before two other candidates dropped out, so there's a possibility that something like 90,000 early ballots had been cast. It's possible that if this is a very close race, that that could come into the math as well. People voting for candidates who are no longer in the race.
BURNETT; That's an interesting point and one that hasn't been made yet.
All right, John King, thank you very much. And Everyone's back here with me.
It's interesting, S.E., when you think about that, those 90,000 ballots, like do those end up being relevant? We'll see. And it's so hard to know because the polling when we saw in Michigan was so wildly off that it's hard to know whether the polls indicate anything about where we're going.
CUPP: It is hard to know, and it's especially hard to know in a state like Wisconsin, right? It's a swing state, it's a purple state for a reason. So, you've got all different kinds of voters out there, but John King is right about one thing, and this is a lesson.
BURNETT: Oh, he's right about everything.
CUPP: Well, he's right about lots of things. But one thing in particular I really, really liked, the DSA machine is good. Mamdani hacked this, okay? And Mamdani won with basically no help from the DNC, right, in New York City. The DSA provided all the ground game, the get out the vote. They were really organized. for a party that seemed to have come kind of out of nowhere.
So, she will definitely have the benefit of the DSA in Wisconsin, but I'm just imagining like my friends who deer hunt in Wisconsin, right? And my friends who are Packers owners, right? And go to Packers game, they are not close to voting for a Francesca Hong.
And I'm not even sure they'd vote for a Democrat at all, but for those kinds of voters, they exist in a place like Wisconsin. And it's important to remember that as we're thinking about these very young, very online candidates who have this history of everything they've ever thrown up on Twitter to now have to defend to a very wide audience outside of the one county where she was, you know, surrounded by friendlies.
BURNETT: So, you know, in all of this is we're having a normal election conversation in an abnormal time, but we're talking about who's going to weigh and who's going to lose. I just want to remind everybody about what Trump said earlier today in that interview with Wayne Allyn Root. Let me just play it again.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT, HOST: If they never get the SAVE America Act done. You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. And you don't even need the Senate.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me just say the strangers that have happened, okay? I'll leave it at that.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
AVLON: Yeah, we live in dangerous times, and that's just the latest sign, because the president of the United States just left the door open to calling a national emergency to affect the election outcome. That just happened in the United States of America, and we've gotten a little numb to it. We say that a lot.
But that should wake everybody wide awake because they've already been taking actions to meddle in elections, right?
[19:45:01]
They've been threatening to withhold, Jake Tapper's had a lot of reporting on the U.S. Postal Service saying they're not going to let mail-in ballots, they're going to try to withhold funds. He's still whinging about the 2020 election on the basis of precisely nothing. And now he's getting sort of a teed-up question about calling in a national emergency to impact the elections, and he leaves the door wide open. That's dangerous.
BURNETT: Yeah. And a lot of people have said, Oh, well, he's just saying this. He's just saying this, they're not really going to do it.
HERNDON: I think we should take Trump at his word. here because his actions have proven his seriousness on this front election denial is a consistency, a feature of Donald Trump's politics. And so is the creating the pretense for said denial.
His speech that he gave in Washington about supposed threats wasn't some serendipitous act. It was him laying the groundwork for what we can see in November. And so, I think we should see uh these midterms elections as one where Donald Trump will be the main character. We've been in this primary fight of D -- of a progressive versus moderate. And certainly, Republicans are going to try to make the focus on progressives, but Donald Trump has an obsession with the spotlight, and he will take his radicalism --
TURNER: When they're trying to get the voter to doubt the integrity of our election system. And of all the things this president could be working on, this is not it.
AVLON: And remember, Trump's 25 percent with independents. He is deeply unpopular. When you're in that position, you either don't care or you try to find another way to win.
TURNER: That's right.
BUIRNETT: Thank you all very much.
And our KFILE next, uncovering new private videos from Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee. We just mentioned him, Abdul El-Sayed. What do they tell us about the man who just won the nation's most contentious Democratic primary? KFILE, next to show you.
Plus, crews in Colombia are racing. They're trying to rescue people trapped in the rubble after the deadly earthquakes. There was a miraculous rescue today of a baby, we're going to take you to the ground.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:50:02]
BURNETT: Breaking news, polls closing soon in two crucial Democratic primary elections, Wisconsin and Minnesota, where a DSA and a far left candidate are fighting to shape the direction of the Democratic Party to define it. As an exclusive CNN KFILE investigation is landing tonight on Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee Abdul Sayed -- Abdul El-Sayed. It reveals more than 100 videos on his YouTube channel that appear to have been made private before he launched his campaign.
Now, CNN reviewed archived transcripts of those videos, and they're on very different topics, but their deletion is notable. In one, El-Sayed floated the replacing the Second Amendment's right to bear arms with a constitutional right to healthcare. In another, he dismissed GOP concerns about the security of the southern border. And in another, he asked Americans to, quote, "Please find another way to celebrate the 4th of July," promising four reasons, quote, "why fireworks suck."
KFILE's Andrew Kaczynski uncovered all of this, and he joins me now.
So, Andrew, when you really had to go digging for this because this is videos where, you know, they've been deleted is the whole point.
ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Yeah.
BURNETT: So, you found them, were able to go through the transcripts of the videos. And what did you find?
KACZYNSKI: Well, Erin, this is all part of a broader pattern that we found with Abdul El-Sayed. We -- se spent years as a prolific commentator. before launching his Senate campaign. And we had previously covered on this show that he deleted a lot of tweets about defund the police.
Now, what we have found now is more than 100 of his YouTube videos on his YouTube channel that appear to have been made private. And one thing that is worth noting here. is that his campaign now says that these don't reflect his beliefs today. But one thing that's worth pointing out is this really isn't a distant archive. These are comments from the last four years with one of these videos posted as recently as two years ago.
I want to run through a few of them of what we found. Now you did mention that 4th of July video. You can see the taken down video right there from July 2024. El Sayed cited air pollution from Detroit, fireworks, chemicals used in fireworks, PTSD among veterans and risk to children and pets.
And he asked if Americans could find another way to celebrate. And, Erin, that is really just one example. In another that we found from April 2023 after a school shooting in Tennessee, El Sayed floated replacing the Second Amendment right to bear arms with a constitutional right to health care, saying, what if we tweaked the Constitution, amended the amendment, and instead of the right to bear arms, we changed it to the right to have health care.
In another September 2022 video that we found, El Sayed also blasted Republicans for focusing on the southern border, calling it an issue they, quote, love to flog, adding in, quote, "it doesn't even make the top five among issues that people in the United States actually care about that affect their lives".
BURNETT: It's interesting. I mean, that one, for example, you can see why you might choose to take down others. It's less clear. So, then you sort of wonder what's the, you know, what's the line that goes through all these things.
You did also find some comments about football, which are getting play. And unlike these other videos, that episode is still online.
KACZYNSKI: Well, that's right, football. Exactly, because this is from his podcast. There was a February 2023 episode of "America Dissected" podcast where El-Sayed questioned whether there was any version of football that he said could be, quote, "ethical or safe," and he linked the culture of the sport which he did play growing up to something much broader. He said narratives that had been historically used to justify slavery, westward expansion and other forms of oppression.
Listen to him there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: You think about all the wars we fight abroad, all of the sordid history of oppressing other people in the name of this American idea right whether it was, quote, manifest destiny and destroying uh Native Americans or it was the transatlantic slave trade where, you know, folks who, quote, founded this country on the backs of native folks that they destroyed then captured people enslaved them and had them work their fields because they thought it was their right, right?
And all of this, like a lot of these narratives, you kind of see echoed in the ethos of football.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KACZYNSKI: So, Erin, we did reach out to El Sayed's campaign to ask about all of this. We asked if they would make those unlisted videos public. Again, they didn't respond to that, but they did tell CNN this. They said, "Abdul is the former captain of his high school football team. He loves Michigan football on Saturdays and celebrates the 4th of July with fireworks like the next Michigander. Cherry-pick comments from old podcasts don't collect his views today."
BURNETT: It's interesting, again, what he chose to delete and not to delete. The one that he obviously chose not to delete, the one about football and then --
KACZYNSKI: That was from his podcast. Most of the podcast wasn't deleted. What we had found was that, again, we talked about in the show was the tweets and the videos. That's all gone. The podcast is still up.
BURNETT: All right. KFILE, thank you very much. Andrew Kaczynski.
[19:55:00]
And next, live pictures out of Colombia where hundreds are scrambling to move rubble, searching desperately for survivors. David Culver is there on the ground. He's in one of the very hardest hit places.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, this video that you're seeing here is it's dramatic. It shows a rescue of a baby from the rubble of a collapsed building in Western Columbia, a miracle following the devastating earthquake. Emergency workers right now, though, are desperately trying to find more survivors. At least 224 people are known to have died.
David Culver is OUTFRONT. He is there on the ground in Colombia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Erin, 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 they're 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 one's 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 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 -- Erin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: David, thank you very much as we all hope for more miracles there.
And thanks to all of you for being with us.
"AC360" starts now
