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New Day

Trump Foe Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Loses Wyoming GOP Primary in Landslide; Washington Post Reports, Trump Searching for Vet Defense Team, But Getting Rejected; St. Louis Schools Offering Gas Cards Amid Bus Driver Shortage. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The standards for heartthrobs on this show is high, Sanjay, and you've hit it.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: At this stage of life, I have three teenage girls. I'm not sure when I'm being mocked or I'm being flattered, but I guess that's just part of the territory (ph). But, you know, I will say just watching that clip as an Indian- American and seeing maunder (ph) with the deities set up, I never imagined in my life that I would see it represented that way in a Netflix show and Brianna Keilar is watching this show. It's amazing for me just to see that. But mocked or flattered, I don't know. I'm not sure which.

KEILAR: But I think it's flattered, but I think you should take it because it is so fun, it is so much fun. And I agree with you, I love seeing this representation and it's a very popular show, so everyone is seeing this moment, Sanjay.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Go with flattery, Sanjay. Thank you so much.

New Day continues right now.

KEILAR: Congresswoman Liz Cheney losing her House seat in a landslide to a Trump-backed election denier. I'm Brianna Keilar with John Berman this morning.

So, Cheney was defeated last night by more than a two to one margin, the surest sign yet that Donald Trump still has a stranglehold on the soul of the Republican Party. For now, Cheney will continue to serve as vice chair of the January 6th committee, and whatever the future holds, she vows to do everything in her power to keep the former president from ever returning to office.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Two years ago, I won this primary with 73 percent of the vote. I could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election.

That was a path I could not and would not take.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It is not clear what Cheney plans to do once she leaves Congress. The woman who defeated her, Harriet Hageman, had this to say in her victory speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIET HAGEMAN (R), DEFEATED REP. LIZ CHENEY IN WYOMING PRIMARY: Wyoming has drawn a line in the sand that if we put you in power, you will be accountable to us, you will answer to us and you will do what is in our best interests. And if you don't, we will fire you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: In Alaska, incumbent Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, she advanced to the general election along with Trump-backed candidate Kelly Tshibaka and Democrat Patricia Chesbro.

Now, there were two races for the same house seat in Alaska, a special election and a primary, there is ranked-choice voting there and there is still a ton of absentee ballot out in both races, so we just don't know where it is headed at this point. And that, of course, includes the fate of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

Let's talk about these races. Here now, CNN Political Director David Chalian. David, nice to see you.

In Wyoming, really, a historic result.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. I mean, you don't see margins like this usually in competitive primaries, but what this proves, this 37-point win for Harriet Hageman, it wasn't all that competitive. And I don't think Liz Cheney is terribly surprised in talking to her folks about this result. It also sort of matched up with some of the pre-election polling that we saw out there, John.

But what this says to me is this is Donald Trump's Republican Party. That is simple. Liz Cheney was making an argument purely about trying to move the party in a different direction and that argument was resoundingly defeated.

BERMAN: By more than 30 points. I mean, resoundingly is a landslide in this case.

CHALIAN: Yes, there is no doubt about that. I mean, as Liz Cheney herself in her speech last night said, she won this primary with 70 -- north of 70 percent of the vote just two years ago. Now, she's down to 28.9 percent. That dive in support among Wyoming Republican primary voters is because she went against the former president.

And, John, we should just note, Liz Cheney is now the last of the ten House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump in the aftermath of January 6th. Take a look at Donald Trump's sort of revenge record here, okay? Four didn't even choose to run for reelection, they retired even though they were on Donald Trump's target list, probably because they were on Donald Trump's target list that fed into their retirement desires. Four lost their primaries against Trump-backed challengers. And two actually won and they are now moving on to November. Donald Trump didn't even get involved in the David Valadao race in California. Here, Dan Newhouse edged out a Trump-backed challenger.

BERMAN: And, look, we are going to talk about this later in the show also but Liz Cheney, she makes the case that it was worth it and she is going to continue this fight. Now, you talk about the impeachment ten, there's also, what, the conviction seven in the Senate, the Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump. Lisa Murkowski was one of them and she is advancing in the Senate race in Alaska.

CHALIAN: So, Lisa Murkowski is clearly benefitting from the way in which the Alaska system works.

[07:05:00]

Everybody is on the same ballot in this primary, right? The top four advance on to the general election in November.

That being the case, Lisa Murkowski, she actually emerges up top here -- I mean, there is still, as you noted, a ton of mail vote to come in, we will see if she maintains this first position in initial preferences, but she now advances on and she was able to -- even though Donald Trump's backed challenger will also advance on, Kelly Tshibaka, she was able to sort of stem that Trump tide that has wiped out so many of those Republican colleagues.

You want to talk about the House race?

BERMAN: Let's talk about the House races.

CHALIAN: So, as you noted earlier, John, there are two things going on here but I just want to focus on the special election. That is the House race to replace in this term for the remaining six months of the year, or what have you, the late congressman, Don Young, his death left a vacancy, what happened here is these folks are now going to have to deal with ranked choice voting, because here is the reality, nobody got 50 percent plus one. If you don't have a majority, you are in the top four, here there are only three candidates, one dropped out, and they are now going to have to wait until August 31st. So, not only do we have to get all that mail vote in and we will see where the initial preference lands, but on August 31st, the computations will be done, if nobody has a majority, okay, who is your second choice, they do a computation, the person at the bottom drops out. And they do it until somebody has a majority of the vote.

BERMAN: And if you are trying to figure out what's going to happen in the next 15 days and what matters most, you might be looking at these bottom two, who is going to be the one lopped off, right, in 15 days. There's so much vote out there. It's not clear at all. So, it's not impossible that Sarah Palin has lobbed off. I suppose it's not impossible that the Democrat at this point is lopped off too. There's just enough vote out there at this point.

CHALIAN: And there may be enough split between the Republicans.

BERMAN: David Chalian, great to see you, thank you very much.

KEILAR: Let's talk more about Liz Cheney's loss and the future of the party. Joining me now, CNN Reporter Gabby Orr and former chief strategist for Mitt Romney's Presidential Campaign Stuart Stevens. He also is an adviser to The Lincoln Project, which is a Republican group opposed to Trump.

Gabby, you know, the die was cast. I think we see by just how much of a landslide this was. But what is the message today?

GABBY ORR, CNN REPORTER: Well, Brianna, Republicans who are aligned with Donald Trump are certainly celebrating the resounding defeat of Congresswoman Cheney last night, but we know that moving forward this is not going to stop Liz Cheney from her work to prevent Donald Trump from either becoming the Republican nominee in 2024 or even winning a second term.

I want to read to you a statement that was just given to me by a spokesperson for Liz Cheney about her future. Here is what her spokesperson, Jeremy Adler, said. He said, in the coming weeks, Liz will be launching an organization to educate the American people about the ongoing threat to our republic and to mobilize a unified effort to oppose any Donald Trump campaign for president.

So, while Republicans who support former President Trump are waking up very pleased this morning with the defeat of Cheney, this does not mean that she is going away. She will continue to be a headache for those types of Republicans and for Trump himself.

KEILAR: And here in months, she will not, though, be in Congress, Stuart. So, how is this going to change the dynamics as you see it in the party?

STUART STEVENS, FORMER ROMNEY PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN CHIEF STRATEGIST: Well, look, I think the party is pretty lost. What we saw last night, you know, we get normalized by this as it happens slowly. But in 2022, Cheney was drummed out of the Republican Party and had nothing to do with policy. She supported Trump's policy, a conservative policy pretty much across the line to the extent there was a coherent policy.

I think it's a big mistake if we make this too much about Trump because, really, this is about the complete abandonment of a Republican Party, a major political party, and one of the two major political parties in America, abandoning the concept of what it means to operate within a democratic system. Ultimately, this is about the fact that Republicans were unwilling to lose.

Now, Donald Trump was on the ballot, but not one of those Republicans had to go along with that. And the ones that didn't pretty much have been punished by the party. So, what does that mean? That means these people wake up today in a world, in an America in which they think their president is not a legally elected president. They think he's an occupier.

And if Donald Trump runs against Biden, whoever will be the nominee for the Republicans, DeSantis runs against him, whomever, they're not going to be running in a normal race between two political parties with different philosophies. It will be a race to remove an occupier in the office. And I just think we haven't established and come to grips with the language even to talk about this.

KEILAR: Does she have a political future, do you think?

[07:10:00]

STEVENS: Sure. Listen, I'm a huge Liz Cheney fan. I wrote a book in 2001 and I predicted she would run for president. I didn't think it would play out this way. I don't know what her plans are. I don't think an independent can be elected president in America. It's just not possible now. I think that her choices to have an impact in the election are varied.

Ultimately, we forget that politics is hugely a game of very small numbers and a few numbers in a few key states can make a difference. Trump won by 40 something votes if you look at exact right precincts.

And I think also Liz Cheney is out there reminding Americans, but particularly reminding the Republican Party what it is to be an American. To be an American, you have to exist in a system in which you believe both sides can have merit, and if the other side wins, you are willing to lose. That's the essence of it. And that's the difference between us and what happens in Russia, us and what is now happening in Hungary, where they have sort of a faux free election system. And that's what Republicans want.

And we should not underestimate this. This is what they are trying to do. January 6th was not just an isolated event. It wasn't some like rave. It is part of a calculated, very patient effort by Republicans to change the way that we vote in America, change the way that we count votes in America, and they are doing that because they know that as America changes, they are losing a majority support of Americans and they have to do something. It has become an autocratic party.

KEILAR: And the Republicans who support that, you know, they're going to make up, Gabby, a bigger share of what you see in the House of Representatives. That's just what's going to happen, when you look at the ten impeachment Republicans, those who voted to impeach Donald Trump in the wake of January 6th, the disappearance of so many of them. Look, two have won a primary here. This was the death knell in a way for so many of them. How is that going to change the dynamics in the House of Representatives, Gabby, especially if Republicans are able to win those few seats they need to take over the majority in the midterms?

ORR: Well, I think one person is going to be very happy with the potential new makeup of the house GOP conference, and that is Kevin McCarthy, who is very well-positioned to become speaker of the House if republicans do take -- do take back Congress in November. Look, the past year-and-a-half has been one where Kevin McCarthy has had to wrangle people, like Liz Cheney and others, in his conference who have deviated from sort of the Trump talking points on the 2020 election, who have refused to bow down to Donald Trump as sort of the kingmaker inside the GOP. And now, we're seeing this influx of candidates who are completely ideologically aligned with Donald Trump and who have completely accepted and regurgitated his falsehoods about the 2020 election. That could mean trouble for the Republicans if they do take back Congress in terms of what the country will see them pursue, investigation-wise, oversight-wise.

Kevin McCarthy has already signaled that he will be open to launching investigations into what happened in 2020 if Republicans take back Congress, and he will definitely have the support of those members if they are elected. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, and into what just happened with this Mar-a-Lago search as well, we should expect a spate of investigation if that's the case.

Gabby, Stuart, thank you so much to both of you.

BERMAN: Did someone mention the Mar-a-Lago search? The Washington Post is now reporting that former President Trump is rushing to assemble a team of veteran lawyers to defend him from potential criminal exposure after classified documents were recovered from his Florida home but he keeps getting rejected. According to court documents, we know of two high profile lawyers representing Trump, Kevin O'Connor, who was banned, and Steve Bannon's trial, and Jim Trusty, who was a former federal prosecutor. Trump and his allies have put forth a number of arguments following the search.

Let's talk more about those arguments and how effective they might be. With us, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

Elie, their defense has evolved, right, but there have been some distinct themes and let's discuss how valid they may or may not be based on the evidence that we have. Defense number one, they've argued all these documents had been declassified.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. So, let's start with what we know, John. For sure when the FBI went into Mar-a-Lago, they seized boxes that were marked with containing confidential and classified documents, up to and including TSSCI documents, which is the highest level of classification.

[07:15:00]

Now, legally, constitutionally, the president has extremely broad, arguably unlimited power to declassify documents at his will. Yes, there are rules, regulations, that kind of thing, but I think the better constitutional argument is that it's up to the president. The question here, though, is did he -- did he actually exercise that constitutional power to declassify while he was in office?

Now, I've seen no convincing evidence that he did. You would expect there to be some sort of paper trail and, in fact, you cracked the case to an extent the other day when John Bolton, the former national security adviser, told you this, there was no standing order. I was not briefed on anything like that. I never heard it, I never saw it in operation, never knew anything about it. I just think it's a complete fiction.

And, John, more to the big point here, the three crimes that DOJ alleged in the documents that got at the search warrant, none of them have anything to do with whether the documents are classified or declassified. Maybe they were anticipating this argument. So, it doesn't really matter when you're looking at those specific crimes.

BERMAN: So, another defense that Trump and his allies have put forward is, well, the FBI could have asked nicely.

HONIG: Yes. That one does not stand up. First of all, calling this a seizure -- saying they didn't need to seize anything, they broke in, saying this was a raid, that is nonsense, because we know that the search warrant was taken to and approved by a federal judge, we've seen the documents, he signed the forms, these are the standard forms.

Donald Trump will have a chance to challenge this if there comes a day when he's charged. The way it would work, DOJ, if they seek an indictment, then Donald Trump gets the paperwork, he can go to court and say, this search was done in a way that violates my rights.

But if we look at the facts here, the timeline, this notion that they could have had it if they just asked nicely really does not measure up. Back in January, National Archives, they asked nicely, they got some of the boxes, not all. May and June, DOJ asked nicely, they served a subpoena, they get some more of the documents but still not all. And, finally, in August, they executed the search warrant. So, this notion that, well, they just had to ask, that really doesn't stand up, either.

BERMAN: All right. I'm going to try to articulate this other defense the best as I understand it because it's a little hard. Somehow, he's arguing that the documents taken were covered by either executive or attorney/client privilege.

HONIG: This one is really a red herring. Executive privilege only applies to certain communications between the president and top advisers, not to criminal-related communications. Attorney/client privilege is just out of left field. That would only apply between Trump and his attorney. But the real bottom line is, even if those arguments apply, I don't think they do, you don't get to take them home with you. It doesn't mean you personally possess those documents.

BERMAN: And there's this sort of fourth area that they are not leaning into, Elie, but might matter here.

HONIG: Yes. So, everyone is sort of focused on Donald Trump's defenses. I understand why. But let's not miss the sort of important first point. In any criminal prosecution, DOJ has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, and the key issue is going to be Donald Trump's knowledge and intent. Did he know what was in those boxes and did he have the criminal intent required by the various statutes to break the law?

A couple of important things on that point, we learned yesterday a reporting from Maggie Haberman, New York Times, is that Donald Trump had said something like they're mine. Those boxes are mine.

BERMAN: They're not theirs, they're mine.

HONIG: Right. That would go to knowledge and intent. And, importantly, we now know that DOJ has spoken with two top White House lawyers, Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin, I would be asking them questions that go to knowledge and intent. Did Donald Trump know what was in those boxes? Did he know about them being sent down to Mar-a- Lago? That could be key evidence for the prosecution's case.

BERMAN: Yes. This new reporting from Maggie, there are a few sentences in there that go directly to this maybe very important going forward. Could be part of the affidavit we may or may never see.

Elie Honig, thank you very much for that.

BERMAN: So, Ukrainian military says Russian forces used fighter jets flying in Belarusian airspace to launch missiles west of the capital. Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman is on the ground in Ukraine helping in the fight. He will join us live.

KEILAR: Plus, thousands of students in St. Louis won't have a bus to catch when school starts on Monday. How the district is working around the bus driver shortage.

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[07:20:00]

KEILAR: School districts across the country are already facing teacher shortage, we've been talking about that here on New Day, but some districts can't find enough bus drivers to get kids to school. In St. Louis, more than 3,000 students at eight different schools, they won't have a school bus waiting for them when classes begin next week.

As a stopgap measure, the district is offering families $75 gift cards, this is for each week, by the way, to help alleviate those transportation costs.

Joining us now is Kelvin Adams. He is the superintendent of St. Louis Public Schools. Sir, thank you so much for being with us and talking about what you're dealing with and so many other districts are as well.

What's causing this shortage and how long is this going to last?

KELVIN ADAMS, SUPERINTENDENT, SAINT LOUIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS: First of all, good morning and thank you. We anticipate that this shortage will last approximately two weeks. We are working with our local vendor who provides transportation for us to get enough drivers through the certification process for drivers in the next two weeks to accommodate these eight schools and the 3,300 students who are going to be impacted.

BERMAN: What if it goes on for longer than that? Can you just keep giving out the $75 cards to help people?

ADAMS: Well, we are providing $75 cards to elementary parents, which is about 600, and bus passes, meaning a metro bus by state, that we're providing students transportation to school. There is option to both but we believe that two weeks will be the sunset of this. And by September the 6th, we should be in a position where those 35 routes that we are not running right now will be able to be run.

KEILAR: So, look, the older kids, and this is sort of what you hinted out with the different solution for the older versus the younger, they might be able to get themselves to school on the bus, right? But for the littler kids, they can't, they are going to have to be driven or they are going to have to find some sort of carpool situation. What if this is a time issue and not a money issue for some of these families who are now having to spend this time to take the smaller kids in?

[07:25:02]

ADAMS: Well, we're trying to accommodate them by making sure that the school is open an hour and 15 minutes earlier so they can drop their child off with before care and also extending the time in the afternoon for after care. So, we've tried to look at every option. So, our staff is willing to do that as we provide additional dollars for them to do that, because we realize, as you indicated, that the challenge may be in some cases time.

BERMAN: So, one interesting wrinkle is that you are requiring perfect attendance for students and their families to receive the $75 vouchers. Why?

ADAMS: Well, we would expect on the first day of school and the first ten days of school because school starts for us on the 22nd to be there anyway for the first ten days of school. We would not anticipate that a child would not be in school for the first ten days. And so we are putting that in place only simply because we want to make sure that students are in school.

And part of our process is we are reimbursing parents for actually bringing their child to school, but if they are not in school, how can we reimburse them? And so it's really an incentive much more than anything else. It's not so much about the money. It's really about making sure that children are coming to school, especially at the elementary level, every single day.

KEILAR: Superintendent, we thank you so much. It's really interesting to hear what you're doing here and to talk about this challenge that so many school districts are facing.

ADAMS: Well, Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to explain it a little bit more.

BERMAN: I wish them the best of luck. Obviously, this is something that does affect so many families. KEILAR: I hope it only lasts a couple of weeks, right?

Overnight, strikes in Ukraine's Odessa region injured four people. Our next guests are currently in Kyiv assisting the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and retired Army Brigadier General Steven Anderson are going to join us live next.

BERMAN: Overnight, North Korea fired two cruise missiles into the waters off its coast. How South Korea is responding.

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[07:30:00]