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U.S. Passes $40 Trillion in Debt; New Cancer Treatment?; Federal Government Investigates Eric Swalwell; Interview With Florida Gubernatorial Candidate David Jolly. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired August 20, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE TIRICO, NBC SPORTS: This will be a good game.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH, NBC SPORTS: Definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Uh-Oh. Guess what day NFL kickoff is? Huh? Anybody?

COLLINSWORTH: This guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, what day is NFL kickoff?

COLLINSWORTH: It's a day early. We know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, thanks, Cris. I'm asking Mike.

Come on, Mike. It's another name for Wednesday. Just say it.

TIRICO: Hump day.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hump day. Hump day kickoff. Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Taking a page out of that iconic Geico commercial there, Wolf, to remind everyone that the NFL season kicks off Wednesday, September 9, with the Patriots and the Seahawks playing in Seattle in a Super Bowl rematch.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And as I say all season long, go, Bills.

SCHOLES: All right.

BLITZER: All right, Andy Scholes, thank you very, very much.

And the next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news. BLITZER: And welcome to our viewers here in the United States and

around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in the Situation Room.

There's breaking news we're following. President Trump posted on social media just a little while ago that his top liaison with Capitol Hill will be leaving his post in September. James Braid is the president's director of legislative affairs.

His departure will come about two months before the midterm elections, and it could potentially complicate any final legislating the White House has planned in the lead up to November.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And CNN is learning just how crucial Braid is to the Trump administration. White House officials widely credit his ties to Capitol Hill for the president's congressional wins.

And those efforts are all the more important after Tuesday's primaries gave us a clear picture of what the midterm matchups will look like.

Joining us now is one of the candidates who won his primary this week. That would be David Jolly. He's the Democratic nominee for Florida governor and previously served as a Republican congressman.

Thanks for coming on the show.

So now that you'll officially face GOP Congressman Byron Donalds in November, why should Florida voters elect a Democrat for governor for the first time since the '90s?

DAVID JOLLY (D), FLORIDA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Because we're focused on an economic agenda that helps the most number of people.

Look, a lot of candidates say affordability crisis, but what does that mean? In the last-year-and-a half, I speak about housing, health care, and education in every room I go into red, purple, and blue. We're running an old-school Lawton Chiles campaign.

And, look, the reality is, it is the cycle that is presenting the opportunity. A lot of cycles, people want to stay the course. Sometimes, there are ideological swings. This is a change cycle. We've seen Florida races swing by 15 and 20 points. The city of Miami just elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 30 years, and it was 19 points, not even close.

Mar-a-Lago elected a Democratic candidate. I would say, though, it is as much about change as it is about the votes towards the Democratic Party. I'm a proud Florida democrat, and we are leading with our values that the economy should work for everyone, government can help out a little bit, and everyone's rights should be protected and their dignity celebrated.

Those are the basics in the midst of a change environment where arguably Republicans have fallen out of touch, whether it's the president or Byron Donalds. They're kind of skipping past the current economic crisis. If the election were tonight, we'd win the general election because Florida voters are ready to elect a Democratic governor.

BROWN: You left the Republican Party in 2018 in part because of the direction the GOP was taking under President Trump. But the president is still a politically dominant force in Florida politics. In fact, he won Florida by more than 13 percentage points back in 2024.

JOLLY: Yes.

BROWN: So what makes you so confident independents and even some Republicans will break with Trump to support you over his endorsed candidate here, Donalds?

JOLLY: That was two years ago. We're now in the sixth year of a presidency, which historically is the most exhausting cycle for voters.

This is a president who has ignored the economic conditions of too many people. He's building gilded ballrooms, and he is fine that Florida's economy is growing. I think our economy should continue to grow, but it's not growing for everybody.

And so Florida's voters have already shown us that they're willing to vote for change. It is the cycle that is presenting the opportunity. The most important thing here is, yes, it was 14 points two years ago, but, tonight, the race is tied. Tonight, Mar-a-Lago has a Democratic state representative. The city of Miami has a Democratic mayor because voters are voting for change.

If Republicans had the answers, they'd address it. But voters are saying, hey, it's time for a new team.

BROWN: I want to play what Congressman Byron Donalds told my colleague Jake Tapper last night. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: This campaign is not about President Trump in Florida. It is about the future of our state built around commonsense conservative policies. And the question for our state and for our people is, do we want to continue down the same commonsense agenda or do we want to reverse course and start looking like Virginia and New Jersey and New York?

And I will tell you, Jake, the people of Florida do not want to be like those states. There's a reason why so many new Floridians left those states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Is there any validity to that argument?

JOLLY: No, Byron Donald says the race is no longer about Donald Trump because he is running from the president, who endorsed him.

[11:05:01]

Understand what's happened in the Republican Party in Florida. Donald Trump endorsed Byron Donalds. He's known for one thing, Byron is, that he's Donald Trump's guy. He's raised over 100 million because Donald Trump turned on the special interests for him.

Byron Donalds spent over $55 million in a primary where he was endorsed by the president and didn't break 50 percent in his own primary. More Republicans voted against the Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds than voted for him.

Listen, Byron Donalds is in trouble because Donald Trump is also in trouble. And when Donalds says that the race isn't about him, that's fine. This is a governor's race. But it is about the Trump economy. It is about the economy that Byron Donalds has tried to defend.

I have challenged Byron Donalds, get on the campaign trail with Donald Trump. Bring Donald Trump back to his home state, stand next to him and defend the state of the economy for all Floridians, not just the ones in Mar-a-Lago, but for all Floridians.

It's amazing. On election night, Byron Donalds did not once mention the president that got him there. Byron Donalds is running away from the president. I think this is like the '06 cycle, when Republican statewide candidates in Florida and elsewhere wouldn't have Bush 43 campaign with them.

I'm not sure Byron Donalds is ready to embrace the president in the next 75 days.

BROWN: All right, let's talk a little bit more about the Democratic Party. Florida Democrats, as you well know, surprised many political

observers by nominating state Representative Angie Nixon, a Democratic Socialist, in the Senate primary over establishment-backed Alex Vindman. Your name and Nixon's name will both appear on the same ballot.

JOLLY: That's right.

BROWN: Does her candidacy hurt yours?

JOLLY: I don't think so.

Look, they also nominated a gubernatorial candidate that believes in capitalism, that has denounced socialism and denounced the DSA. I will tell you this, though, to give Angie great, great credit. Look, I have been in three hundred communities in the last year, groups of five, 10, 50, 100. So has Angie.

I have seen her campaign throughout the state, as I have, and her message has been very similar about the economic conditions. People's housing, health care, and education, the basic fundamentals of people's economy, are slipping away from them.

I have my solutions. Angie has hers. She's running for Senate. I'm running for governor. Look, Florida voters are going to get presented with a real dichotomy in candidates, but I'll tell you the contrast with Republican candidates, who are saying, we don't need the economy to work for everybody.

As long as our tech bros in Mar-a-Lago are doing fine, that's great. We don't worry about health care for too many people, and we're not going to invest in education.

I'm a Democrat who says, we're going to do things differently. Angie's a Democrat who says we're going to fight for everybody. I don't think it's the issue that national pundits are subscribing to it. I didn't see Angie litigating a DSA agenda in those rooms for the last year- and-a-half. I saw her litigating an economic agenda for people who are hurting.

BROWN: So I know you have rejected Democratic Socialism and socialism more broadly several times since Nixon's victory. But, realistically, are you at all concerned that Republicans were able to effectively group you with Nixon and other progressives in the eyes of voters?

JOLLY: Yes, if Byron Donalds wants to keep lying.

I mean, I know he comes on the network and says Jolly's a socialist. I condemn socialism. I'm a capitalist. He calls me a Trojan horse for socialism. I'm not sure what that means. He wakes up and calls me radical. I'm not even cool, much less radical.

The reality is, I know we need to use government to improve people's lives while we let the private sector lead and go first. I know the economy needs to grow for everybody, and I have an old-school libertarian streak that says stay out of people's lives, stay out of their doctor's office and their bedroom.

Look, what happens when you're losing, when you're not meeting the moment, is, you start attacking the candidate. This isn't an ideological race. What Byron Donalds is doing is, he's trying to break the trust in a people who tonight have come together.

I really believe there's a new coalition emerging in American politics right here in Florida, rooted in democratic values, that the economy should work, government can do its part, everybody's rights should be protected. But bigger than our party, we are picking up independents 3-1, 4-1. We're picking up Republicans north of 15 points.

That doesn't happen in races unless you're in that moment of crisis where the nation knows we're broken, we need to come together and fight for an economy that actually works for everybody. If Byron had those answers, he wouldn't be attacking me. He wouldn't be hitting me with trans ads and calling me a socialist and a radical.

He'd actually be talking about the economy, but he won't, and neither will this president.

BROWN: Well, before you go, even if you pull off a victory in November, you're likely going to face a heavily Republican state legislature. So how will you get any components of your agenda actually done for Florida voters?

JOLLY: Yes, so the first thing I will do is call Republican leaders and say let's not waste the next four years.

But I will tell you, I think we need a state catastrophic fund for homeowner's insurance. They actually have a cat fund. They use it to bail out insurance companies. Let's pivot that to homeowners. I talk about scaling up the direct delivery of health care.

They already fund county health clinics, nonprofits that deliver health care, FQHCs. We invest in public education already, so they're going to attack me as proposing new government programs. I'm not. I actually have the enterprise model of let's chase what's working. Scale up success.

[11:10:00]

We can use Republican platforms and deliver better for people. And I will let them lead the parade. They can take the credit or share the credit. I'm in a very post-partisan, post-ideological place in my career. I don't care about the left-right spectrum.

We need to fix the economy for more people, focusing on housing, health care, and education, and doing it with Republicans and independents alike.

BROWN: All right, David Jolly, thank you for coming on. We appreciate it -- Wolf.

JOLLY: Good to be here.

BLITZER: And a major development unfolding in the story we have been following since the beginning, federal agents seizing electronic devices from the former Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell on Saturday over at the San Francisco Airport. Then they raided his Washington, D.C., home the very next day.

BROWN: My colleague Allison Gordon and I learned it's part of an ongoing probe into sexual assault allegations. We first covered them earlier in the spring. Swalwell resigned from Congress in April after our reporting and "The San Francisco Chronicle" detailed allegations of sexual misconduct, including a former staffer saying he raped her, which he denies.

The Manhattan district attorney's office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department opened criminal investigations into Swalwell in the wake of the reporting. And the rapes this past weekend are part of a previously unreported federal investigation.

Two women who have spoken about their sexual misconduct against Swalwell also told CNN they spoke with the FBI. They were in our reporting earlier in the spring, so they are -- they have been in touch with the FBI.

I want to bring in Allison Gordon now. Allison, you have been working so hard on the story since the spring,

and we have been talking to so many women, many of them, in our reporting accusing Swalwell of sexual misconduct. You really played a big role in getting many of the accusers to speak out about the their experience. What are you hearing from them today about this new development?

ALLISON GORDON, CNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Yes, I have been in touch with these women that you and I have both been speaking with throughout this process.

And, as you mentioned, two of them confirmed for us that they have in fact been in touch with the FBI related to these sexual misconduct allegations as part of a larger probe into the former congressman.

BROWN: So, Ali, I want to play a moment of my interview with a former Swalwell staffer who accused her former boss of rape. I should note this may be disturbing for some viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After that bar closed, we went to another. I went to the bathroom, and I don't remember anything after that.

BROWN: You don't remember anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I remember the next day. I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me. It was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive.

BROWN: Did you say no?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I said no. I said -- in my flash that I can recall, I was pushing him off of me saying no.

BROWN: And what did he do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He didn't stop. He didn't stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Remind us, Ali, what motivated these women to come forward?

GORDON: Yes, Pam, I hadn't seen that clip in some time, and it really just captures the emotional depth of your conversation with that former staffer and just how devastated she was in the wake of this allegation.

Something that many of the women we spoke with, including this former staffer, reiterated to us was that they were not politically motivated. In fact, a lot of them were proud Democrats and they liked a lot of the congressmen's policies.

The reason why they felt like they needed to speak now, it's twofold. The first is that he was running for governor of California, largest state in our country. BROWN: And he was leading.

(CROSSTALK)

GORDON: And he was leading, exactly. And so that was a big motivation for them. And also it was the first time that they didn't think they were alone. A lot of these women thought that this was isolated, it's just them.

There was a lot of self-blame, as you and I have seen throughout our reporting about sexual misconduct and that imbalance of power. And so knowing that they wouldn't be the only ones talking about this, I think, helped them come forward and talk to us.

BROWN: That's such an important point is, when we would talk with them, as soon as they learned they weren't alone, they would open up a lot more, because, as you point out, there's -- it's so complicated, and a lot of them felt shame and didn't quite understand what their experience was, and then there developed a pattern.

But, again, Swalwell denies that the rape allegations, sexual misconduct. He did release that video after reporting admitting that -- essentially that he did cheat on his wife, but he denied the rape allegations.

There are these two other investigations that we were aware of before this federal probe news broke. Remind us what those are.

GORDON: Yes, so there are two concurrent investigations happening right now on different coasts. So the Manhattan district attorney's office opened a probe following our reporting, and they're continuing their investigation, as well as the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department also opened an investigation following another woman, Lonna Drewes, coming forward with a rape allegation against the former congressman.

[11:15:00]

Again, he has denied all physical assault and these rape allegations.

BROWN: Allison Gordon, thank you so much. I know we're going to continue to be reporting throughout the day to learn more about this investigation. Thanks.

BLITZER: Very strong reporting. Thank you for me as well.

And still ahead: a potential watershed moment in the fight against cancer. What we now know about a promising treatment for the deadliest form of skin cancer. This is information you need to know.

You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[11:20:09]

BLITZER: Happening now: a potential game changer in the fight against cancer affecting millions of Americans.

Drugmakers Moderna and Merck now say their combination of an mRNA vaccine with an immunotherapy treatment has been successful, successful in treating melanoma among high-risk patients. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. The study is ongoing, but researchers found the treatment reduced the chance of the cancer returning and kept it from spreading to other parts of the body.

Joining us now is Michael -- Dr. Michael Postow. He's the chief of melanoma service and a medical oncologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Dr. Postow, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for all the important work you're doing.

Just how significant is this new development?

DR. MICHAEL POSTOW, MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER: I think this is a major advancement, not only for patients with high-risk melanoma that have had surgery to remove all of their melanoma, but really for all patients with cancer.

This type of a principle not only helps patients with melanoma, but is being explored in many other different tumor types. And our hope is that this will be a whole paradigm shift in the way that we can treat cancer. And with outcomes getting better and better all the time, there's a lot of reason to be -- enthusiasm for the future.

BLITZER: So, if you could be specific, Dr. Postow, who will this treatment help the most and when might patients be able to actually access this new treatment?

POSTOW: Right now, what we know about this treatment is that, for patients with surgically removed high-risk melanoma, so that's stage 2B and higher surgically removed melanoma, this experimental personalized cancer vaccine, in combination with an immune therapy drug called Keytruda, was shown to prevent recurrences of melanoma more than Keytruda alone.

So, right now, the efficacy has been established for patients with melanoma that have had high-risk melanoma removed surgically and preventing recurrences of their melanoma. That's what we know about it right now. But this platform really is not only about melanoma treatment. This platform could be applied to many different types of cancer where surgery alone is often not curative.

And our hope is that, in the future, with additional clinical trials under way currently, patients that have surgery for other types of tumors will eventually have this type of an option and that this ultimately will be shown to prevent their recurrences as well. More needs to be known, but that's where we hope the future goes.

BLITZER: This treatment, as you correctly point out, of course, involves using an mRNA vaccine. Does the success of the vaccine in this instance give any indication it could potentially work on other kinds of cancers? POSTOW: We have established the principle of success in melanoma at

the moment, and there's really no reason to believe it couldn't be also effective in other tumor types, because this is not a melanoma- only type of a treatment.

This is a way to boost a patient's immune response against their individual tumor, really whatever the tumor may be. We don't know how effective this is in other cancers just quite yet, but with additional time, we hope we will learn more and that similar efficacy in other tumor types will also be established.

BLITZER: And, as you know, since COVID-19, there has been some skepticism out there of the mRNA vaccine. As a doctor who specializes in all of this, what do you want people to understand about this technology?

POSTOW: MRNA-based technology is a really wonderful new tool where vaccines like this can be developed and really rapidly translated to human benefit. And, in this case, this type of mRNA technology greatly benefited patients with cancer.

And I think we're all fully on board with supporting this patient population and the need for something like this to be available for our patients. This is different from the COVID vaccine, even though it is an mRNA construct, which is similar to the COVID vaccine.

The way this vaccine is made is entirely different. This is one vaccine for one individual patient based upon that individual patient's tumor. So, although it is still an mRNA construct, it is very distinct in terms of its production and the way that it works from the COVID vaccines.

And our hope is that mRNA technology in this type of way could be similarly used for advancing medical research and outcomes for patients across the board.

BLITZER: So, potentially, if I hear you right, potentially, this could work for people who have prostate cancer or colon cancer or any other kind of cancer.

POSTOW: That's exactly right. And trials are already under way for patients with lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and others.

And the way that this works, it really could work in some of these other tumor types. It's a little too early to know, but if you're a patient that's dealing with one of these other tumor types, it's really important to talk to your doctors and your care team in case there's a clinical trial to explore something like this and see if the outcomes can be similarly reproduced in other tumors, just like we saw in melanoma with this particular trial.

[11:25:02]

BLITZER: A potentially very, very significant development indeed.

Dr. Michael Postow, thank you so much for joining us. And, once again, thanks for all the important work that you do. We appreciate it very much.

POSTOW: My pleasure. Very exciting. Thank you.

BLITZER: All right, I want to go to the White House right now. Scott Bessent is meeting with reporters, speaking out on the economy. I want to hear what he's saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: What's your reaction to how they have done?

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: Yes, well, look, anything that happens within a 24-hour period is noise. And I think that, once the market understands that we are focusing on fiscal consolidation and that we are trying to bring the market back into equilibrium in a thinly traded market, I think I'm confident that bonds will continue declining.

We have got a spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand. Our announcement is for economic action, and I think that the economic action will mean that oil prices will come down sooner.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Yes, if you could answer facing the cameras, but the $40 trillion mark that we passed for the national debt, would you comment on that and how do we reverse that?

BESSENT: Yes, it is -- look, the $40 trillion is a big number.

It is smaller when we look at the publicly traded amount, because our Social Security funds and other government entities hold a substantial amount. And what we're going to do, we're going to have to grow our way out of this.

And as I talked about, at G20 in Asheville, we are going to talk about the U.S. growth strategy and encourage the rest of the world to come along with us. We are also -- I announced that Director Russ Vought and I have been tasked with looking at fiscal consolidation.

I think the numbers have -- are not the actual numbers now. We have had to do substantial tariff refunds due to the court ruling. But with the Section 301 tariffs, I am confident that we will be back to a -- the same level, if not higher, of tariff income for last year.

And that is most of the increase in the deficit. And, remember, we did not get here in a day, that we were left with a mess. The Biden administration had the highest deficit to GDP in history when weren't at war or weren't in a recession. For 2025, we brought it down by more than a percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, that is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent answering reporters' questions on this huge, huge $40 trillion deficit that has just been announced and the impact it has on the economy and the impact it has on everyday Americans as well.

Kevin Liptak is joining us from the White House right now.

Kevin, we missed the beginning part of what he was saying. Any major headlines?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: You know, he is really downplaying that massive $40 trillion figure on the debt, in some ways blaming it on the previous administration, but, in other ways, sort of trying to frame that figure as not necessarily a milestone, but just another figure that the United States has now surpassed when it comes to the ballooning debt.

And so you really see him trying to minimize that in a lot of ways. The other questions that I think a lot of people had for him that he didn't necessarily answer directly was this new phase of the Iran pressure campaign that the president announced on TRUTH Social yesterday.

It will be an economic attempt to try and squeeze some of Iran's business and trading partners to coerce Tehran into caving to some of the president's demands. He didn't have a lot of specifics. He said that that would be rolled out later.

But I think the big questions are whether this will affect Iran's biggest trading partner, which is China. President Trump clearly not in a mood to upend that relationship ahead of President Xi Jinping's state visit here to the White House next month, but also some questions about what it would mean for American allies in the Gulf, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, all of these nations where Iran has been doing business, some of it surreptitiously.

So, still a lot of questions, I think, for the treasury secretary about what specifically that economic pressure campaign might look like -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Kevin Liptak at the White House for us, we will stay in very close touch with you.

And we will be right back.

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