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Donald Trump returns to X for a big interview with Elon Musk, but it's the bungled launch of the conversation, drawing the most attention right now. Plus, investigators dig into the suspected Iranian hack of the Trump campaign and tonight we're learning that the Trump campaign was not the only target. And it's the near fatal helicopter crash. Trump's been talking about it. It turns out he apparently confused, who was riding with him on that helicopter. We'll speak to the person who was actually there. (upbeat music) Elon Musk built it as the interview of the century. Donald Trump broke his long silence on X to promote it, but their conversation on Musk's platform was plagued with technical problems that are overshadowing the interview itself, at least parts of it. At the scheduled start time, many people could not connect to the feed where it was happening. Musk claims a denial of service attack as it's known overwhelmed the company's servers, but it's unclear if that was the issue or if too many people were trying to get into the room. The interview eventually got underway, nearly 45 minutes behind schedule. And from there, Trump launched into his normal talking points and grievances and attacks on Kamal Harris. - They're doing it right now. While this third rape phony candidate, don't forget, I beat Biden. He failed in the debate miserably. We cannot have a Democrat. We cannot have her. She's incompetent. She's as bad as by no tax on tips and all of a sudden she's making a speech and there will be no tax on tips. I said that months ago, all of a sudden for politics, she says she comes out with what I said, which I think is terrible. And I think it's also hitting them very hard. These people are fake, Kamala wouldn't have this conversation. She can't 'cause she's not a smart person, by the way. - The glitchy conversation was not just a misfire for Trump, it was hoping to use the opportunity to blunt Kamal Harris's momentum. It's also a big embarrassment for Elon Musk because this has happened before during the botched launch of Rhonda Santis's presidential campaign. It's unclear if this will impact Trump and Musk's relationship, which has gotten increasingly closer over the past few months since Musk took over what used to be known as Twitter. The billionaire has used the platform as his personal megaphone, expressing increasingly far right views aligned with Trump. Remember, Musk endorsed Donald Trump after the assassination attempt against him and there's new reporting tonight that shows just how far Musk has ventured into politics. The Wall Street Journal says his super PAC wants to turn out 800,000 voters for Trump and battleground states. We will dig into that later on tonight. And if you want just a sense of just how much their romance has grown, all you have to do is track Trump's evolving comments on electric cars. - The cars go for like two hours. What are you gonna do? Everyone's gonna be sitting on the highway. We're all gonna be looking for a little plug-in. Why is it that these big powerful car companies with guys that are making 35 million a year immediately quit? They say you want electric vehicles, we'll give it to you. When the damn things don't go far, they're not gonna get too expensive. I'm for electric cars, they have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. Elon, do I have no choice? - You have a good, and you do make a great product, I have to say, I have to be honest with you. That doesn't mean everybody should have an electric car, but these are minor details, but your product is incredible. - All right, now he's on board with electric cars. Okay, yeah, joining me now, CNN media analyst and Axios senior media reporter Sarah Fisher, former Trump 2020 director of strategic communications Mark Lauter and former democratic congressman and 2020 presidential candidate, Tim Ryan. Guys, thanks very much for being with us. Sarah, let me start with you first. This has been in your wheelhouse. Elon Musk is claiming that there was some sort of technical problem at the beginning of this. What do we know? - And now you have reports out from the Verge, a tech company, a tech media company saying that sources said it's not actually a DDoS, a denial of service attack. It was just that the systems were overwhelmed. You know, it's hard, X has become a black box in terms of communication. What Elon Musk says oftentimes is what goes, but oftentimes these things can look very similar, Jim. A DDoS attack is overwhelming a system to shut it down. It could have very well been that a lot of people wanted to listen to this interview, which overwhelmed the system and shut it down. Either way, as you mentioned at the top of your remarks, it's an embarrassment for most. They're trying to make this the video platform of choice, but they can't get a live stream up and running. - Yeah, he said it was gonna be the greatest piece of entertainment or whatever, you know, before this thing got started. That is certainly not what it was. And Mark, the first 20 minutes of the interview was on the assassination attempt, and then we moved on into other areas. We're gonna talk about some of those areas that he got into. Do you really want Donald Trump to be off-script, sort of, you know, going off the cuff for two hours plus, as we're finding out he did earlier on this evening? What do you think? - Well, I think this was a great opportunity for him to reach, I saw it reach about 1.3 million at the max viewership just on Twitter, not some of the other streaming platforms that were also carrying it. So you're getting a non-traditional news audience that's consuming this conversation. And I think the fact that it was a conversation was very entertaining. It's different from a politician, what they typically do. And you, and it, I think people were engaged with it that way. You literally heard Elon Musk and Donald Trump debating everything, obviously, the economy and the border. And the things you would expect, but they were talking about tunnels, high-speed rail, SpaceX, a lot of just interesting things. And I found it to be quite entertaining. - Well, you know, and I guess opinions are gonna vary on this. I mean, I wonder how much of this is gonna come back to bite Trump when people piece through what was said. Tim, let me go to you. Let's listen to Donald Trump talk about Elon Musk and his approach to managing his workforce. Let's listen to that. - You're the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in and you just say, "You wanna quit?" They go and strike. I won't mention the name of the company, but they go and strike and you say, "That's okay, you're all gone. "You're all gone." - He calls Elon Musk the greatest cutter. I mean, you and I both know, Tim, that Donald Trump is gonna have to win these blue wall states or at least Pennsylvania, for that matter, to win the presidency. He's been trying to appeal to union voters. This doesn't sound like something that's gonna help very much at all. - You know, what this sounded like when I first heard it is that these are the conversations that happen at the fancy country clubs, with the really rich people, the really rich CEOs. Oh, you're a great cutter. No, you're a great cutter. How many do you lay off this month? How many do I lay off this month? The working class people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, that's what they think these folks talk about every single day. And it turns out when they're having a conversation, that's exactly what they talked about. And when Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney, it was on a commercial in Ohio that basically talked about Romney putting a guy in a coffin. That's what he felt like when he lost his job because of what Mitt Romney did. So you're gonna be hearing a lot more of that what was just said on that conversation. And you're gonna be hearing it in three states in particular, not far from where I'm from right now in Columbus, Ohio. - Yeah, Mark, I mean, you and I are both old enough to remember the Mitt Romney campaign. When Mitt Romney said, "I'd like to be able to fire people." That was a huge gaffe during that campaign. That was a much more quaint time in our politics when that kind of a gaffe could really cause trouble for a campaign for Donald Trump, perhaps it's just a day that ends and why. But I can't imagine Mark being somebody from the Comm side of things that you heard that and thought that was a good idea for Donald Trump to say that. - Well, if I recall that they were talking about cutting government spending and efficiency, Elon Musk was really pressing Donald Trump on needing an efficiency commission to get rid of wasteful spending, wasteful programs with the government. And I think that was what that interaction was entailing. And I think a lot of people out there do think we need to cut the size of government, cut the amount of government spending we have. And so if the clip is playing in context, you can hear it will be easily understood. - But if you hear him talking there, he says clearly to Elon Musk, if you go on strike, you're out of here. And I mean, calling him the greatest cutter. I mean, clearly that's what he was talking about there. - Well, if government workers want to go on strike in Trump administration 2.0, then they should be gone. But, and I think that's what they were talking about. And we do need to get ahold of government spending. I think that was part of the free flow of this event. I'm sure both sides, you know, and obviously as you reference Jim, I'm sure the Harris campaign is going to try to take sound bites and use it for their advantage. If she ever does an interview, we will do the same thing on our side. I mean, that's how this game is played. But I do think the context matters. They were talking about bringing more efficiency to government. Elon was pressing to say I would volunteer to help. And Trump was basically praising him saying, you know how to cut costs. - Yeah. And, and Tim, I mean, Trump did say at one point, I need an Elon Musk. I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I want to close up the Department of Education, move education back to the States. I mean, those kinds of comments, obviously you're not going to sit well with a lot of voters. You people hear that. They don't want to see the Department of Education close down. - Well, first and foremost, they weren't talking about government workers. They weren't talking about streamlining government. They were talking about Elon Musk firing people because they wanted to unionize or they wanted better wages and benefits. Take that campaign to Western Pennsylvania. Take that idea to Michigan and Wisconsin. It's a stone cold loser and there's no wiggling out of it. And when it comes to Elon Musk, look, I kind of like Elon Musk, some of the things he talks about. I like the fact that he's going into electric vehicles. I like some of the technologies that he's promoting. I listened to him tonight and I thought to myself, what is he doing running around with Donald Trump? Like, I look at the books that Elon Musk reads. He's trying to take the country technologically in a positive way. I completely disagree with his politics and the fact that he wants to use Trump as some kind of vessel. I think this was, he was trying to throw a lifeline to Donald Trump tonight and it didn't work out, but this damaged Trump big time in the industrial States, he's already on his heels, he has no message and he's trying to appeal to working class people and he's talking about how much he loves how Elon Musk fires people. That's terrible. You're gonna hear that for 90 days in the swing States. And I think he tried to throw him a lifeline and he threw him an anchor is what happened tonight. - Yeah, and Sarah, what is going on with Donald Trump and Elon Musk? There were a couple of moments during all of this where Trump was saying Elon Musk, I thought you were a progressive or a liberal and they were very sympathetic. They had trouble, it was almost like two teenagers saying, oh no, you hang up first. No, I'll hang up and then you hang up. They couldn't get off the phone with one another. What is going on here? I mean, this is kind of a bro-man's, mega-bro-man's, what's happening? - Yeah, and it's been building over the past few months. I think it's reached a crescendo point. What's interesting is that there was even some conversation about like, Musk, would you join this administration? Would you be a part of Team Trump? Like, I don't think Elon Musk was ever going to leave his posts running his public and private companies. He's already faced shareholder lawsuits at Tesla for not paying enough attention to Tesla when he took over X, but he could be a strong confidant to Donald Trump. And you know how that goes, Jim. When you're a close advisor, somebody that he trusts, somebody that he listens to, he just follows what you want him to do on a whim. And so that's great for Elon Musk, right? If he needs policies that are pushed in his favor, he's now going to have potentially, if Donald Trump wins, a sympathetic year in the White House. - Yeah, and he talked about Elon Musk joining a Trump administration. - Yes, exactly right. And the other thing to note about joining here, interesting that Donald Trump finally is back on X, he was led on when Elon Musk took over. But as of today, he started to aggressively use the platform. Now that's notable, Jim, because Donald Trump has his own social media platform, right? He has true social, but he opted to do it on Elon Musk's. - Yeah, Mark, I mean, I was at the White House during the final days of the Trump administration after January 6th, when Twitter, at that time the company was called Twitter, took Donald Trump off of that platform because they thought he could incite more violence if he's left on the platform. Now he's back on and he's got, it sounds like he's got Elon Musk in his corner. - Well, one of the things Elon Musk talked with Donald Trump tonight about was the protection and honoring of free speech and the celebration of free speech around the country and around the world. Look, when you and I talked about this many times, Jim, over the years, now with X or Twitter, back in Donald Trump's arsenal, he has a larger reach every time he takes to his full social media platform, then watch the Super Bowl, which is the most watched event in the world, and definitely in our country. That's a huge platform. That's 89 million people that are following him on X in addition to the people that are following Elon Musk. It's a massive communication tool that no one else has it. - But, too, I gotta go to a break. But, Tim, I mean, one of the things I have to think inside the Harris campaign that they're saying right now is, oh, yes, we want Donald Trump to do more press conferences. We want him back on social media as much as possible. We want him to talk about conspiracy theories about crowd sizes. We want him unleashed. We want him unplugged. Go ahead. Let her rip. - No doubt about it. Let him go. He's not on message. Even him and Musk tonight, Musk was trying to talk about being aspirational and how this technology can change the world and Trump just drug it right back into the gutter about the dirty politics. And I mean, that's the contrast in this election. He cannot be an aspirational candidate. He cannot talk about the future. He's got to bring up all of the criminal crimes and all of the prosecutions and the last election. And even with an opportunity with Elon Musk to really elevate the conversation, he didn't do it. So let him go out and have these conspiracy theories. It just makes the case of generational change, joy, joyful candidate, a happy warrior candidate versus a grumpy guy who wants to talk about the past and a vice presidential candidate who's got all kinds of other issues that's dragging them down. And so even with this great opportunity, he fumbled the opportunity with Elon Musk. And I think the Harris campaign should be very, very happy tonight. They got a lot of material that they're going to be able to use for the next 90 days. - All right, we've got more to talk about after the break. Stay with us, Elon Musk. A new force in the 2024 presidential election, my next guest has new reporting on the billionaire's latest political moves inside Elon Musk's hands on push to win 800,000 voters for Trump, Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glaser joins me now. Emily, thanks for bearing with us during that conversation there. But you have some very interesting reporting. You write about Elon Musk launching this big time super PAC to help elect Donald Trump, but less than three months in he fired most of the vendors that they had hired. How is all of that going? - Well, there's less than 90 days till this election. And in typical Elon Musk fashion, if things weren't working for him, he made a switch. And one that a lot of people wouldn't otherwise have made. Elon has been spending a roughly an hour weekly meeting with political vendors and they're trying to get roughly 800,000 low propensity voters to get out the vote in these battleground states that are crucial for Donald Trump's reelection campaign. - And he is an erratic player. There's no question about it, but he's brought along other big donors. How big of a factor could that be in this election? - There are a lot of what we would call big whales that are very vocal in their support. We've got folks from Elon's PayPal mafia days like David Sachs. We've got Antonio Gracias, who's a former Tesla board member, current space export member, two Sequoia capital partner, Sean McGuire, Doug Leon, Kenneth Howery. I mean, you name it. These are people that have known Elon for a number of different years. And they're also very vocal about their support. We're seeing a slight shift in Silicon Valley that is now becoming more rightward leaning. It's certainly not everyone. It's still a really liberal place. But there is a noticeable shift when you look at the Silicon Valley folks and the executives that are being more vocal about their support for Donald Trump. - Yeah, it's not the Silicon Valley of generation ago. No question about it. And Emily, you reported last month that Musk had committed around $45 million a month to this super PAC. That report did not sit well with him. What is the latest and all that? And why did it not sit well with him? - So we reported that Elon Musk has told people that he was contributing around $45 million a month. In our article today, we reported that in the spring, when his consultants asked, you know, what kind of budget do we have to work on this? Or they told him it was roughly $160 million. So Elon has said that it's a lower amount. He also has previously said that he, there were no discussions about being a special advisor and Donald Trump's presidency if he's reelected. And what we saw tonight in the conversation on X is that they talked about that more than once. So I would just say that, you know, take what you hear at face value. We stand by our reporting and we feel really confident about it. - Absolutely. And very good reporting, as always. Emily Glaser, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. New polls show the race between Trump and Kamala Harris, getting tighter in the key battleground states. In those blue wall states, we've talked about so much. Does the Trump campaign need a big strategy reset? Talk about that next. (upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. And one thing I've learned is that you buy a house but you make it a home. Because with every fix, update, and renovation, it becomes a little more your own. So you need all your jobs done well. For nearly 30 years, Angie has helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. 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For JD Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com. - Polls are out and if you're Donald Trump, well, you might want to start thinking about changing up your campaign strategy because the presidential race is getting much closer, especially in swing states, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, at least according to the New York Times. Let's dive into the specifics. I've got CNN senior data reporter Harry Hanson here with me. Harry, you and I talked to it was like 13 hours ago or something, I've lost track in the space time continuum. But now, I mean, the numbers are the numbers. - The numbers are the numbers and I did the math. We did speak 13 hours ago. We spoke in the 10 a.m. hour, still on Monday. We're still in the same day anyway. But you know, you speak about the numbers changing and I just want to take a look at what's going on in those key great, great Lake Battleground states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. I want you to look at the trend line from May to August. Take a look here, May, when it was Biden versus Trump. Trump was up by three in Pennsylvania, one in Wisconsin. Biden was up by one in Michigan, but all tight races, all in all these states, Donald Trump was doing better than he did four years ago. Now, jump ahead to August. What do we see? We see now Harris versus Trump. Look at this, gains for the Democratic nominee, Harris up by four in all these states. Her lead, her event that she is now doing seven points better than Biden was doing in Pennsylvania. Five points better in Wisconsin and three points better in Michigan, but jumps across the board. But it's not just about these top line numbers. It's about what's underneath the hood. This was something that you and I spoke about, right? It's the economy, stupid as James Carville once said. Trust more on economic issues. Now, this is nationally, but we are seeing a similar trend in the key battleground states. Look at this, who do you trust more on economic issues? In July, 41% of voters nationwide said Trump, compared to 35%, it said Biden. Now look how close we are. We're at 42% for Harris, 41% for Trump. But the consistent thing that we're seeing across all these polls, Mr. Acosta, is the fact that there's a trend away from Donald Trump and it's towards the Democratic presumptive nominee. - It's a dramatic turnaround. There's just no question about it. And what about voter enthusiasm for Harris now that she's at the top of the ticket? Something tells me that is gonna be critically important in all of this. - Enthusiasm, enthusiasm, enthusiasm. Take a look here, all right. Enthusiastic about voting for either Biden or Harris. Back in 2023, look at this. It was just 72% of Biden voters said they were enthusiastic about voting. Look at where we are now. 86% of Harris supporters say they're enthusiastic about voting. That actually leads Trump, who only 80% of his voters say they're enthusiastic about voting. That is unchanged from 2023, basically. When Trump held the advantage on the enthusiasm question, now it's the Democrats who hold the advantage on the enthusiasm issue. And just one little last thing, on temperament. I think this is so important because we've seen Donald Trump kind of go off the rails in recent days, whether it be, you know, saying potentially that Kamala Harris' crowds were fake. They were air hygienery. No proof of that whatsoever. That just plays into this. Right temperament to be present. Look at this. 55% of likely voters in the key battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin say that yes, Harris has the right temperament for Trump. It's the exact opposite. 54% say no, he does not have the right temperament. You put it all together, Jim. You put it all together. This was just a very bad polling day. And the past few days on the poll front for the former president, Donald Trump. But I guess the good news for him is he still got a little bit around, let's say 80 or so days, a little less than three months to turn it all around. Because he'll need it. - Absolutely, and for Kamala Harris, if you're going into a convention, these are the exact numbers you want to see. Because coming out of that convention, it's possible she will have a bump. Most candidates get a bump coming out of a convention. If that pads these leads even more, that is going to be quite something. All right, Harry, and great to see you as always. Thanks so much. - My friend, whether day or night, it's a pleasure to see you. - And both day and night today. Thanks, Harry. - Thanks. - Yeah. It's got to love Harry. And he calls me Mr. Acosta, which nobody does. So I appreciate that. Sarah Fisher, Mark, Lotter, Tim Ryan, they're all back with me. Mark, I got to go with you first. You know, you saw those numbers there. You know, did you anticipate this? I mean, you have to say, I know you take your, spin Meister hat off for just a second there. It is quite something that has occurred here in this race. I don't think a lot of people would have predicted this. That Kamala Harris, we'll be doing this well right now. - Well, even the President's campaign pollster, Tony Fabrizio, wrote a memo about this shortly after she was basically installed as the candidate and said that she was going to get a honeymoon. She was probably going to get a bump and she was probably likely going to take a small lead in the days leading up to Labor Day, but as more and more people, especially in those battleground states, realize her radical policies. This thing will go back to where it was because, look, Kamala Harris is not going to do anything to secure the border. She's not going to lower prices. She's not going to deal with gas and energy prices. Those are all problems of her own creation. And while that New York Times, Cienopole has many, many flaws in it and oversampled Democrats a lot, you go to something where it averages a bunch of polls, like the real clear politics average. Donald Trump is still winning. He's still winning in Pennsylvania. He's still winning in Georgia. And Kamala Harris is performing seven points below where Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton were performing during their cycles in 2016 and 2020. - All right, I thought maybe you were going to give us maybe a slightly different response there, but you did quite well spending us in circles there. Mark, Tim, let me go to you, Congressman. Vice President Harris, she has set to release her economic agenda this week. You're there in the heartland. You're in Ohio. You talk to voters like this all the time. At some point, I don't want to say, well, there is something to this honeymoon thing. I mean, I think what has happened over the last several weeks has been remarkable to have a new candidate come in and do this well in the polling. I think that is quite extraordinary. But at the same time, voters are going to want to see some details. They're going to want to see your economic plans. They're going to want to see other plans. How important is that at this point? - Well, I think more than anything, they wanted generational change. That's what everybody talked about when it was Biden versus Trump. They wanted something new. They wanted a new vision. They wanted aspiration. They wanted excitement. They wanted joy. And her Kamala Harris, she gave that to everybody. And you see it on social media, crowds are unbelievable. The buzz around her is incredible, even in Republican areas where women are starting to move to her. So that's going to drive, I think, the election. But elections are always about economics. And she has a strong economic agenda to run on. Of course, costs aren't where we want them to be. There's more work to be done. But you cannot argue with the fact that the Biden-Harris administration is re-industrializing the United States for the first time in 40 or 50 years. Chip manufacturers, electric vehicle manufacturers. Now that Donald Trump's on board too, that's nice battery manufacturers, natural gas, power plants. There's so much going on. This Intel in Ohio is going to do almost $100 billion. And we're finally re-short chip manufacturing. This is all happening because of the inflation reduction act. We've got a huge infrastructure bill. That money hasn't even hit the ground yet to rebuild the country. And honestly, do the kind of things Elon Musk was talking about. High-speed rail. How do we build things here again with chips for the next generation? How do we use technology, broadband, Starlink, whatever it may be? They have a long record of this. So not only is she going to win on the generational piece, she's going to win on the joy piece against the grumpy old guy. She also has a re-industrial play in the heartland where Trump's talking about how great it is to fire people. She's got all of the fundamentals moving forward or very, very strong for her. Yeah, and I have to wonder, Tim, you know, Donald Trump warming up to the idea of electric cars and Elon Musk's agenda and so on, how that's going to play with the oil and gas industry. I mean, it's been reported in recent weeks that he has gone to the oil and gas industry and said, if you send a lot of money to my campaign, I'll do good things for you. And that was part of the reason why it was railing against electric cars out on the campaign trail. Well, it's, yeah. Go ahead. It's the same conversation of, you know, how are we going to, how great it was you cut jobs? Oh, I've got to be with Elon now. He's for me and he's given me tens of millions of dollars, almost a hundred million dollars. I'm going to be for him. It's like, it's right in the wide open there. They want to cut jobs. He's going to go to the highest bidder. Guess what? The average auto worker in Michigan, the steel worker in Western PA, they're not going to be the highest bidder. So they're going to get screwed in the process. And here comes the prosecutor with the populist bent, saying, I will be there to fight for you and for your economic justice. And the details that they're going to be hugely important. And Sarah, you know, Kamala Harris has, you know, come under some criticism, mainly from the press, that she's not doing enough substantive interviews that she is in doing press conferences. Campaign says she's going to do an interview, I believe, by the end of this month. It doesn't sound like that's going to happen before the convention. At some point, she is going to have to fill in some of these gaps. I mean, her defenders will say this is a campaign like no other, you know, she's had to jump into this almost like in a prime minister's campaign type of schedule with 90 days to go and so on. She's a freshman candidate. But those details are going to be important and people are going to be clamoring for them. And that clamoring is just going to get louder. Yes, so the point that you saw, what that represents to me is that the electorate is looking at Biden's economic record. They were unhappy with it and they look at Kamala Harris as bringing something new. The problem is, Jim, that goodwill is not going to less all the way through to election day in November. She's going to have to come out and explain how her economic policies will be different if she wants to continue to sustain that advantage in the polls. The other problem with her not being visible enough is she risks being sort of attached constantly by Donald Trump with having no substantial rebound other than what she's putting on terms of social media memes. That's not really effective when you're trying to reach an entire electorate. Yes, there are 160 million Americans that use TikTok monthly, but the vast majority of older Americans are not getting their news on TikTok. They're not getting it through memes. They're getting it still from traditional television interviews, newspaper interviews, et cetera. - Yeah, Mark, are you worried about how this truncated campaign might help Kamala Harris? I mean, there's just gonna be fewer opportunities for problems to crop up. - Fewer press conferences, fewer interviews. This has been a much longer campaign for Donald Trump than it has been for Kamala Harris. - Well, we're not really that far behind schedule because normally in a challenger incumbent kind of away, and in this case, they're both kind of like challenger candidates. You're not usually decided till the conventions and that's when you're fighting amongst your own family in Trump party. Now, once you get to the convention, you move on, you start defining your candidate. So it's not that much different. The only difference is that the campaign she ran in 2019, the policies about anti-fracking, defund the police, and all of the nonsense that she said that she then supported, she's now flip-flopping on and saying she doesn't support. So basically, the voters are gonna have to figure out - But there's no question this is not the Harris issue. - But this is not the campaign that Donald Trump wanted to run. They wanted to run against Joe Biden. This is not that campaign. - Well, we're still running against, we're still running against the Biden-Harris, immigration problem, the inflation problems, their war on American energy, the wars that are raging around the world. She's, you know, boasts about being the last person in the Oval Office with the president. Now she's gonna own all the problems they created together. - All right, Mark, Tim, Sarah, guys, thank you very much. Really appreciate all the time tonight. Thanks, thanks so much. Big new development in the parent hack of the Trump campaign, which it blames on Iran. Tonight, we're learning Trump ally Roger Stone's email was compromised that reporting next. - They say opposites attract. That's why the sleep number smart bed is the best bed for couples. You can each choose what's right for you whenever you like. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft. Sleep number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm. Sleep number does that too. 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For JD Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com. The FBI says it is tracking numerous attempts to hack the Trump campaign as several sources tell CNN that federal investigators believe Iranian hackers breached longtime Trump ally, Roger Stone's personal email account as part of that attempt to get inside the Trump campaign. That's not all. The Washington Post is reporting. The Biden-Harris campaign was also targeted again, allegedly by Iran. So far investigators tell the post those attempts were not successful. CNN has also learned the FBI briefed Biden-Harris officials back in June about Iranian efforts to target them. Let's bring in Andrew McCabe, he's a CNN senior law enforcement analyst and a former FBI deputy director. Andrew, great to see you. Trump immediately blamed Iran. The FBI confirmed they're looking into these things. The U.S. is not explicitly blamed Iran at this point. We've seen this story before. This is gonna be an issue in this campaign. - Absolutely, Jim, it will. I think what we're seeing is just this cycle's evolution of what's been a persistent effort by foreign adversaries to meddle in U.S. elections. We saw it notoriously in 2016 with the Russians really set the bar very high. We saw in 2020 that the Chinese kind of entered the fray with some efforts that the intelligence community told us about at that time. And also we saw a very small amount of activity from Iran. And now Iran has really emerged to the forefront. They've kind of capitalized on their experience in 2020 and they've elevated their game a little bit. It's a slightly more sophisticated approach going through the senior advisor who we now know may in fact have been Roger Stone to kind of use those hacked accounts to mount their spearfishing attack on the campaign fund. - And the Washington Post, Andrew, has a detail from the Trump campaign that after initially concluding they had been hacked, the team did not alert the FBI. How dangerous is it to keep law enforcement out of the loop here? - It's not a great idea. It's not typically the quickest and most effective way to mitigate the security issues that you have on your hands and also to understand where this threat is coming from and how it might be undermining the safety and security of the election. I mean, you would think that the participants, the candidates in this election would have a pretty strong stake in maintaining election security and putting our intelligence and law enforcement community in the best position possible to counter those threats. That of course, the way you do that is by sharing this information with them. So it's a bit of a head scratcher, but in the overall picture of everything that's going on between Donald Trump and the FBI over these many years, I guess it's probably not that surprising. - Well, I mean, it is a touchy area. I mean, this story obviously reminds us of what happened in 2016 and I'll tell you. Andrew, I question Trump about what the Russians were up to in 2016. Here's part of what he said back then at that press conference. - You say, let's get tough. Why not get tough on Putin and say stay out. Why not say that? - Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. - Yeah, and Andrew, and as you and I both know, after that happened, the Russians around that time, the Russians did hack into the DNC. That information did get out via WikiLeaks. Trump was praising WikiLeaks out on the campaign trail, and the intelligence community later concluded that the Russians did try to help the Trump campaign. I mean, this kind of opened the door to a lot of what we're seeing now. - Absolutely, Jim. We know that the Russians took actually mounted specific attacks in the hours after Trump made that statement. So if there's ever any doubt that they were listening very closely to what he was saying, all doubt was erased in that moment. That's gotta be, and I hope it is, a very hard clip for him to look at today, because I'm sure things feel very different now that he is the subject of the attacks from foreign adversary that clearly has no good feeling for Donald Trump, right? The guy who got rid of the nuclear deal, the guy who re-imposed the sanctions, and the guy who was on the stick, as it were, when the U.S. government took out General Soleimani. So yeah, this is how it works. There's no friends in this sphere. Intelligence agencies around the globe are constantly trying to gain access and have influence on what happens here in the United States. And it looks like Mr. Trump is the target these days. - Yeah, we're gonna have to keep our eyes on this, 'cause we still have a little less than three months to go. Plenty of opportunities, I think, are everywhere for this sort of thing to happen again. Andrew McCabe, thank you very much for your time tonight. Really appreciate it. - Thanks, Jim. - All right, and Donald Trump, last week, brought up what he claims was a nearly fatal helicopter crash with San Francisco's former mayor, Willy Brown, except Willy Brown says he was not on that helicopter, so who was? My interview with two people who were actually there, that's next. (dramatic music) Tonight, new holes in Donald Trump's tale about a frightening helicopter ride with former San Francisco mayor, Willy Brown. Trump told the story last week. - I know Willy Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter, going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willy was a little concerned. But two people on board that chopper say, Trump's forgetting a key detail. Brown was never there. Instead, Los Angeles Councilman Nate Holden says he was on the chopper with Trump. As they discussed, a failed bid to revitalize LA's iconic ambassador hotel, former Trump organization official, Barbara Russ confirms Holden's account, and it lines up with what Willy Brown himself told our John Berman last week. - Have you ever been in a helicopter that made an emergency landing with Donald Trump? - No. - Have you ever been in a helicopter with Donald Trump? - No. - You have no memory of anything like that ever happening? - No. - There you go. And with me now, former LA Councilman Nate Holden and Barbara Russ, former Trump organization, executive vice president and author of Tower of Lies, what my 18 years of working with Donald Trump reveals about him. And Nate, and Barbara, great to have you both. I really appreciate it. Nate, let me start with you. Tell us what happened on board this helicopter ride around 1990. You were there. - I was there for sure. I mean, I don't look like Willy Brown. I'm not Willy Brown. I'm Nate Holden. In the Sunday flame, the helicopter was Barbara and Dean Donald, we call him Dean Donald then. And as much from the much impaired and in flight, Donald Trump was saying, look at this skyline. Oh my God, it's more beautiful skyline in the world. And I'm part of it. Fine. You keep talking and talking and shortly after we're in flight, the pilot, before that, he said, I got two pilots. I have two engaged, one dies. The other will save our lives. And the pilot said, shut up, shut up. So waving back at him, quiet, quiet. And Donald kept talking. He said, quiet, the hydraulic system just failed. And I'm trying to land this helicopter manually. And we'd hit emergency landing in London, New Jersey, right there where I grew up and I knew the area. And that's what happened on that flight. Yeah. When he landed in flight, he was still a whitest snow. Trump was very upset. And I saw raising a lot of noise at the mechanics who maintain those helicopter. I asked him by meantime the failure, qualification of those helicopter. And given the fact that one had crashed about six months earlier, killing three of his top executives. He should have been demanding that they do a reliability, that he'd determined meantime the failure and give those flights, those helicopters in flight. Wow. And Barbara, you were there, correct? You have some recollection of this as well. This sounds frightening. What was your recollection? How did Trump react? And you could confirm Nate was there not Willie Brown, correct? Yeah, absolutely it was Nate. I brought Nate from California to meet Donald and Trump Tower to talk about this Ambassador Project. And when we got there, they said, "Oh, we have them in a time. He's going Atlantic City, coming out of the media in the helicopter." So we said, "Okay, well, what choice do we have?" And we went on the helicopter and it was, you know, starting to be a little bumpy. So one of the other two guys, I don't know if it was Robert Trump or the other executive starts talking about it, when the sound meets the river, the air currents are such and such. And that's for courses, turbulence. And I'm going, "Yeah, right, you're a scientist now." Meanwhile, I'm seeing the cult pile is pumping the hell out of some instruments he's got there on the floor. And I knew something was wrong, but, you know, then it really started shaking. And he was very calm about it. He said, "Okay, we've lost a few instruments. We're going to have to land emergency land." I think he said we were landing a teeter bottle and it was shaking. Everybody was scared. Trump was terrified, absolutely terrified. And I know that from him because he wouldn't go on the outside elevator on Trump Channel unless I went with him. He's not good with this kind of thing. Anyway, we landed in Teeter bottle and I don't remember him yelling at anybody. The one thing I remember is he made a big chunk out of this. He turned to Nate and he said, "You know, Nate, you turned white." It was strong who turned white. Nate was as beautiful as he always was. Yeah. And Nate, you would think that Trump would remember the details of such a dramatic event and not confuse you with Willie Brown. Why do you think he was confused? Well, if he were confused, which I'm not sure he was, and he could've been giving misleading information, and technically, what if he were confused? Willie Brown is, I served with him four years in the legislature. He was in the assembly, I was in the state center. We were never confused. There was never a misidentification of the two of us during that time period. And there Willie Brown is a little short, intelligent, sharp guy turning from San Francisco area. And I'm a tall guy from Los Angeles. As I said earlier on, obviously maybe to Donald, we all look alike. Well, Nate and Barbara, thanks for making it very clear exactly what happened. Now that we have the details, we can move forward. Thanks, thanks so much. Really appreciate your time. And thanks for watching Anderson Cooper 360 is next. We have so much technology. We have the ability to control so much in our lives. You still can't control mother nature. It really is a terrifying experience. Violent Earth with the Leop Shriver now streaming on Max. (dramatic music)
