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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Federal Judge Will Allow Prosecutors To Release Never-Before- Seen Evidence In Trump Election Case; Federal Investigators Seize Phones At Homes Of Top NYC Officials, Including NYPD Commissioner; DOJ: Russia Funded U.S. Media Group Featuring Right-Wing Influencers; New CNN Polling Finds Very Tight Race In Must-Win States; Trump: I Lost 2020 Election "By A Whisker"; Harris To Spend Several Days In Pittsburgh Preparing For Debate. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 05, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:01:03]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

We start this hour with breaking news in the election subversion case against Donald Trump. The judge in the case just set a schedule that could result in the release of some of the evidence against Mr. Trump before the November election. Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz, CNN's Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

Katelyn, what could this never before seen evidence consist of?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, this was what the prosecutors were quite explicit in describing in court today. They want to file their -- what's called the opening brief on presidential immunity. And they've got lots of exhibits. They said this, Tom Windham said, we want to set forth the facts of this case both in and outside of the indictment of Donald Trump. Things like grand jury transcripts, 302s, which are FBI memos of interviews they conduct with people, interview transcripts, additional interview transcripts, documentary evidence, all of that they want to be able to attach to their court filing and show the judge, this is the evidence we have to try and prove that Donald Trump was acting outside of the presidency after the 2020 election.

Now, we haven't seen this evidence before because the Justice Department collected it in the grand jury and with subpoena power that even the House wasn't able to have in their investigation. And so what they will do, the date that the judge has set now, September 26, that's when they'll be able to submit this all to court, and then the judge can determine how much of it is public. So before we talked about the possibility of a trial, trial for Trump, that's not happening anytime soon. No trial date. We talked about a possibility of a mini trial, that's not on the table for now.

Instead, all of that stuff that you would see at trial and even the transcripts of people who may have testified before a grand jury and then be called back to trial, that's what we are very likely to be seeing by the end of this month.

TAPPER: But, Elie, I'm sure if I were Donald Trump or one of his attorneys, I'd be thinking we need to do everything we can to stop this evidence from being released. And let's be honest, they have friends at the U.S. Supreme Court who might be inclined to listen to that argument for any number of reasons, including the election.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

TAPPER: Are we going to see this evidence?

HONIG: I think we are going to see this evidence. Now, this is exactly the scenario that Donald Trump's lawyers were arguing against in trying to avoid this morning. They said, let's not do the immunity issue at all until after the election because, and the lawyer for Trump said it, we don't want this stuff coming out. We have a sensitive presidential election coming very soon. Judge Chutkan clearly does not care.

Now, to your question, Jay, can Donald Trump say, well, I want to appeal this scheduling order to the D.C. court of Appeals, maybe to the US Supreme Court. He will have no luck doing that. This is a scheduling order. This is uniquely in the discretion in the province of a district judge, a trial court judge. There is no way in my mind that a court of appeals or the Supreme Court gets involved at the micromanagement level of a scheduling order.

POLANTZ: And step back. This is largely going to be about Mike Pence, what Mike Pence said to the grand jury, perhaps what his advisors said to the grand jury, people who did not initially want to testify willingly and were forced into testifying. We could see the exact words of what they were asked by prosecutors and how they responded. Maybe not live, but at least on paper, potentially a very powerful transcript.

HONIG: Yes, I imagine the judge would review first, though, to make sure there's nothing classified, nothing sensitive.

TAPPER: All right, Katelyn Polantz and Elie Hoenig, huge news. Thank you so much.

We also have another breaking story in our law and justice lead right now. Federal investigators have seized phones from the homes of multiple high ranking New York City officials, including two deputy mayors and the police commissioner. Three sources briefed on the investigation say this is not connected to the FBI's long running investigation into officials at city hall. So what is it about? Let's go to CNN's Polo Sandoval.

Polo, federal investigators apparently fanned out to these homes in the early hours Wednesday. What more do we know?

[17:05:10]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Jake, at this point, the full scope of this investigation is still very much unclear. We do know, however, that this involves the seizure of the electronic devices of several high ranking New York City officials. And this is, again, according to multiple sources speaking to CNN who are familiar with this investigation. And among those officials, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, deputy mayor for public safety Philip Banks III, and also the current commissioner of the New York Police Department, Edward Caban. An NYPD spokesperson releasing a statement. Essentially what they're doing, Jake, is confirming that they have been made aware of the U.S. attorney's investigation involving members of the service, but they also deferred any future questions to federal officials for comment.

Some of these sources speaking to CNN indicate that the latest probe into police officials by the U.S. attorney's office is nothing connected to the FBIs long running investigation. As you point out a few moments ago, you recall, Eric Adams himself was issued by a federal grand jury subpoena earlier this summer as part of an investigation into illegal campaign contributions. Also in November, FBI agents raided Mayor Adams as campaign treasurer. And then also you have Mayor Adams who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and either he or anyone in his administration has actually been charged with a crime.

But what's important to underscore here, based on my conversation with our colleague John Miller, is what this definitely is. It marks the expansion of the number of separate federal investigations into New York City officials, Jake. So it's certainly difficult to keep up with the number of investigations. And some of these New York City officials certainly finding themselves in that very complicated situation where they have to address these moves by federal investigators.

TAPPER: All right, Polo Sandoval, thanks so much.

Let's bring in CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller, who previously worked for the NYPD as a deputy commissioner.

John, when you hear the sentence that federal investigators, quote, "fanned out in the early hours," what does that suggest to you about the severity of this investigation?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, it shows that they are trying to use, you know, these 05:00 a.m. And 06:00 a.m. visits simultaneously to multiple high ranking officials at once for the element of surprise, meaning they are concerned that if they did them separately on different days or different times, people might have been tipped off, evidence might have been altered. So it shows they are looking for something presumably very serious.

TAPPER: The agents visited the homes of the New York police commissioner, in addition to two deputy mayors, they also subpoenaed a former police inspector who is currently a special advisor to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. How rare is it for officials at this level to be visited by the feds in this way?

MILLER: Well, I've been around a long time and that's never happened before. No, I would say that this is the first time in history that a sitting New York City police commissioner has been visited by his colleagues from federal law enforcement who have said, hand over your electronic devices pursuant to a grand jury subpoena. So that's one in a row so far, Jake.

TAPPER: We're told this is a separate case and is not involved, not connected to the other federal probes and to high ranking New York City officials. What's going on in New York City? Why so many investigations into officials?

MILLER: Well, unclear, but let me do the best I can to clear it up. There's an investigation that's going on into officials of the mayor's office about campaign contributions that may have been bundled by Turkish supporters of the mayor in New York City in violation of campaign finance laws, possibly in return for other favors like rushing the certificate of occupancy through for the Turkish mission to the U.N. The mayor is being looked at for how many times he flew to Turkey and whether he was upgraded to first class and things like that. That's case number one. Mayor has not been charged or named as a suspect.

Case number two is the deputy mayors who were the recipients of these subpoenas this week. We don't know what that probe is into, but we are told it is separate from the FBI probe. And the third is the one into the police commissioner, which is not connected to the other two probes. But the subpoenas were all served on the same day, but they're different probes. So it's a lot going on.

TAPPER: John Miller, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

And speaking of a lot going on, it's a very busy afternoon here at The Lead. We have another breaking news story for you right now involving the Hunter Biden case out in California. Let's go straight to CNN's Evan Perez in Los Angeles.

Evan, we talked to you in the last hour. And Hunter Biden, despite what we believed he was going to do, actually offered to plead guilty. Any news on that?

[17:10:03]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake. The judge has now accepted Hunter's formal plea for -- plead guilty on all nine counts that he was facing. Now, we spent the last couple of hours with prosecutors spending basically running through all 56 pages of this indictment. That goes through a lot of the behavior that prosecutors said he was doing during the time he was addicted to crack cocaine, earning millions of dollars, about $7 million dollars during this time, but not paying his taxes. Instead, what prosecutors said, and they read all of these details out in court, they said he was spending his money on exotic dancers, on sex clubs, basically everything he was claiming as business expenses and they were not business expenses. And so, at the end of that period, the judge, Mark Scarci, asked Hunter Biden whether he pleaded guilty to each specific count.

After each one, Hunter Biden said guilty. And at the end of that, the judge accepted the plea and he sent it -- and he scheduled sentencing for Hunter Biden on December 16. Of course, that means both convictions for Hunter Biden. He was earlier this year was convicted on gun charges in Wilmington, Delaware. That sentencing is set for mid-November. So both of these now will be set for after the November election.

The date there, of course, Jake, you know, is very key. The president of the United States has said that he is not going to pardon his son. The White House has said it's not going to be a commutation. But those are obviously things when the president was still running for reelection. That is no longer the case.

We're expecting Hunter Biden to make his way out of the federal courthouse here in downtown Los Angeles any minute now. Keep in mind, Jake, you know, we spent the last, we spent all day here, there about 120 prospective jurors who came here expecting voir dire, which was the process by which they would select a jury. It was expected to take a couple of days. And none of that happened because we saw what Hunter Biden was dead set on emerging from this courthouse without having to go through that expensive trial. Jake.

TAPPER: What kind of punishment do you think Hunter Biden is going to face now? Let's -- assuming he doesn't get pardoned or commuted before, theoretically, whatever happened?

PEREZ: Yes. The judge actually made sure to remind Hunter Biden of all of the, you know, the very severe sentences that could be coming from this guilty plea. He said that these nine offenses could add up to a maximum of 17 years in prison, Jake. And then also about $750,000 in fines, according to prosecutors. That was something that they made sure Hunter Biden understood before he accepted the plea.

He said he did understand all of those circumstances, Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much.

We're going to stay on top of all of this breaking news for you. We're also following brand new details released today on Russia's efforts to influence your vote ahead of this year's presidential election. We're digging into all of it next.

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[17:17:13]

TAPPER: Today, the U.S. government is trying to peel back more layers of what officials say are massive and complex efforts underway to influence your vote in the upcoming election. One part of these alleged plots replacing your average 2016 Russian social media bots with actual conservative Americans, right wing influencers with a combined millions of followers, Influencers promoted by Elon Musk, some visited by republican politicians such as former President Trump. People who attack anyone pushing for aid to Ukraine, seeking to discredit traditional news organizations.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said that these individuals are working for a company that is funded with millions of dollars from the Kremlin. And in some cases, these individuals have raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars per month. And while some are calling these influencers dupes or useful idiots, they claim they did not know about the origin of this money and that they are, in fact, victims. All of this after the Justice Department said on Wednesday that Russia has funneled nearly $10 million into a front company based in Tennessee with the express purpose of interfering in the U.S. presidential election. Prosecutors think that Russian leader Vladimir Putin's fingerprints are all over this conspiracy.

In response, the U.S. charged two specific Russian nationals, sanctioned 10 additional people, and seized dozens of Internet domains. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is all over this for us.

Donie, who are the right wing influencers and what kind of content are they pushing out?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake. Yes. I think if we bring up that full screen again, three of them there, you can see a lot of folks will never have heard of these people, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, Dave Rubin. But you can see between them, just on YouTube alone, they have about 7 million subscribers. These are -- they're the right wing superstars, the far right social media stars, where a lot of Americans are getting their news, their political opinion, and their misinformation from people like this.

Look, these are all guys and the other folks who were allegedly duped into working for this alleged Russian disinformation and influence campaign. You know, these are people who have already been pushing their own narrative, their own misinformation, have their own shows on a lot of these platforms.

So it wasn't as if this campaign made them, kind of was the impetus for them to launch these YouTube channels. It's nothing at all like that. However, these guys are folks who, as you mentioned, will always attack the mainstream media for lack of trust, will always be the first to point out, you know, sometimes rightly, in terms of where money is coming from for different organizations and whatnot. But here, clearly, you know, this is a very suspicious type of endeavor.

[17:20:06]

And look, Jake, what I will say is that all these guys have said that, you know, they didn't know that they were working for the Russians, but certainly it was a lot of money.

TAPPER: Yes, it's kind of unusual to be paid $400,000 to do a few YouTube videos every week.

O'SULLIVAN: It would be nice. Yes.

TAPPER: Yes. It's nice work if you can get it --

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

TAPPER: -- comrade. But tell us more about Tenet Media, which is this organization at question here. O'SULLIVAN: Yes. And so Tenet Media was basically a front organization. What the DOJ alleges is that Russian operatives co-opted some people here in the U.S. and in Canada to basically set up this company. And they were the face of the company. They went and hired these influencers.

And basically, Tenet, a lot of its content is still actually live online. You can see some of these American far right influencers like Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, and Dave Rubin on these -- on the Tenet channel. And basically, essentially what the Russians got here was a licensing deal. They were able to take content from these guys and push it on whatever channels they wanted.

And look, Jake, when this is -- the indictment is pretty fascinating to read in that. You know, remember back to 2016 where it was kind of Russian trolls and bots and things like that? Well, now you're kind of looking at them right there on screen. These are the equivalent in 2024, of course. Again, important to point out that these people say they were unwitting, that they didn't know what they were doing.

TAPPER: Interesting. Donie O'Sullivan, thanks so much.

Joining us now to discuss, the former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, and the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, Evelyn Farkas.

And Chris, you say this might actually just be the tip of the iceberg. You've actually been digging into these alleged Russian backed efforts known as doppelganger. Tell us more about that.

CHRIS KREBS, FORMER DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY: Yes. So, look, if you think back to 2016, the intelligence community assessment detailed a multi prong effort to interfere in that election. There was hacking election infrastructure. There was hackingly campaigns against campaign officials, and then there's this broader disinformation. So when you start from the assumption that there's a complex strategy that the Kremlin has pulled together, we saw evidence of that in the speaking indictment yesterday.

There were target audiences, target themes. They specifically directed the two U.S. individuals to recruit these podcasters or these influencers. Very well thought out, but this is just one facet. We also saw the doppelganger part. Doppelganger is basically the evolution of the Internet research agency, who Yevgeny Prigozhin ran out of St. Petersburg, that actually operated those bots or those accounts, rather, on social media.

So we're seeing what we, I think, usually look back and say, OK, what they do last time, we need to be ready for that. Adversary is dynamic. They're very innovative. They have moved forward significantly. And unfortunately, it looks like we're still playing a little bit of catch up to spot where they're making their bets and investments.

TAPPER: Do you think this is actually affecting the election? And is there evidence that, I mean, these voices are very popular within the MAGA crowd. They might have helped knock out Nikki Haley. They might have almost helped knock out aids of Ukraine, right?

KREBS: Yes. So what I think is that it's difficult tactically. And, I mean, specific outcomes getting a voter to change their mind on how they're going to vote is very difficult in these propaganda, these disinformation campaigns. But the more strategic outcome of shaping the larger information environment and undercutting trust in public institutions, for instance. That is where I think we probably see the most impact.

What's interesting is the timing of this indictment and seizing those 32 plus Internet domains. It is going to take time for doppelganger, again, separate from tenant media. This is the bot farms, the AI powered content. It's going to take time for them to reconstitute those websites and get that level of engagement back up to where they were previously.

TAPPER: Evelyn, what is the Kremlin's -- what are some of their priorities here? What are they trying to achieve here?

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECT. OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE & EURASIA: Yes, I mean, I think, first and foremost, they would like to have Donald Trump back in office because Donald Trump has said, you know, that he will end the war with Ukraine that Russia launched overnight. And most people understand that to mean that Ukraine will have to capitulate. Donald Trump has been a friend of Vladimir Putin's, if you will. He's always said nice things about him. So that is something that the Kremlin wants.

They favor him as a candidate. The other part of it, of course, is that regardless of the Donald Trump part of the equation, they also want to continue to erode support for Ukraine. Russia believes that this is a war of attrition that they can win if they keep fighting, because they have more men, they have more material, they have more money, that they can just basically run down the Ukrainians and essentially also get us to back away from the Ukrainians. And if the American public, if members of Congress start to buy into this narrative that they shouldn't support Ukraine, then the Russians have also succeeded.

[17:25:16]

TAPPER: Well, we should note that after the indictment came down, Putin did something, basically a troll with an endorsement of Vice President Harris, which we know he doesn't believe. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters today, quote, "We would greatly appreciate it if Mr. Putin would A, stop talking about our election, and B, stop interfering in it." Obviously, Putin's not going to just stop. But what would make Putin stop?

FARKAS: Nothing. Nothing, frankly. And I think to Chris' point, the Russians have become much more -- they become bolder, brasher. They're putting more money against us. You know, when we first started seeing this come up in 2016, and when I ran for Congress, there was one guy putting out an op-ed attacking me. The State Department wrote a report about it. We reported it to the House. Nobody did anything in law enforcement. People just didn't understand. They didn't pay attention to how the Russians were using all kinds of people.

Again, that guy was a Russian. We have Dimitri Simes, who's a think tanker, you know, who's running around this town, also spreading, I guess, disinformation on RT and other places. We don't know how much money has, frankly, come into our whole campaign electoral system from Russian sources. So they're using all of these tactics, but using them much more brassly (ph), brashly, much more kind of out in the open almost, because I think they feel like they got away with it in the past.

TAPPER: There's also, we should note, an effort by the Chinese to do it, except in different ways, right? The Chinese have given money or their Chinese government money has gone to code pink, which all of a sudden isn't offended by the Uyghur genocide anymore. And then there was this aide to Cuomo and Hochul in New York who apparently helped block diplomacy with Taiwan.

KREBS: Yes, this is a big deal because it shows that the Chinese security services are targeting state capitals, not just Washington, D.C., and not just New York City. They're going to the more regional centers of power. And the trick is here, the disadvantage that we have, those state capitals have is they don't have the full power of the FBI. They have state investigative agencies that may not be resourced or have the expertise to really stay on top of these things. Plus, it gives the Chinese security services the opportunity to spot talent early, cultivate it, and develop it for long term.

TAPPER: All right, Chris Krebs, Evelyn Farkas, thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

Both the Harris and the Trump campaign expect states such as Michigan and Arizona to be battlegrounds this fall. What about Virginia? Are Virginians and their electoral votes, are they up for grabs? I'll ask the state's former governor coming up.

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[17:32:00]

TAPPER: In our 2024 Lead, a brand new CNN poll shows a very tight presidential race in many of the must win battleground states. Vice President Harris, former President Trump are split among likely voters in Nevada and Georgia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which means those states are basically toss ups right now. What about areas that could be wildcards in November's election?

Let's bring in the former governor of Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Work closely with both Hillary and Bill Clinton. So I want to ask you about how competitive these battleground states are. But quickly on Virginia in 2016, Hillary narrowly won Virginia narrowish, 212,000 votes. Biden did it with 451,000 votes. Before Biden dropped out, there was a lot of internal polling showing that, like states such as New Hampshire and Minnesota and Virginia were becoming more competitive. Where is Virginia today? Is it a lock?

TERRY MCAULIFFE (D-VA), FORMER GOVERNOR: Yes, it was never --

TAPPER: For Democrats?

MCAULIFFE: Yes. It was never really in play. I think we probably win by 10 again. Two big things, number one, we have the most federal workers of any state. All the people who work for our federal government, many of them live in Virginia. They remember that Donald Trump did a 35-day government shutdown.

And remember Trump was very callous about it and said, oh, they'll get their pay sometime. That doesn't help a federal worker, Jake.

TAPPER: Right.

MCAULIFFE: And you have to buy groceries or pay your rent. So they remember him for that. And the military, we have the most military installations, the largest naval base in the world in Virginia, Pentagon. They hate what he does with the military. They hate what he did at Arlington the other day, calling our military personnel losers and suckers who lost their lives.

TAPPER: Yes.

MCAULIFFE: So the military is going against Trump and you have the federal workers. So we're going to win Virginia. We have 110 staff today, 26 offices. Trump doesn't have anything. He's not even planned. So, but, you know, they want to continue to send more to get more resources. We're all for it. But I feel very good. We're going to win Virginia. The battle is about these key --

TAPPER: So let's talk about those.

MCAULIFFE: Sure.

TAPPER: Because in the battleground states, a new CNN poll shows that Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin. In those states, voters trust Trump to better handle the economy over Kamala Harris. How can voters take Harris claim as seriously that she's going to be an agent of change? It's time to turn the page. The economy's going to improve, et cetera, when she's the vice president of the current administration.

MCAULIFFE: Well, those six states, Joe Biden did win. He got 303 electoral votes in 2020. Kamala Harris is going to win those six. I would add North Carolina now in play. I could make an argument, Florida, which Biden only lost by three points. Jake, now you have the abortion question on the ballot this year to stop a six-week ban that the Republicans have put in Florida.

But listen, she is going to be an agent of change. It's going to be a historic election. She's talking about building a new economy, building small business. She's talking about taking 25 million more small business licenses when she's becomes the president, added to the 17 million that she and President Biden had when they were in office.

[17:35:01]

So I think small business growing, the economy, inflation is coming down. They created 17 million new jobs. Now, the debate is going to be important. But listen, she's going to be a game changer. I've worked with her a lot when she was vice president, used to bring me in to talk about business issues. I was a very pro-business job creating governor in Virginia. And all we talked about is how you grow small businesses.

And that is what she is going to be able to get rid of red tape, build more small businesses, put more people, first time homebuyers, giving them a big tax deduction so they can buy their first home. Look at our economic plan. And let me just say this. Trump's plan, national sales tax, we had $4,000.

TAPPER: You're talking about the tariffs.

MCAULIFFE: You bet.

TAPPER: You're helping the Harris campaign with fundraising. You just held the fundraiser with vice presidential candidate Walz.

MCAULIFFE: Yes.

TAPPER: Does money play a bigger role in this election given the fact and the odd circumstances of her, you know, she's still relatively unknown. She hadn't gone through the primary process. There was this race to define her. A lot of which, a lot of the definition is going to be done on television through ads and such.

MCAULIFFE: Yes. I've just done two events. I did a big one.

TAPPER: Oh, you did, too? OK.

MCAULIFFE: I had President Biden, Clinton's at my house for the Biden- Harris team.

TAPPER: All right. OK.

MCAULIFFE: -- Tim Walz the other night. So I've done about 9.5 million bucks in the last two months. That's peanuts compared to what's coming into this campaign. She has raised, Jake, 540 million. She became our candidate for president. The more important number, two-thirds first time donors. That has never happened in the history of American politics.

So a lot of money's coming in, small donors, new donors. It goes to show the excitement. Hundreds of thousands of people have signed up to be grassroots activists knocking on the door. So we'll have plenty of resources. Now, she outraged Trump three to one as you know, in August, both candidacies will have money. But I do think it goes to the enthusiasm which she has been able to bring in these new donors, small donors has never happened in the history of presidential politics.

TAPPER: All right --

MCAULIFFE: And it allows us to do everything we need to do, afterwards, make the phone calls. It's exciting. It's going to be a close election. Get out there, get engaged.

TAPPER: Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, The Macker, thanks so much for being here.

After years of claiming the 2020 election was stolen, Donald Trump is now on camera admitting that he lost. And some of his most loyal followers have a few questions for the former president. Stay with us.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:41:35]

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, you -- you -- you would win. You cannot win. And I got millions of more votes than that and lost by a whisker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: That's true. Fact check, true. Donald Trump saying out loud he lost the 2020 election by a whisker. Quite a comment considering he spent the last four years claiming that the election was stolen, that he actually won. Some of his supporters took note, including Nick Fuentes, a well-known white supremacist, live streamer, who supports Trump and even dined with Trump once at Mar-a-Lago, a Holocaust denier.

Fuentes said that Trump admitting to losing the 2020 election vindicates the Justice Department charges against him, saying, quote, so why did we do stop the steal? Why did anyone go to January 6th?, unquote. The panel's here. Tia, we're -- we're used to hearing shocking things from white supremacist Nick Fuentes, disgusting things, deplorable things. This is shocking for a different reason because he's basically saying, you just acknowledge that you lost. So why have we been repeating these lies?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: It's almost like, you know, the fog has been lifted and he's finally seen clearly. And that's been the problem with the election denialism and the lies from Trump and those who supported Trump apparently until recently, including Nick Fuentes, is that, you know, we've been telling them for the past four years that Trump lost fair and square and that any efforts to overturn the election were unfounded and improper and they refused to believe the lies. And it resulted in January 6th. It resulted in dozens, if not hundreds of people being arrested and charged. And it has resulted in Donald Trump facing charges. But now maybe they're ready to hear the truth and maybe we can finally move on.

TAPPER: Machalagh, in addition to the fact that January 6th wouldn't have happened and there would be for Trump supporters and several other police officers who would currently be alive, how different would our world be if Donald Trump had was -- had been admitting that he lost this election by a whisker for the last few years?

MACHALAGH CARR, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, SPEAKER MCCARTHY: Yes. I -- I don't think it would be that different.

TAPPER: No?

CARR: I mean, first of all, I don't think that's a serious person. There's nuts on all sides of the political spectrum. He's already said he's not a Republican and doesn't support the Republican Party.

TAPPER: You're talking about Nick Fuentes?

CARR: Right.

TAPPER: OK.

CARR: So no -- nobody's serious, no -- no serious --

TAPPER: No, he's gross. But it was just an interesting comment.

CARR: Right. But I think what I -- I don't think we'd be in a very different place where we are right now is that Trump is leading Vice President Harris in every single swing state that matters. CNN's own poll from yesterday shows him up in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Nevada and Arizona and Georgia. And so I think maybe he'd be up more had we not gone through that. But I think we would still see that the American people are focused on the economy and the last four years that led us to the economy we have right now. Rather than spending time talking about this.

TAPPER: I think that the polls were more mixed than that. But let's just say it's a jump ball in all the battleground states. Paul, let's talk about the upcoming debate coming up. During a CNN town hall that I hosted in 2019 when then Senator Kamala Harris was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. She dropped out a few months later. I asked her how she was going to prepare to debate Donald Trump. She never got the chance but here's what she said in 2019.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:45:04]

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, first, it's very important that anyone who -- who presents themselves as a leader and wants to be a leader will speak like a leader. And that means speaking with integrity. It means speaking truth. It means speaking --

(APPLAUSE) HARRIS: -- and speaking in a way that e -- e -- expresses and -- and indicates some level of interest and concern in people other than oneself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Here we are five years later. Kamala Harris is going to debate Donald Trump. She's in Pittsburgh. She's preparing for the debate, most important debate of her life, without question. Again, it's a jump ball. Who knows what's going to happen. Right now I think you would have to give the edge to Donald Trump. But we still have, you know, nine weeks or something to go.

Her campaign just reluctantly agreed. OK, fine. We'll go along with the rule to have microphones muted. How can she overcome not having that in her favor? She wanted Trump's stream of extemporaneous comments to be out there.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not very important.

TAPPER: You don't think so?

BEGALA: No. It's a sign that Kamala Harris is confident, right? That she'd not worry she could be rattled by Trump interrupting her, as perhaps Biden's advisors were, right? So that's why I think they wanted it muted. I -- I -- I would rather have the mic live but it doesn't really matter. That -- if I can parse that answer she gave you in 2019, it's half right, half wrong. The front half is wrong. Don't fact check him. Don't. It's a fool's errand. Somebody has to.

And we paid Daniel Dale to do it and others. And my -- my hero, my pal, my former boss, Bill Clinton had it right at the convention. Don't count the lies. Count the eyes. The back half of Kamala's answer to you is right. Yes, he's a fighter, but he fights for himself. Obviously, he lies. But he lies to benefit himself, right?

Why did he kill the immigration, the border security bill? To benefit himself, right? Always come back to that that should be one of the through lines in this debate for Kamala Harris is I'm for the people, Trump's for himself.

TAPPER: And what advice would you give Donald Trump?

CARR: I think what we saw with the campaign or the debate last time is when he was disciplined and he stayed focused on his answers and focused on policy, he wins. The American people trust Republicans on policy more than Democrats, on issues of the economy generally, which Kamala Harris needs to own. On issues of inflation, which Kamala Harris was the tie breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act, and on issues of the border, which, of course, she was put in charge of and is an abysmal failure.

So if he can focus on that and make her own the positions of the last four years, that's where voters are going to care about. And that will put him ahead after the debate.

TAPPER: What are you looking for to the debate?

MITCHELL: I'm looking for truth and we're looking for details. And that's where, I mean, we mentioned the last debate. We know that President Biden unfortunately set the bar really, really low with a really dismal performance. And so comparatively, Trump looked like he did pretty good that night. But I think that if he ha -- if he gives that same performance against Vice President Harris, the outcome might be different because he did share a lot of lies, he didn't give clear answers, he didn't outline really any specific policies in that first debate.

TAPPER: Yes. All right. Thanks one and all for being here.

[17:48:12]

The doctor's on call. You might remember you submitted your questions about mosquito borne illnesses two days ago. And CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to answer those questions, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Time for our Health Lead, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is back to answer the questions you submitted about diseases caused by mosquito bites. So, Sanjay, the first question from John in San Francisco. He writes, I am a mosquito magnet. In a group of friends, I will get dozens of bites, my friends, only one or two apiece. I've used mosquito repellents, but they only help a little. Is there anything I can do besides stay indoors?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This -- this question about mosquito magnets is sort of an age old question. Turns out there are some people, because of their odor, most likely, not necessarily a bad odor, but just a distinctive odor for mosquitoes makes them more likely to get bit. And frankly, there's not much you can really do about that. But there are a few things to keep in mind. Mosquitoes really like carbon dioxide, which we're always breathing out. So if you're a heavy breather, that's going to attract more mosquitoes, putting a little fan to not only blow the mosquitoes, but blow the carbon dioxide from your face. That can be really helpful.

Mosquitoes really like bold, bright colors, bright reds, bright oranges. Avoid those sort of colors. They like beer drinkers, as it turns out, mosquitoes. So if you're drinking a cold beer on a hot day, you're more likely to get bit as well. What they don't like is sunshine. So that means dusk and dawn are going to be the worst times for mosquitoes. And this, John, says he wears mosquito repellent. Make sure you're using DEET. Make sure you're using Picaridin. And remember, the percentage strength really speaks to how long it's going to last in terms of protection as opposed to the overall strength of effectiveness. So make sure to reapply often.

TAPPER: Another question comes from a viewer in Colorado Springs who writes, if you've had West Nile Virus before, can you get it again?

GUPTA: Yes, great question. The answer is probably not. Once you have had West Nile Virus, you should have lifelong immunity. This is something that's been tested. That means you get the antibodies to it and those antibodies stay. You know, we've learned a lot about antibodies over the past few years, but these are antibodies that end up being lifelong.

Here's the issue a little bit, Jake, is that most people who get West Nile won't even have any symptoms, certainly won't know that they've had it. That's about 80 percent of people. For a small percentage of people, they can get severe symptoms, high fever and headache, neck stiffness, even tremors or convulsions. Part of the reason is that this is a neuroinvasive virus in rare cases, and that seems to be what leads to these symptoms. But the -- the -- the viewer here should be protected for life if they had it.

TAPPER: All right, fascinating stuff. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much. Always good to see you, buddy.

GUPTA: You got it.

[17:54:51]

TAPPER: One of the greatest players to play the game is hanging up her cleats. Our last leads are next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our last leads, a long distance runner from Uganda who just competed in the Olympics last month has been killed after authorities say she was set on fire by her boyfriend. Rebecca Cheptegei was only 33 years old. She suffered burns over 75 percent of her body following Sunday's attack. Cheptegei lived in Kenya. She is the third elite female athlete to be killed in Kenya in the last three years.

In our Health Lead, a new data from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention indicates that teen vaping has dropped to its lowest levels in a decade. A half million fewer middle and high school students are using e-cigarettes this year compared to last year, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey. But the CDC says it is alarmed by the slow but steady rise in the popularity of small, dissolvable nicotine pouches.

An emotional announcement today from renowned soccer player, Alex Morgan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[18:00:04]

ALEX MORGAN, PROFESSIONAL SOCCER PLAYER: This is also not the retirement video I expected.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Morgan announced her retirement today in a video on social media. She's a two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist. In the video, Morgan also revealed she is pregnant with her second child. Morgan's been a mainstay on the U.S. women's national team. She'll play her final match this weekend.

If you ever miss an episode of The Lead, you can listen to the show once you get your podcast. You can also follow us on social media everywhere. The news continues on CNN with Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. I'll see you tomorrow.