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President Trump Claims Massive Voter Fraud In Mail-In Voting; House Democrats Want Postal Service Officials To Testify; Sen. Kamala Harris Responds To Trump's Attacks; Reports On Long-Term COVID-19 Symptoms; Warning From CDC On The Worst Fall In The U.S.; Rahm Emanuel's Pitch To Get Republicans Over To The Democratic Party; Trump Lawyers Fight Battle On Trump's Financial Reports; Former FBI Lawyer To Plead Guilty As Part Of Russia Probe; Trump Opposes Funding Of USPS. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired August 16, 2020 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM.

[17:00:02]

Tomorrow, the Democratic National Convention kicks off and it will be like no other in U.S. history. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, most of the convention will be held virtually. That pandemic has now cost nearly 170,000 Americans their lives.

No big crowds, but familiar faces and rising stars of the Democratic Party will be speaking including the Clintons, the Obamas, Senator Bernie Sanders, and other former 2020 presidential candidates. Some of the speakers will be at the DNC and some of them who will be attending virtually will be joining me here in THE SITUATION ROOM tonight as well.

The goal for the party is simple, to show unity against President Trump and the Republican Party and to make their case for why former Vice President Joe Biden should be elected president of the United States.

But in the meantime, with 79 days to go until Election Day, the president and his allies are falsely claiming that mail-in voting will be rife with fraud and that it may even take months, maybe even years to know the results of this election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to have an election that takes place on a beautiful day, November 3rd. And usually at the end of the evening they say Donald Trump has won the election. Donald Trump is your new president. Whatever they say, you know what? You're not going to know this possibly if you really did it right for months or for years because these ballots are all going to be lost. They're going to be gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Of course, there's no evidence of that. And today, CNN's Jake Tapper confronted the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows with these facts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud, though.

MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: That's not --

TAPPER: But there's no evidence of widespread evidence of voter fraud.

MEADOWS: There's no evidence that there is not either, that's the definition of fraud, Jake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us now from near the president's golf resort in New Jersey.

Kristen, let's get into this dispute between the White House and congressional Democrats who are seriously talking now about doing something pretty rare coming back early from the summer recess to address the issues with the U.S. Postal Service. So, tell us what the Democrats potentially are offering.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, look there are two major hurdles that the White House and Democrats will have to agree on in order to actually get some sort of bill passed. And the first it seems as though they might have some common ground on, and that is whether or not they would both be willing to pass some sort of stand-alone bill to support the United States Postal Service.

Now, remember, Democrats have long said they do not want any sort of stand-alone bill when it comes to the stimulus. We talked about unemployment benefits, stimulus checks, they wanted one big comprehensive bill. However, they are changing their tune.

Today, we heard from Chuck Schumer who said that he and Speaker Pelosi are considering some sort of stand-alone bill. Now the big second hurdle is what the money would look like. We pull up here what that Democratic proposal that they've already put forward look like. You can see that they proposed $25 billion for the Postal Service, and this was the same amount of money that was requested by the Trump- appointed board of governors of the Postal Service.

In that, $3.5 billion would be dedicated just to mail-in voting alone. Republicans on the other hand have floated about $10 billion. So there is a huge discrepancy, but we are working in an unprecedented time. That election is just around the corner and there were so many alarm bells that were sent off this week.

We heard from state officials, from postal workers, all about these changes that DeJoy was making. He, of course, is the postmaster general and Trump ally and donor, that were actually slowing the Postal Service and causing concern about the November election. One of the big things was this removal of about 700 mail processing machines. Take a listen to what Meadows told Jake Tapper earlier today about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEADOWS: There's no sorting machines that are going off-line between now and the election. That is something that my Democratic friends are trying to do to stoke fear out there. That's not happening.

TAPPER: Are you saying that sorting machines have not been taken off- line and removed? Are you asserting that? That that did not happen.

MEADOWS: I'm saying that sorting machines between now and the election will not be taken off-line.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, of course we know that there was no stoking of fear. We heard from Postal Service workers, union members, all that said that this was happening, but we did confirm with the Postal Service there will be no more dismantling of those machines.

Some of the other things that were touched on were on more overtime, limited hours for Postal Service, all of this causing major concern for both Democrats and Republicans, Wolf.

BLITZER: It certainly are. All right, Kristen Holmes, reporting for us. Thank you very much.

[17:04:58]

Joining us now, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein. His union represents more than 200,000 employees of the U.S. Postal Service. In June, they endorsed Joe Biden. Mark, thanks so much for joining us.

So, what are you hearing from your workers, the workers that you represent about the changes to the U.S. Postal Service including as we just heard, potentially eliminating overtime and slowing down some delivery.

MARK DIMONDSTEIN, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION: Well, thanks so much for having me on. What we're hearing from the workers throughout the country is that the policies that the new postmaster general has implemented, cutting back the hours that employees are working, changing transportation and cutting back transportation of mail, strict guidelines where somebody can't wait 10 minutes to get all the mail on the truck to get delivered that day even though it should be delivered that day. That all these policies are slowing down the mail. And we're hearing

that throughout the country from workers. I got a photograph today, packages that have a date sitting in a processing plant, sortation plant of August 7th, and the pictures was taken this morning, August 16th, and those packages have never been sorted.

We've never seen anything like this, even in a Christmas rush. So the workers are very troubled. Our DNA as postal workers is to never delay mail, treat the mail as if it's our own, serve the customers, live by the law that says prompt, reliable and efficient services. So, it's very troubling to postal workers that we should be delaying the mail.

BLITZER: Well, do you believe, Mark, that you, the workers for that matter believe that these changes are politically motivated?

DIMONDSTEIN: You know, I think people probably have all different views. We can only deal with the facts. I'm not in the meetings where our fly on the wall hearing the motivations, but I think there's a general political motivation. And that is we're dealing with an administration that's not shy about their long run and main goal, and that is to privatize the public Postal Service.

They put it in writing in June 2018, and that means break it up, dismantle it, sell it to private corporations for private profit. So, anything that degrades service and undermines the Postal Service, we're certainly concerned that that's going to feed that agenda.

AN obvious -- look, if anybody had any doubt on the dedication of postal workers, we've been on the front lines as essential workers in this pandemic and dangerous and troubling and challenging times, still proudly serving the people of this country connecting the country. We're dedicated to move the mail, but we can't have our hands tied by a postal management that wants to do something different.

BLITZER: As you know, Mark, Democrats in Congress are calling for top Postal Service officials to testify, including the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Trump ally, a campaign contributor. What do you want to hear from him? Do you believe he's actually involved in what you described as this effort to do away with the U.S. Postal Service for the -- and make it into some sort of private enterprise?

DIMONDSTEIN: Well, we certainly he's not, but our concern is that he's in place to carry out an agenda of the administration that he's tied to. We listen to the words that will say some right things and some nice things, but we can only judge people by their deeds. And we're glad Congress is involved.

But Congress also needs to act, Wolf. The pandemic, the economic crisis of the pandemic is deeply affecting the public Postal Service. In March, there was a $25 billion ask from the postal board of governors that passed the House. There was a huge relief package, trillions of dollars, $500 billion to private corporations. The post office didn't get a dime.

Congress needs to get it right and get it done because this is a crisis. Normally, there is no tax dollars that go to the operations of the post office. This is an exception because this is an emergency, and the Postal Service needs that $25 billion. Whether it's a stand- alone bill or part of a big stimulus, postal workers don't care.

What they need is the support and that support isn't going to, you know, CEOs or shareholders. It's going to the people of the country for this wonderful national treasure that 91 percent of the people of the country support and trust. And that's throughout the political spectrum, equal support. It's not a conservative liberal issue, it's not a Democrat Republican issue. At least it's not amongst the people of the country.

BLITZER: There were some encouraging words, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said that the administration is open to seeing some stand-alone bill to rescue the Postal Service right now, and the Democratic leadership, they're beginning to come around and say yes, that might be workable right now.

Let's see. I know you guys need the money. You need it badly. The House and the Senate, they got to come back.

[17:10:01]

They got to cut short their recess and deal with all these issues, not just the Postal Service, but making sure desperate people all over the country, unemployed people get some extra money to put food on the table because this is a serious pandemic that's unfolding right now. Mark Dimondstein, thank you so much for joining us. Good luck.

DIMONDSTEIN: Thanks, again, for having me.

BLITZER: The Democratic presumptive nominee for vice president, Senator Kamala Harris, is firing back at President Trump after he actually floated a racist birther conspiracy about her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIO)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): There is so much at stake in this election, and I'm prepared to fight because this is a fight that is for something, not against something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: So, will the messaging from the president turn off voters? We're taking a closer look at that. Stay with us, you're in "The Situation Room."

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BLITZER: Senator Kamala Harris today slamming the Trump campaign after the president actually floated a racist birther conspiracy about hers.

[17:15:02]

Here's what Senator Harris said in her second interview since she announced -- she was announced as Joe Biden's running mate. Listen to this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: They're going to engage in lies. They are going to engage in deception. They're going to engage in an attempt to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people. And I expect that they will engage in dirty tactics and this is going to be a knockdown, drag-out, and we're ready.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This also comes as the president has resorted to some racially charged claims about the suburbs being "invaded" in an effort to secure support among the key demographic, which is trending at least for now toward his opponent.

Our senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, is joining us. Ron, we know the Trump campaign playbook at this point. So what do you think of Senator Harris' response? Is that the right approach?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look, you know, I think basically yes. I mean, you know, even before the pandemic, when the economy was humming. The president was underperforming any Republican nominee ever among college educated white voters, particularly in the suburbs, even though they were doing very well.

And a lot of that was because they viewed him as racist and sexist and dividing the country. The core problem he's got, Wolf, and we talked about this before, is that roughly 60 percent of the country in pools week after week, say he has failed on the two big challenges facing America.

Obviously the pandemic is number one, but also race relations. And that verdict undercuts his effort to portray himself as a law and order president because while many white suburbanites thought Nixon could actually deliver law and order, if you look at polls now, many of those, you know, the equivalent voters today believe that Trump's belligerent confrontational approach, his use of kind of racial resentment increases the risks of disorder in society and makes them less safe.

BLITZER: As you know, top Trump officials have been asked about this conspiracy. I want you to listen to some of their responses. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Do you accept the fact, and it is a fact, that Senator Kamala Harris is eligible to be vice president?

MEADOWS: Sure, and I think the president spoke to this yesterday. This is not something that we're going to pursue.

JASON MILLER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISOR: It is not something that anyone in our camp is talking about. The president said that he doesn't -- it's not something pursuing, not something that we're interested in. And in our opinion, it is closed, end of story. STEVE CORTES, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISOR: We have not made an issue of this. We will not make an issue of this. It's a nonstarter from our point of view, for the president and for the campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: As you heard, they say they're not pursuing this false story, but we do know that the president has praised the author of that "Newsweek" magazine article saying he was brilliant, great. He doesn't know anything about it, but he was giving it some oxygen.

So what do you think of the way the Republicans, the president's advisers now, his aides are responding to this as opposed to a forceful condemnation of this smear?

BROWNSTEIN: No, clearly, you know, he's trying to have it both ways and he os trying to raise the visibility of this charge. Look, I think for the audience that the president is speaking to by raising this, the issue isn't the mechanism by which she isn't eligible. It's her identity that makes her ineligible. That she is a woman of color. And the fact that she's a woman for many of those voters.

So, no matter what he is saying about the validity of this kind of, you know, absurd argument, for someone who is born in California, what he's doing is trying to remind his share of the electorate that she doesn't look like you. She doesn't like the people who live around you.

The problem the president has is that, you know, most Americans now live in places where they live around people who look like Kamala Harris. And as I said before, there is a segment of the suburban vote that has traditionally leaning Republican who are simply uneasy and uncomfortable and unwilling to go further along the lines of racial division that he has laid out. The audience for that may be bigger than people thought, may be bigger than people hope, but it's not a majority of the country by any means.

BLITZER: Yes, Ron Brownstein, you're going to be busy over the next, what, nearly 80 days getting ready for this election November 3rd. Thanks for joining us.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks.

BLITZER: We have a quick programming note for our viewers as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are getting ready to make history. The Democratic National Convention goes virtual. Join our own Anderson Cooper with your first look at what's ahead. That AC 360 DNC preview, that will air live tonight, 8:00 p.m. eastern right after "The Situation Room."

And coming up here in "The Situation Room," our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta with a closer look at the so-called long haulers, still dealing with the effects of coronavirus months after being diagnosed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have not gotten better yet. Some days I'm worse than I was even at the beginning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[17:20:00]

BLITZER: As the U.S. now closes in on 170,000 lives lost to the coronavirus, there's a dire prediction coming in from the CDC director. Dr. Robert Redfield is now warning the fall could bring a catastrophic loss of life as COVID collides with the annual flu season.

Thankfully, hundreds of thousands of those who have been stricken with COVID have recovered, but for many, recovery is a relative term. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more on these so- called COVID long haulers and the lingering debilitating effects they're still suffering.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Four months later, my stomach is not what it used to be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been treated as COVID for 97 days. I'm pretty much in the throes of it.

[17:25:04]

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN (voice-over): They are known as long haulers, diagnosed with COVID-19, but months later still experiencing symptoms.

MICHAEL REAGAN, COVID-19 LONG HAULER: Everything from blood clots, seizures, tremors. I have a lot of neuropathy. I don't have control pretty much of the left side of my face and some issues with memory loss.

GUPTA (voice-over): Fifty-year-old Michael Reagan had always been on the go, rock climbing, running, scuba diving. And then just like that, everything changed.

(on camera): When did you first feel sick?

REAGAN: Well, on March 22nd which was a Sunday, I woke up in the morning. I was unable to catch my breath. I went into the bathroom and I coughed up blood.

GUPTA (voice-over): Reagan ended up the same day at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. At the time in the spring, it was the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic.

REAGAN: I remember seeing stretchers come in with lots of people, people gasping for breath.

GUPTA (voice-over): His symptoms dire. REAGAN: My blood pressure was out of control. It was 200 over 100 and

something. My heart rate got as high as almost 200 beats a minute, and I was gasping for air.

GUPTA (voice-over): Fortunately after five days, Reagan began breathing more easily with the help of medications. He never went on a ventilator, but he spent the next two months in and out of the hospital.

ZIJIAN CHEN, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POST-COVID CARE, MOUNT SINIA: We realized that the patients don't really fall into the black and white where some patients are sick and then they get healthy again, and then some patients are sick and then they die.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Zijian Chen is medical director of the Center for Post-COVID Care for the Mount Sinai Health System, a first of its kind in the country focusing on recovery. For the first several months, doctors have been just trying to figure out this disease, but now the long-term effects are also proving equally mysterious.

CHEN: If you have shortness of breath, we're looking to see whether we see something on a cat scan or we see something through will pulmonary function testing to see that there is specific organ damage. The reason we break this down is because we need to look at it physically to see what the virus actually does to your organs physically.

GUPTA (voice-over): The CDC estimates 35 percent of adults are not back to normal two to three weeks after testing positive. Still experiencing difficulties breathing, nerve pain or even memory loss and brain fog.

A study of 143 Italian patients found 87 percent of them reported having at least one lingering effect 60 days after the onset of their first symptom.

(on camera): Is there some way of predicting who is more likely to have these persistent symptoms?

CHEN: I would presume that if you had a pre-existing condition that the infection with the virus can worsen that condition, but again, we're also seeing patients who were previously healthy, but their symptoms have also persisted throughout their illness and beyond.

GUPTA (voice-over): It's truly a medical mystery that Dr. Chen and Michael Reagan hope is solved.

REAGAN: When I was in the throes of fighting COVID, I was only focused on breathing. I was scared to go to sleep because I would stop breathing. It wasn't until that, you know, I was generally doing better that I started to notice a lot of the other symptoms. And I know other people must feel the same.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BLITZER: Thanks Sanjay for that report. Dr. Vivek Murthy is joining us right now. He is the former U.S. surgeon general. He's also the (inaudible) adviser to the Joe Biden campaign. Dr. Murthy, thanks so much for joining us.

So let's talk a little bit about what Sanjay was just reporting on. Could this be another legacy of coronavirus, not just many thousands of people dead, but many more who could be, you know, having problems for months, even years down the road?

VIVEK MURTHY, FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: Yes, Wolf, it's good to be with you this evening. And I, you know, we are concerned about some of these stories we are hearing more and more from people with COVID, stories that tell us that the effects go beyond the first few weeks for many, and in fact, it lingers often for months.

We're also learning that there are more organ systems that are affected by COVID-19 that won't be originally thought. In the early months of this virus, we thought this was primarily a pulmonary disease, a disease of the lungs and the respiratory tract.

But it's turned out as we have learned more, that we've understood that the heart is affected, the kidneys are affected, the nervous system is affected, and the list has continued to grow.

So this is one of the reasons it's so important that we are cautious in how we approach this virus because we got to recognize we don't understand the full impact of this virus yet.

[17:30:02]

We got to approach it with the utmost caution and protect people across the age spectrum.

BLITZER: You know, Dr. Murthy, another 1,029 Americans died just yesterday from coronavirus, more than a thousand Americans are dying almost every single day. I offered on twitter a little while ago alternates while ago some perspective.

In mid-March, the U.S. and South Korea each had approximately 90 confirmed deaths. The U.S. now has almost 170,000 confirmed deaths while South Korea, with a population of some 52 million has 305. Let me repeat that, 305 confirmed deaths in South Korea. So what did they do right and what did we do wrong?

MURTHY: Well, that's a great question, Wolf. And it turns out that we are at a very unusual place among other countries, and particularly among other industrialized countries. Many other countries were able to figure out how to bring the rates of virus down.

And while nobody has solved COVID entirely, many of the countries are still dealing with small outbreaks here and there. In most cases, they have managed to keep those outbreak relatively small and they have done with a kind of combination of increasing their testing capacity, but also building a contact tracing core that can help to limit the spread. In our case, what we have not done is we have not built the kind of

testing capacity we need. We don't have the contacting tracing core that's required. And we've allowed the infection to spiral out of control such that even the testing and tracing we do have is not sufficient.

And we have allowed that spiral to happen because we haven't, one, observed the kind of measures that one needs to do by staying home to keep the rates of virus really, really low. We opened up, in fact, too early.

And there's one last thing that we have not done swiftly enough, which is to put in place universal masking orders. The simple true and what the data tells us is that masks work to reduce the spread of the virus, though we've had a patchwork of mask mandates around the country.

And the problem is, if you wait until there's an outbreak in your state to put a mask mandate in place, then it's too late. It's already started to spread there.

And so there are numbers of steps we can take and other countries have showed us that they work, we just have to step up and take those steps because we've lost far too many lives and we just can't afford to keep going down this path.

BLITZER: Yes. One thing the South Koreans did effectively. They had a national strategy, a national policy. They didn't defer action to cities or counties or anything along those lines.

They took action for their entire country and immediately everyone was wearing a mask. They weren't even raising any questions about that, social distancing, and all that contact tracing, which we of course have not been able to do.

You're the former U.S. surgeon general during the Obama administration. Let me ask about this warning if that were not enough from the CDC director. Dr. Robert Redfield. He said, this fall, the coming months could be the worst period of public health this country, the United States of America has ever seen with the flu season on top of the coronavirus pandemic.

The president seems to scoff at that, said the Spanish flu was so much worse. What's your reaction to what we heard from Dr. Redfield?

MURTHY: I think Dr. Redfield is appropriate in his concern that he's voicing. The main concern about the fall is that we will be seeing influenza spread at the same time COVID-19 is still here and likely will still be spreading.

And here's why this is a problem, because either virus on its own would be enough to strain our health care system. But together they will put potentially severe strain in our clinics and our hospitals.

But there's a second issue, which is that people when they present with a flu, they often have a fever. They may have a cough at times or feel short of breath. These are actually somewhat similar to the symptoms that people can have with COVID-19.

So that means that at a time when people are coming in with flu and with a cold, that their symptoms will be hard to distinguish from COVID symptoms.

And because of the challenges, the ongoing challenges we have with testing capacity, it may take us a while to figure out where the person who has a fever actually has COVID or something else, which means that more people will be isolated for longer. It also means it will be harder to keep schools and workplaces open.

But here's what we can do. We can, number one, get our flu shot. Less than half the people got their flus shot last year. We need to bump those numbers up. The second thing we can do is we can wash our hands, wear a mask, stay home if we're sick and keep distance from each other.

Because it turns out the same measures that work to prevent COVID-19 spread also help prevent the spread of flu. And finally we've got to accelerate our efforts to expand testing capacity, especially with the rapid home tests because those will be a game changer.

Now, Wolf, finally I just got to say, it is concerning and so saddening for me to look at what's happening around the world and to compare how we are doing in America because or response to COVID-19 has actually been a departures from the usual character of America.

[17:35:05]

What America typically does in these situations is we rise to meet challenges, we work together and support each other. We draw in our extraordinary talents in our heart and I know that we have the knowledge and the talent and the technology to do what needs to be done to overcome COVID-19, but we can't do it without focused, effective leadership. That's what we need.

BLITZER: Yes. Good you compare how the U.S. has dealt with this and other countries like South Korea for example. It is heartbreaking to see that. Dr. Murthy, thank you so much for joining us.

MURTHY: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Just ahead, Joe Biden is hoping to siphon off Republican voters who do not want to vote for President Trump. Can Democrats win them over for good? The former Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, he's standing by live. There you see him. He'll join me here in the situation room. He has a pitch to Republicans who plan on voting for Biden. That's next.

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[17:40:00]

BLITZER: A big part of Joe Biden's 2020 strategy is to win over Republicans weary of the president Republicans. But in a new "Wall Street Journal" op-ed, former Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, argues that Democrats have the chance to get Republican voters on their side permanently.

He writes, and I'm quoting now, "We don't want these voters simply to rent the Democratic Party to remove Mr. Trump from the Oval Office. We want them to buy into our agenda so they fuel legislative victories through the next decade on our core issues."

Mayor Emanuel is joining us now. He's also the former of chief of staff for President Obama at the White House. He's an ABC News contributor and author of a new book entitled "The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World."

Rahm, thanks for joining us. So, how convinced are you that Republicans who plan on voting for Biden this time around can actually be turned into long-term Democrats?

RAHM EMANUEL, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, look, you go back to the touchstone of 1980, there were then became Reagan Democrats, and through a series of strategies. First break was the issues of welfare and crime on cultural issues.

The cultural terrain has to become much more favorable terrain for Democrats where empathy, respect for diversity are things that actually have brought Republicans to the Democratic Party mainly in opposition to the Republicans.

At this case right now, they're basically voting against Trump, but it's a break point that we as a party, if we do the right strategy over a period of time, we can broaden the coalition that makes up the Democratic Party and these former anti-Trump Republicans will find a new home in the Democratic party.

It's how we govern. More policies we advocate, and it's not changing our policies, but I would say the policy goals are always going to be the same, but it's also making sure that the means make them and do not alienate these new voters who become a permanent part of not only the Democratic Party, but broadening the coalition so it becomes a mandate for decades to come in the way that Reagan didn't just win one election. The change was a transformative president.

And as I said then, and I believe in this piece, the determination in this election will be whether it's a transactional election or transformational election. And I think if you look at Joe Biden and his team, by asking former Governor Kasich to speak at the convention, they understand the opportunity of anti-Trump Republicans to be coming in finding their new home in the Democratic Party.

BLITZER: Many of the so-called Biden Republicans, Rahm, they argue that Trump doesn't accurately represent the Republican Party that they have known and supported. So what's your response? And certainly a lot of these Republicans, they don't feel very comfortable with a progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

EMANUEL: Yes. Wolf, I would say actually about Donald Trump is more than he doesn't represent the tradition of the Republican Party, which I would agree with them, I think he's antithetical to a lot of things that we represent as Americans that we share together. I never knew the Postal Service a partisan issue, starting by ben

Franklin delivering mail to every American. So there is a lot of things he's done that's not just anti-Republican, but I think anti to tradition of what it means to respect out of many as one.

And he is basically counter to that, and I think they're abhorrent to that notion, they're abhorrent to the ant-science culture that's dominated the Republican Party.

Look, I think Joe Biden like any coalition is building a broad coalition. The two ways I look at this election, Donald Trump has depth. He has a sliver of the electorate. He has electricity down deep with them. Joe Biden has breadth.

I mean, think of it. It has Biden Republicans all the way to protesters on the street. That's a big, broad coalition. I think one of the things that Kamala Harris brings is the spark and energy that takes that breadth and gives it a kind of a level of depth that it didn't have before, which is why it's such a powerful team together.

So I think that's how I look at this election. And I think how we govern can continue to segment this effort. If you go back to 1980, which is what I talked about in the piece in the "Wall Street Journal." You had corporate interests and blue collar union members. They were put together with a series of issues, economic and cultural.

That is what we're going to have to do from climate change to economic inclusion to social justice, to things all sorts of series of things that respect diversity rather than finding that diversity as a way to get term one American against other.

I think that touchstone is possible, but it takes work like anything in building a coalition of broad groups, but with some depth that sustains legislative victories.

BLITZER: We'll see if the Democrats can do what the Republicans under Ronald Reagan successfully did. Rahm Emanuel, thanks so much for joining us.

EMANUEL: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: A crucial battle over the president's finances, could it impact his re-election chances? Stay with us. You're in "The Situation Room."

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[17:45:00]

BLITZER: The battle over the president's finances rages on. Lawyers for President Trump are fighting a grand jury subpoena for his financial records. And on Friday, prosecutors in New York asked the judge to throw out the challenge calling it nonsensical.

Our Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin is joining us right now. His best-selling new book just out making "The New York Times" best sellers list, is entitled "True Crimes and Misdemeansers: The Investigation of Donald Trump."

Jeffrey, thanks so much for joining us. We'll get to the book in a moment, but at times during this presidency, it could be hard to keep track of all the various investigations, the congressional probes into Trump world.

[17:50:00]

So how important is this case? Where does it fit in with all the others?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it's very important, but it's also very private. And that's the important thing to remember about this investigation, which is that Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney, won his case in the United States Supreme Court, and it seems to me that it's only a question of when, not if, he will get the financial records he is seeking.

And that includes tax returns and financial records, but the important point about this case is that it's a grand jury investigation. It's not -- the documents are not going to be public. They may never be public, but they certainly will not be public before the election in November.

BLITZER: In all the research for your excellent new book and everything you've written about the Trump probes over these past few years what's the key takeaway that you think voters need to know ahead of the presidential election?

TOOBIN: Look, you know, this is a key issue because, you know, one of the things I learned in writing my book is that, you know, Donald Trump is a classic bully. And unless he is stopped, he continues to act. And that's the most, you know, it's most dramatically evident in the famous July 24th, July 25th events.

You know, that's when, you know, Robert Mueller did a bad job testifying before Congress, and Trump was invigorated by that. So the following day he asks -- that's when he made his demands for the new president of Ukraine, President Zelensky, for dirt on Joe Biden and used the lever of American taxpayer dollars for Ukraine's military to get that dirt on Biden.

If the president wins, this is going to be seen by him, and I think correctly, as a ratification of everything he's done. So, when he deals with foreign powers after he's re-elected, he will be working for his personal good, not the national interests.

And I think if you look at his dealings with Russia, if you look at his dealings with Ukraine, this is what -- how he operates. And if he wins, he'll continue doing it.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the Durham probe into the origins of the Russia investigation. John Durham, the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, he's been charged. We're looking into all of this, if there's any wrongdoing. As a result of the highly anticipated findings, one FBI lawyer is now

set to plead guilty, a former FBI lawyer, I should say, to making a false statement in an e-mail related to the Russia investigation. Some say this is only just the beginning. Do you believe more charges coming down the road?

TOOBIN: Well, this charge was not a surprise because the Justice Department's inspector general did a very extensive report on the exact same subject. And in fact, it's rather mysterious why Durham needs to do this again, when the inspector general covered exactly the same ground.

And in the inspector general's report, it was pointed out that this lawyer had made a false statement. So, the fact that Durham is prosecuting him is not a big surprise. You know, the president has been saying for years and Bill Barr, his attorney general and enabler, has been saying that there was something deeply wrong in the FBI investigation that led to the Mueller investigation.

No one has ever proven any sort of conspiracy, any sort of agreement, and in the plea agreement that this FBI lawyer has made, there's no suggestion that he was working with anyone else. I don't mean to minimize that. It's a very serious thing if you're an FBI lawyer to make this kind of false statement.

But the idea that it is part of some broader conspiracy to get Donald Trump, not only hasn't that been proven, it hasn't even been alleged with any actual evidence so far.

BLITZER: Very quickly before I let you go, let's turn to the election. The president this week said he's blocking funds for the U.S. Postal Service because that money will be used for mail-in ballots. Some are accusing him of actually breaking the law to which you say --

TOOBIN: You know, I don't know that he's actually breaking the law. I think this is a betrayal of his office. It is a reason to vote in the election, but, you know, the Postal Service is part of the government. The government can fund it or not fund it.

And the president's motives sinister here, but, you know, he is still the president and if he doesn't want to sign a bill that gives more money to the Postal Service, and if the Republicans in Congress don't want to confront him on it, I don't know what there -- I don't think there is any legal remedy.

[17:55:04]

The only remedy is the one that will come on November 3rd. And we'll see what happens then.

BLITZER: We certainly will. All right, Jeffrey Toobin, thanks very much. And to our viewers, once again, very timely new book "True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump." And Jeffreym, congratulations just making the "New York Times" best- sellers list. I should say, I'm not surprised. Thanks so much for joining us. As the president continues to falsely claim rampant mail-in voter fraud, lawmakers still have not reached a deal to help fund the U.S. Postal Service through the election. What will it take to get Democrats and Republicans back at the bargaining table? Congress with Adam Schiff, he's standing by live. We will discuss.

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