massive breach exposes hundreds of millions of at&t customers

call and text records. what can you do to protect yourself? will he or won't he stay in the race? more democrats speaking up today after the president nato news conference, but they do not appear to be any more unified. plus a group of influential bay area democrats issues a strong statement of support for vice president kamala harris. should president biden decide to pass the torch. you're watching, getting answers. i'm kristen z. thanks for joining us. president biden is back on the campaign trail today as his team meets with democratic lawmakers trying to convince them that biden should stay at the top of the ticket. abc news reporter ed wynn has the reaction following the president's big nato news conference. >> president biden, heading to a campaign rally in swing state michigan. biden keeping up the momentum after a solo press conference last night following the nato summit in washington. >> i think i'm the most

qualified person to run for president despite a pair of gaffes, the president first calling ukrainian president zelensky russia's president putin during the summit. ladies and gentlemen, president putin, president putin and b president putin, president zelensky, and then mixing up vice president harris for his gop rival donald trump. >> look, i wouldn't have picked vice president trump to be vice president, but i think she was not qualified to be president. the presidents laughed off those mistakes and went on to tout the resilient economy and defend his foreign policy record. >> have you seen a more successful conference? find me a world leader who didn't think it was still a growing number of congressional democrats continued to call on biden to drop out of the race directly following the press conference, we're told house minority leader hakeem jeffries met with the president. >> in a letter to colleagues, jeffries says he expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and

conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared. jeffries did not say if he told biden to remain in the race or drop out as president. biden works to calm anxieties over his mental fitness, sources say he's meeting with both the congressional hispanic and asian pacific american caucuses today, as well as the progressive caucus tomorrow and when abc news washington and joining us live now to talk more about democrats internal struggle that's becoming very public. >> congressman john garamendi, a democrat representing much of contra costa and solano countie. congressman garamendi, thank you so much for coming on. >> delighted to be with you. >> i just want to start by wishing you all the best in your battle against cancer. and i know i speak for a lot of people, including your constituents, everyone hoping that the treatments are going well. >> well, they certainly are. and i'm joining a long and unfortunate list of people that do have cancer, i have multiple myeloma and we have treatment

underway. i expect to beat this in the next 3 to 5 months and kill those little bugs that are swimming around in my blood, get them out of there. but we're really fortunate. you look back on biden, what he did when he was vice president creating the cancer moonshot, that research is saving thousands and tens of thousands of lives. and i think i'm going to be among those. so i'm very, very grateful to what vice president biden did. and now, president, look, i think, you know what you alluded to. >> i think many of your colleagues, most democrats, say president biden has done a lot record wise and has accomplishments. are there what they're concerned about is electability. and given the debate, the nato summit press conference last night and everything in between that you've seen, what is your honest assessment of biden as the nominee right now? >> he is an extraordinary candidate for president because he's been an extraordinary president. if anyone would pay attention and get past the

gaffes, which only two, and look at what he actually did in an hour stand up press conference with the international press yesterday following the three day nato summit. he was extraordinary. he went into international security issues. ukraine, the pacific, nato, all of that in depth, and also the american economy. answering every question fully. and let's remember, he's running against a certified liar. he's running against a felon. he is running against a person who does not understand these international issues and who spent the four years of his presidency. that would be the trump presidency, doing his level best to cozy up to putin and to destroy nato. it had to be rebuilt in order to protect ukraine. and it was biden that rebuilt nato and added finland and sweden to that

number. so going forward, he's a good candidate. he's a capable candidate. you've seen him on the stump today in michigan. we saw him the day after the debate in a very, very strong statement in north carolina addressing the crowds reading from a teleprompter. sure. but then ad libbing and those of us that occasionally read from teleprompters know it's no easy task. so he's the guy, and he goes forward and he goes forward with a terrific team. vice president harris is excellent, and she's out there telling the american public that donald trump will take away women's rights. he's already made a major step towards that. when trump appointed the most conservative supreme court in america's history, the take away from american women was well underway. roe is gone. and if you look at 2025, which is in

fact the trump agenda, no matter how much he wants to lie about it, it is the trump agenda. and it is no abortion in america, period. >> look, i think anyone who watched last night, i think it's a fair objective assessment, is that president biden did demonstrate his mastery of international issues. but as you heard, there were the gaffes. and that's all over social media. again, i turn your attention back to is he electable due to that? can you get people to focus on trump or, you know, biden's accomplishments rather than his gaffes? and, you know, within your own party, 20 members of your colleagues, including congressman jim hines, ranking member of the intelligence committee, have asked biden to step aside and ask the rest of the party to really critically evaluate this question i just posed. let's listen. >> but this is the moment. and in the next 96 hours, perhaps, is the moment to set aside the poetry, the loyalty and the love and ask yourself a hard question, which is are you sure

he's going to win? because you're not just gambling your own political reputation, you are gambling the future of the united states of america. >> i mean, he's, you know, referring to the presidency, but i think also congress as well as, you know, there are many down ballot democrats who are concerned about this, especially those in tight districts, tight races, you know, maybe not one from your district. i mean, you know, you've been here a long time. what is your response to them? >> jim hines is a very, very good person. he's very smart, but he's very, very wrong. he is just plain wrong on this. biden is perfectly capable of governing. he proves that every single day. he proved it over the last four days when nato leaders from around europe were in washington. and you don't hear one of those leaders say that he was not fully in charge and fully capable and doing what

he does so very well, which is to pull people together to find the solutions to the problem. there are 20 out of 213 democrats that have said uh- that would agree with mr. hines. i'm not among them, and i suspect that we'll find there'll be a few others that will come along. but the reality here is that biden is perfectly capable of campaigning, campaigning successfully, and take one more moment to look at his opponent. his opponent is a certified felon, 34 felony counts. his opponent is a is a person that has no respect for women. think about the run up to the 2016 campaign and what we heard in his own words, the way trump would treat women. take a look at what he did, in the case in

new york city, where he was found liable for a significant amount of money for having assaulted a woman. is that the kind of person we want? do we want a certified liar? we want somebody that has gone out of his way to destroy our alliances. do we want somebody that that cozied up to putin during his tenure as president? no, we do not. we cannot have trump. >> i think, on that question. your party is not split. but i want to ask you, do you in some ways regret your party not having this conversation? perhaps a few months ago when, you know, dean phillips was running the primary or when the first polls that came out showing that perhaps a generic democrat beats trump, whereas biden trailed trump in five of the six swing states. and now a lot of people are saying, you know, perhaps the folks closest to biden hit some of the signs of aging from them. and do you

feel that way? and do you wish this kind of came out earlier rather than now? >> the democratic party went through primaries in virtually every state. if somebody wanted to challenge the president, they could have done so. and a couple of them thought they would, and then they decided not to. and so with their johnny come latelies now that we're in this situatio, they said, oh my, my, my, maybe i got a chance to be president after all, without having gone through the primaries and proving themselves. the fact of the matter is that biden went through the primaries and he was not challenged. and there was opportunity after opportunity for anybody to do so. now, going forward, going forward, we have a president who has proven that he can govern and he can put together the most extensive, successful package of legislation since probably lbj and the civil rights movement

now going. so what are we going to do here? we're going to say, oh, no, we're going to start all over again. no we're not. we have a team. we have biden, we have harris. they are an experienced team. they're out on the campaign trail. and all of those polls that you talked about. take a look at them toda. all of them have either biden down a couple of points or in a few of them up a couple of points. >> yeah, he's up in the latest npr poll. but, you know, the math is such that the democratic candidate probably needs more than a few percentage points to lock in the electoral win, but we're out of time. but congressman mendy, what i want to ask you is sorry. please. >> that really depends upon where you are polling. there are the battleground states. there is no doubt that biden will win the majority of the popular vote, and he is in a position in

the battleground states to win those battleground states. and you must be very, very clear that we are clearly focusing on those battleground states. that's why he's in michigan today. that's why he's going to be in pennsylvania over the weekend. and the campaign is going to be really underway following the conventions. right now, everybody's in this feeding frenzy about the, performance at the debate. the fact of the matter is, since that debate, biden has performed very well. >> congressman garamendi, thank you so much. i'm so sorry we're out of time, but we all certainly wish you the best. thank you for making the time. we'll

president kamala harris. the new york times is reporting the biden campaign is conducting surveys, testing vice president kamala harris's viability against donald trump and some high profile democrats seem to be lining up behind that option, rather than an open selection process for a new top of the ticket. >> absolutely. no question about that. she has acquitted herself well in the job as vice president, and he never would have picked her in the first place if he did not think that she was capable of being president. >> we should point out today, clyburn firmly supported the president staying, but his endorsement of harris is today echoed by a member of the san francisco democratic county central committee, dk bilal. mahmoud bilal, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> we should mention you're also currently running for supervisor in san francisco, but you and

six other dk members. so about a third of the group, i think, signed and sent a letter of support for the vp to national party leadership. what is your message? >> our message is basically that, look, president biden has been an incredible president leader on climate change and abortion rights, and he's made incredible progress. and what's at risk now is that progress being rolled back. we absolutely cannot have a trump presidency again. and risk all that president biden has achieved. but unfortunately, what we're seeing over the last couple of weeks is that polling is going down and it is reflective of what we're seeing with our eyes. and so the seven of us on the san francisco democratic party wrote a letter asking that should president biden step dow, that vice president harris be the nominee? because we feel that she's the most viable, she's the most capable, and she has polling to show that she can actually win and defeat trump and ensure that we continue to make progress in the same in the next four years as we have in

the last. >> i want to make sure i've got this right. you're not calling on biden to drop out, right? but do you think kamala harris has a better chance of beating trump than biden at this point? >> absolutely. and i think critically, we see that in swing states. she's polling even better than biden against trump. and that's what's going to come down to in this election, as a body that signed this letter, we're not asking for biden to step down, but on an individual basis, several of us do feel that way. like myself, we i do think that biden, president biden should step down as the nominee at this point to give vice president harris the best chance to build the momentum and the name id to win in november. >> all right, some in the party as you know, and influential donors like george clooney, who this week called them biden to pass the torch, want an open process, right. he said, let's hear from wes moore and kamala harris and gretchen whitmer and gavin newsom, andy beshear and j.b. pritzker and others. we could go into the democratic convention next month and figure it out. why not take that approach for a couple of

reasons. >> one, from a practical viability perspective, all the money that's been raised in the biden harris committee, it is most easiest to transfer it to vice president harris. she's already in that committee. having anyone else come in new, they'd have to be fundraising from scratch, and we just don't have time. we need all these four months that are left campaigning nonstop, full speed ahead. and vice president harris has access to those funds. but second, she'd be a historic president, she is more than qualified in district attorney in san francisco, attorney general in california, senator uh- of the of the of california as well. she's fought for abortion rights. she's proven herself, and she's more than capable of taking donald trump on head to head, and it'd be historic. she'd be the first asian american and first black female president of the united states. and has the opportunity to really pick a historic vp as well. and so for those reasons, we felt that we should move forward with vice president harris as fast as possible. >> yeah, a lot of people also forget before she was vice president and senator, she was

california's attorney general. and you know, da here in san francisco, there is that. but do you see her appealing to new groups, pulling in new people who may currently not be in the picture when they do polls? >> i think critically, she's polling really well with black voters and female voters who are going to come down to the wire in this very close election in swing states, but more importantly, she also has the option to pick a really historic vice presidential candidate who could also to be new voters. >> who would you like that to be, >> i haven't made up my mind on that. i trust whatever vice president harris comes up with, but i know whoever she chooses will be a historic as historic as her own candidacy is as well. >> all right, well, your letter is in there, along with all the other letters they have gotten in this very complicated situation right now. bilal mahmoud, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you so much for having me. >> another day, another data breach. but this one is broad. the data of nearly every at&t customer is now out there. we're turning to a tech expert with

hold of the call and text records of nearly all its customers. in a filing. today, at&t says the breach impacted 109 million customer accounts. the company says the hack included records of calls and texts from may through october 2022. they didn't get the contents of those messages and calls, but they do know what other phone numbers people contacted. at&t says social security numbers, dates of birth and other personal information were not compromised. joining us live now is mark vena, ceo of smart tech smart tech research and a tech expert out of san jose. mark, thanks for your tim. >> hey, how are you? >> i'm good, i'm good. i mean, you know, if i'm an at&t customer, that's a different story. walk us through what happened and how it happened. >> no, and i'm an at&t customer. i've been an at&t customer for

20 years, so i. i'm assuming i've been affected. uh- again, it's a massive number. it's not a trivial number. it's affected virtually all of their customers 110 million, which is a huge breach. uh. it comes on the heels of some other major breaches, because at&t uses a service called snowflake for their, data retrieval and data storage capabilities. and santander bank, and other companies have been affected by it as well. but this is a biggie. and, what's really concerning to me is that these kind of breaches that we seem to be see, that we seem to be seeing every week, it's becoming so commonplace, it's going over the head of most people, and, it's you know, the information that was leaked, even though the contents itself of the of the messages, text messages and voicemails that were not compromised in any way, some location data was, was, was compromised the number of times that you might have sent, a text message using a particular number was used. so this is not

a, this is not a walk in the park for at&t. >> okay. there are a couple of things i would like you to address here. one, right. this was a third party cloud platform that a hackers accessed this through, you know, is the cloud more vulnerable to breaches? because then more and more things are going up there. >> yeah, well, the cloud has always been a, it's been relatively secure. but as this situation kind of illustrates, this has been a major breach, snowflake themselves has really not provided a lot of detail in terms of why the breach occurred. there was an arrest made, in the, apparently at&t did release some information that an individual was arrested, not an at&t employee. so it suggests that there was some type of, whether it was an inside job or whether whether it's something that, multifactor authentication wasn't being used with some customers, which still exists. that's the ability to use a password and get a secure code using another device can help validate who the user is. that may be a been a reason why

some of this data was breached, but, it's, not a good situation. >> all right. so can i just ask you, why is it how did it get discovered? and why did it take so long? right. this happened the hacking took place in 2022, i guess, you know, at&t knew about it in april, y in april. >> and that's the thing that's most disturbing is that this situation apparently did happen many months ago. at was aware of it back in april. so we're talking about four months ago and they never disclosed the information. and unfortunately, what in these things had happened right now you have to be able to find out if you were impacted by this. you have to go into the at&t website. they will they do have an obligation to provide you with whether your phone numbers were impacted. it's not clear to me whether they'll actually will be released. what type of information was provided. that would be, to me, a huge concession on at&t part. but the reality is, is that, you know, it will go over the heads of most people. and i would

encourage every person who's just. and by the way, it's not just at&t, the eight uh- customers that use the at&t network like track phone and other services, i think cricket is another one is another cell phone vendor that uses the at&t service that was impacted by this, this breach as well. so mark, we only have about like 20s, but how can customers, how can we all best protect ourselves in this day and age? well, multifactor authentication has to be something that you have to undergo. you have to take advantage of just about every major website service, including cell phone capability and other companies that you routinely do, commerce with online. you must go online, go onto your account and, and activate multifactor. platform authentication because that will minimize the, the, the ability for this to happen. but the other thing that needs to happen is that you really need to, vote with your pocketbook. and i would if you're an at&t custome, if 100 million customers complain to at&t vis a vis an

email saying, i don't like what happened here, i assume that they they would they would make some action that this is such a major breach and again, affecting every one of their customers. at&t has to be held accountable for this. and it just cannot be business as usual. >> mark vena, ceo of smart tech research thank

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tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. just a short time ago, the bombshell moment in the alec baldwin trial. the case suddenly dismissed. baldwin