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Trump Claims He Had "Every Right" To Interfere With Election; Thousands Of Hotel Workers On Strike This Labor Day Holiday; Growing Pressure In Israel To Secure Release Of Remaining Hostages. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 02, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:30:36]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Former President Donald Trump is off the campaign trail today but in a preview of what may come in his first debate with his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris next Tuesday, Trump is sounding off about the federal election subversion case and a heck of a lot more.

CNN's Steve Contorno is joining us now. What are we hearing from Donald Trump and what clues does this give us as to what's going to be said during the debate?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, Trump discussing the new charges filed against him by special agent -- or special counsel Jack Smith in response to that Supreme Court ruling on immunity. And Trump suggesting that he had "every right" to interfere in the counting of the results of the 2020 election.

Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's so crazy that my poll numbers go up. Whoever heard -- you get indicted for interfering with a presidential election where you have every right to do it -- you get indicted and your poll numbers go up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Elsewhere in that interview he also said that Vice President Harris was nasty, and that's his direct word, in her previous debates against Vice President Mike Pence. The irony there, of course, is that Mike Pence is not endorsing Donald Trump this go- around and Trump's supporters actually stormed the Capitol, some of them saying "Hang Mike Pence" on January 6. So the choice of words there is quite notable.

I also want to point out that over the weekend he did respond to the news that several of the hostages have been killed by Hamas. And he said, "That there was a total lack of leadership" by the Biden-Harris administration on that front. He also linked it back to his own legal cases and saying that because they are focusing on "weaponizing" the Justice Department against him, they didn't take care of business on these foreign affairs, Sara.

SIDNER: Steve Contorno, thank you so much for your reporting there. We appreciate you this morning -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now, Democratic strategist Matt Bennett, and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings.

Matt, I just want to start very quickly with what Donald Trump said because I can think of a time when Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee where Donald Trump saying I had every right to interfere in the election might become a big deal in the election.

How much do you think election interference in his attempts to overturn the results are playing right now?

MATT BENNETT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND CO- FOUNDER, THIRD WAY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY ASSISTANT, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. You know, to your point, John, it's very clear that the Harris campaign has not made that a central plank in their argument in this race, and I think that's probably wise.

The Biden campaign ran on that in 2020 and it worked. You know, the restoring the soul of America. I think what we were seeing by the end of the kind of Biden run here was that was no longer resonating as deeply as it had been. It's amazing. I mean, Trump is threatening essentially a coup and saying that he had a right to take away America's most fundamental democratic rights, but it just doesn't seem to land with voters.

So I think Harris is smart to make this a future-oriented campaign, to warn voters that Trump is extraordinarily dangerous -- Project 2025 is a 900-page blueprint that would fundamentally alter the country -- but not focus as much on that particular issue.

BERMAN: Yeah. On the other hand, Scott, when he's talking about having the right to interfere with the election, he's not talking about inflation or immigration, right?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah. I mean, what I assume he means is he has a right to challenge results that he thinks are unfair, which he did have a right to do that and would again. What you don't have a right to do is go beyond that and beyond what the courts allow you to do. So hopefully, we don't see a repeat of what happened in the last election.

I mean, look, his best opportunity to win the election is to have voters view Kamala Harris as an extension of Joe Biden and an extension of more of the same. I mean, that's his best opportunity, particularly when it comes to the economy. I know when the -- that when they're talking about the economy they are winning. That is just going to be an immutable fact whether it's in the debate or whether it's in the weeks after the debate.

So hopefully, he knows that and executes on it. That's what Republicans want to see him do.

[07:35:00]

BERMAN: So, Matt, if Scott is right in that tying Vice President Harris to Joe Biden is a winning strategy for Donald Trump, how useful is it for the Harris campaign to have Joe Biden out for them today in Pittsburgh?

BENNETT: Well, if there's one constituency that loves Joe Biden it's organized labor. It's Labor Day. Biden speaks to that world in really authentic ways and it's always worked well. So I think it's smart to put him out there.

And the vice president has not tried to distance herself from Biden in any way. We saw that in the CNN interview last week. What she's going to do is talk about her plan for the future because elections are about the future and not the past. So she's not going to dwell too much on the things that she and Biden have done, but she's not going to try to in any way push Biden aside.

And I think it's important to note that there has been a real consolidation around Harris in ways that we weren't seeing with Biden earlier in some constituencies even that Trump is strong in. I mean, we're showing far less weakness with white male voters, for instance, than we were before she took over the race.

BERMAN: Let me -- if we can from the control room the ABC News poll has a vote preference by gender. It deals with the gender gap here and it's very interesting. If you look at these numbers from the ABC News poll -- well, no, that wasn't this number. This is among likely voters. You can see Vice President Harris is up six among likely voters. She's up four among registered voters.

The numbers I'm looking at right now talk about vote preference by gender. There you go. You can see that pre-convention among women she had a six-point lead. Post-convention with women is a 13-point lead.

And among me, a little bit of a shift for -- in the Trump direction, but not a -- not as statistically significant one. She trails now among men by five points. Before the convention it was three points.

But that chasm among women, Scott -- how problematic is that for Trump?

JENNINGS: Well, it's problematic if you don't maximize the other side of it, which is, I guess, the male gender gap. As you pointed out, Trump leads among men; Harris leads among women. There are more women than men in the country, so I'm only moderately good at math but you can see how it would fundamentally work out.

I mean, that -- but it is true. We are heading, I think, towards a huge gender gap in this election. It doesn't mean Trump can't win on it, but you do have to then find those votes elsewhere. And so it's kind of fascinating. I mean, if you look at the two

characteristics in this country that best determine how you're going to vote, it's gender and educational attainment. That was true for the last several years but it's very true right now. So it's that working- class men versus college-educated women sort of cohorts that probably are most divergent in the data that you're looking at.

BERMAN: But among women, Matt, it's getting better for Kamala Harris, at least according to the polls if you look at it. Is there a why behind that do you think?

BENNETT: Well, I think it's a whole bunch of things.

First of all, women do not like the fact that Donald Trump bragged about getting rid of reproductive rights and changes his view on that in the course of a single sentence. I mean, who knows where he stands anymore on those things, although we do know fundamentally what his party wants to do because we've got the blueprint in Project 2025.

The other thing that women are very concerned about -- like all voters, they're worried about the economy, and they certainly don't like the idea of 20 percent across-the-board tariffs that would immediately increase prices. I mean, the idea that Trump is doing to lower prices is exactly backwards. All of his plans would increase prices and that really worries women.

BERMAN: Scott, you know, Donald Trump has had a heck of a journey on abortion and reproductive rights over the course of his life. But he had a heck of a journey over a 24-hour period Thursday and Friday. I think where he ended up is that he's going to vote no on amendment four in Florida, which would overturn the six-week abortion ban there though.

The idea of the confusion around his position on Friday -- how much of a mark does that leave going forward?

JENNINGS: I don't -- I'm not really confused at all by his position, to be honest with you.

Look, he obviously doesn't have very, very strong personal feelings about it. He never has, As you pointed out, he's been more moderate on it than some ardent pro-lifers probably personally want him to be.

He does have a record a president. He operated a pro-life administration. Directionally, he's a pro-life guy who is going to have a pro-life administration. Directionally, Kamala Harris is pro- abortion, and she'll have a pro-abortion administration.

His position is no different as I understand it than Ronald Reagan, which is he's pro-life. He believes in some reasonable limits. He also believes in the three exceptions of rape, incest, and life of the mother.

And he's been a strong supporter of IVF no matter what any of Kamala Harris' surrogates want to say about it or lie about it repeatedly hour-by-hour on cable television. [07:40:02]

So he's got what I think is actually a pretty moderate, mainstream position. And again, in the Republican Party there are some people who want him to go further, and in the Democratic Party there are some people who think he's gone too far.

Also, one other issue on this thing. In the next administration no bill banning abortion can pass the U.S. Senate. He's never going to have to deal with this as president. And so this is largely going to be left to the states.

And he's expressed his personal preferences about it, and I think his personal preferences are kind of center cut for most Americans. Reasonable limits, three exceptions, support IVF -- that's a mainstream view.

BERMAN: All right, Matt Bennett, Scott Jennings. Thank you both for being here. Scott, I know the Cardinals scored roughly 6,000 runs against the Yankees yesterday, so well done on that.

JENNINGS: They did -- two out of three, two out of three -- love it.

BERMAN: America is happy for that.

Thank you both. I appreciate it -- Sara.

SIDNER: Sports brings us together once again.

All right. Right now, thousands of hotel workers in several U.S. cities are on strike during this extremely busy Labor Day holiday weekend. They are demanding better pay and an end to pandemic-era changes they say are hurting both workers and the guests they serve.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is joining us now with more on this. How large -- how widespread is this? Is this all over the country?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, so far, it's spread out throughout eight cities across 24 different hotels. And UNITE HERE, the union which represents these workers, has said that they are prepared to extend that to more cities if necessary. They are planning to strike through the Labor Day weekend and as long as it takes them to get to an agreement with their employer.

You see how many cities there are being affected -- Seattle, San Francisco, Greenwich, Boston, even Honolulu. So this is pretty spread out, as you said, during the Labor Day holiday weekend -- a holiday which is supposed to honor the contributions of workers and the labor union -- the labor movement. These workers are trying to send a message.

SIDNER: Could these workers -- could this expand? Are you expecting this to further?

PAZMINO: Well look, Sara, they say that they have been at the bargaining table for months now. They are asking for better conditions -- better working conditions, better wages. They want more staffing. And they say that they've been trying to get to an agreement for months. They haven't been able to do this.

And they've employed this tactic of striking around major holidays before. Last year, we saw this around the July Fourth holiday.

Take a listen to one of these hotel employees who talked about what it is that they're demanding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COURTNEY LEONARD, UNION ORGANIZER, UNITE HERE: We've been trying to bargain now for five months. It is very impressive to see everybody come together to fight for what they need -- anybody who has served you food to cleaned your room, to cleans your dishes, parks your car, opens your door.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Now Sara, one thing has interesting in this whole thing is, of course, hotels are being affected by this -- specifically, the Hilton line, the Marriott, and the Hyatt hotel lines are all being affected. So far, hotels are staying open but they're having to operate with a much smaller staff and a -- and a decrease in services.

The union president specifically pointing out that what they want is a return to some of the services that were cut during the pandemic, specifically because so much of travel and tourism has rebounded since then -- Sara.

SIDNER: It certainly has.

Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much. Appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, a medication used to treat chronic kidney disease could reduce the risk of heart failure in certain patients.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard is here with the details. Jacqueline, what are you learning?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Yeah, John. Well, this medication that we're talking about is called finerenone and it has been FDA approved to treat chronic kidney disease that's associated with type 2 diabetes.

But in a new study researchers found when this medication is given to heart patients with heart failure -- and this type of heart failure is specifically called heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction -- when finerenone is given to those patients researchers saw that it reduced their risk of having a heart failure event and reduced their risk of dying from cardiovascular causes.

And researchers say these specific heart failure patients -- they have limited treatment options right now. Heart failure -- we see more than six million people living with it here in the United States. Nearly half of them have, specifically, heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction or preserved ejection fraction. So if finerenone could be added as a therapeutic option for these patients that would be a gamechanger.

Ejection fraction, John, refers to the amount of blood your heart pumps out with each beat. And again, that specific type of heart failure -- right now there are limited options available as a treatment, John.

[07:45:02]

BERMAN: You've also got some new information about a blood test?

HOWARD: That's right. This is a separate study that found when three biomarkers in the blood are evaluated. One biomarker we already test for, which is your LDL cholesterol. But the other two -- another one is another type of fat in the blood. And the third biomarker is a marker of inflammation.

Researchers found when these three biomarkers are tested in the blood they can predict your cardiovascular disease over the next 30 years of your life.

Now, this study was done specifically in women. We know that heart failure -- or, excuse me, heart disease is the number one killer of women here in the United States. One in every five deaths among women can be tied back to a cardiovascular cause. But John, researchers say this type of blood test also could effectively predict cardiovascular disease in men as well.

So again, this would be another gamechanger for cardiac medicine, John.

BERMAN: All right, Jacqueline Howard. Thank you very much for that.

Today, a critical meeting in the Situation Room between President Biden and the U.S. hostage negotiation team.

And I will not see you for an incredibly long time. The new message from Adele as she plans to announce taking a break from performing.

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[07:50:45]

BERMAN: This morning, Pope Francis is preparing to embark on a 12-day trip to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. The four-nation visit will be the longest of his pontificate. Between today and mid- September the Pope, who is 87, will visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore.

Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese makes NBA history. The 22-year-old just broke the single-season rebounding record, grabbing her 405th board in a game against the Minnesota Lynx. This new record adds to her record as the fastest player to hit 20 double-doubles in a season. She also broke the record for the most consecutive double-doubles in WNBA history.

Grammy award-winning singer Adele says he is taking an "incredibly long break from music" after her Las Vegas residency finishes on November 23. In a new interview Adele said she does not have any plans for new music and wants to focus on other creative things.

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ANNOUNCER: September 2, watch the greatest competitive eaters go head-to-head for the first time in 15 years in a rematch where winner takes all. "Chestnut versus Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: "Unfinished Beef."

Champion eaters Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi, the biggest names in competitive eating, are about to face off in this huge livestream event on Netflix later today.

So I had the chance -- I had the chance to speak extensively with Chestnut sometime ago and he explained how he prepares for big events.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You've won 15 out of the last 16 contests. This is, you know, contest eve. What are you doing today to get ready for this? How do you prepare?

JOEY CHESTNUT, COMPETITIVE EATER: Today I had -- I had an apple. I had a little bit of salad and some protein supplement but -- I had lots of liquid. I'm going to go into the contest tomorrow empty, loose, happy, healthy.

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BERMAN: Going in empty and loose, Sara -- empty and loose.

SIDNER: You're never going to let that die.

BERMAN: Advice to live by.

SIDNER: Empty and loose. You forgot the happy part, John.

BERMAN: Well, it makes you happy being empty and loose.

SIDNER: Does it? Yeah. I can't -- nope. I -- I'm upset. I knew you'd bring that back. I should have known you would bring it back and now I get to think about that all day long.

BERMAN: Let that sink in.

SIDNER: You know what? Like Adele, I'm going to take a long break after this show --

BERMAN: Yes, pause. SIDNER: -- just so you know. Thank you, John.

All right. This morning, fury in Israel as protesters fill the streets demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get a hostage deal done now. The urgency increasing, of course, over the weekend after the IDF discovered the bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza. Among them, Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. His funeral is scheduled to begin in the next hour.

For more on what's happening I'm joined by CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger, and CNN military analyst, retired Major Gen. James "Spider" Marks. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in this morning for us.

Major Gen. Spider Marks, the president and vice president talking with hostage negotiators today in the Situation Room. What can they possibly do with what is right now effectively a stalemate?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST, U.S. ARMY (RET.) (via Webex by Cisco): Well, there's enormous pressure on Netanyahu to come up with a deal. It's very, very obvious the Israeli people are looking for this conflict to end.

The challenge is you're dealing with an organization like Hamas that will conduct these brutal, criminal, incredibly tragic incidents. And we're not surprised. I mean, this is their way of war. They target civilians. They try to conduct this type of activity that really goes right to the heart of morale and humanity. So Hamas is achieving its objective as a result of that.

But clearly, the fighting needs to cease at some point and the IDF has some options here. They can sign up for a ceasefire. They can establish the preconditions which will include the release of some Palestinian prisoners as well.

[07:55:00]

But then Israel has the capacity with its intelligence collection and it's military response -- its immense readiness capabilities to strike back into Gaza if things were starting to change that would indicate to the IDF that there might be some additional efforts on the part of Hamas to recreate itself and to conduct operations against Israel (audio gap).

And so I think Israel can have it both ways and they're at the point now where they need to make that decision.

SIDNER: All right, David -- you know, with the murder of these hostages we're seeing what's happening on the streets of Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel.

What kind of political trouble is Benjamin Netanyahu in now?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (via Webex by Cisco): Sara, good to be with you. He's in the same kind of political trouble he's been in for more than a year now, even before the October 7 terror attack. It's the same workers union which had been critical to the establishment of Israel that actually ran the strikes that forced Netanyahu to back away from his judicial reform effort which, of course, was last year. In the past 11 months we've seen other moments of big protests and some strikes, although the strikes this time have been halted by a court -- at least temporarily.

But the question is does any of this register with Netanyahu himself since his own political future is really on a different timetable than the one that Spider referred to before.

The IDF does indeed have the options to go use their intelligence and so forth to make sure that Hamas doesn't reappear as a threat, but Netanyahu has argued for something even further than that -- that Israel must remain in Gaza as part of this deal. And, of course, that's been one of the hangups.

Hamas has thrown its own obstacles. Remember, it was only six weeks ago we were told by Secretary of State Blinken that the deal was on the 10-yard line, and they just haven't been able to get it over. And that's part of the tragedy of the six deaths here because they might have been back.

SIDNER: Yeah.

Major General, Gaza is a humanitarian disaster and the number of dead is astronomical. Is this a fight in the end that has to be solved politically and cannot be solved militarily?

MARKS: Yes. There has to be an effort to continue to increase the efforts on the part of the IDF to go after the leadership of Hamas to ensure that they've either killed or captured the leadership. They have to continue to conduct operations -- the search and rescue for hostages.

But clearly, history tells you solutions are political in nature. You have to be able to create the conditions and the military is one of those elements of power that allows you to do that. You've got diplomacy and economics certainly -- the key ones that would be used as well.

But in this particular case there is a military precondition for Israel to give Gaza back, if you will. But the final solution -- and I don't know that there's ever going to really be a final solution -- but some type of an agreement will have mostly a political element to it to address a whole host of issues -- the two-state solution, et cetera.

SIDNER: Major Gen. James "Spider" Marks and David Sanger, thank you both for getting up early for us this morning and talking about this really difficult situation. We appreciate your time -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a bus crash in Mississippi that killed seven people and injured dozens more. Local officials say the bus experienced tire failure before veering off the road and slamming into an embankment.

CNN's Ryan Young is here with the latest this morning. Ryan, what are you learning?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John, a tough story. When you look at the video you'll also understand just how dangerous of a crash this was. It was, of course, during the holiday season. We always talk about click it or ticket. We know people riding on a bus normally don't have seat belts on.

But look at this video. You can see as we focus on it just the aftermath of this crash. We know seven people died after that tire failure that sent it into the embankment -- that sent this bus rolling. We do know, according to a tow truck driver that was on scene, that apparently several different people were ejected from this bus. And when you think about this there was a six- and 16-year-old siblings that also died in this crash.

This is under investigation. Listen to the NTSB.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD INMAN, NTSB MEMBER: Right now, we have four different areas that we're primarily focusing on, and that is going to be on motor carrier safety itself, Mexican operator in the United States, tire maintenance, and occupant protection, which would be the use of passengers -- seat belts.

One of the things that we do from here is we actually come out and then try to advocate for recommendations of how to make the transportation system better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)