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Harris And Trump Face Off In Critical Debate Tomorrow; Officer Placed On Leave After Dolphins Star Tyreek Hill Is Detained; Family: Mother Told School Of An "Extreme Emergency" Before Shooting. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 09, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. New this morning, the Harris-Walz campaign has made some updates to its website ahead of debate day, adding an issues page, for the first time laying out specifics on the webpage about their policies.

With us now, Democratic strategist and former spokesperson for the Al Gore 2000 campaign, Christy Setzer, and former Republican strategist Lee Carter.

Kristie, I want to start with you -- just the fact of this issues page showing up on the website 48 hours before the debate. Is this the Harris campaign sort of acknowledging that they had to get this out of the way?

You know, you The New York Times poll. People were asked: Do you feel like you need to learn more about the candidates? And 28 percent said they needed to learn more about Vice President Harris.

CHRISTY SETZER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR AL GORE 2000 CAMPAIGN: Yeah, I think it is. I think they're taking that talking point off the table by saying look, not only does she have a record obviously as vice president for 3 1/2 years and was a U.S. senator before that, but right now you can go to her page and you can see where she stands on things.

I will also say that 28 percent who say that they still want to learn more about her -- that is a great thing for the Harris campaign. What that means is that this race is tied, or in most cases, she is narrowly ahead and there's still room for growth. That's what those people are saying. Look, I would like to vote for you, Kamala Harris, but I just need to learn a little bit more.

We think about elections in sort of a two-step process, right? You fire the incumbent -- in this case, the former president Donald Trump -- before you decide to hire the challenged -- in this case, sort of the newbie Kamala Harris. And so that's what they're doing here.

BERMAN: In terms, Lee, of taking things off the table or putting them squarely on the table before the debate, Donald Trump, over the weekend at a rally talking again about pardoning January 6 rioters. On Truth Social over the weekend talking about throwing election

workers in jail. He goes, "When I win, these people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." And he lists them. You can see lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, corrupt election officials.

Again, on the table the day before the debate. Isn't this exactly where the campaign doesn't want him?

LEE CARTER, FORMER REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST AND POLLSTER: I would think so. I mean, these are -- these are things that aren't popular with the American people. This isn't the kind of stuff people want to be hearing from him.

What people do want to hear from him is about the economy. They want to hear about immigration. They want to hear about national security. They don't want to hear about him relitigating January 6, going backwards to all of these things. Even talking about his own legal issues I think has been a big mistake.

When he wins, he's talking about his proactive strategies and how he's going to help America. And, you know, where he really, really wins is a change agent. And so he should really be talking about how different America is going to be under him than it would be under Kamala Harris.

Most people look at Kamala Harris as more of the same. Fifty-five percent of Americans say that she's going to be more of the same, while 61 percent of Americans say Donald Trump is going to be a change agent. And most people are looking for change.

So I think he's really going off grid. He does that a lot. And I think it's not the right place for him to be playing.

BERMAN: On the subject of change, The New York Times asked this a different way also -- straight out about each candidate. Does this candidate represent major change? Twenty-five percent of likely voters said that Harris represents major change. Fifty-three percent said that Trump represents major change.

Christy, what does Harris want to do in terms of -- one of the questions I've been asking is who is the incumbent? Who is the incumbent in this campaign? Who is the incumbent --

SETZER: Right.

BERMAN: -- in this debate? And I think each campaign would point the other way and say the other one is.

So how does Harris go out there tomorrow night and say he's not changed -- he's more of the same?

SETZER: She's been saying that. And I think it's been an incredibly effective pivot when he has resorted to racist and misogynist attacks against here, is that she's used this line of same old show, you know? And it's been a really effective way of saying look, he's old, he's disengaged. He's doing the same things that you've seen him do for so many different years.

Look, the very image of Kamala Harris as this younger woman of color as opposed to an older -- pushing 80 -- white man is herself very representative of change.

I would say that statistic in The New York Times poll is a bit of an outlier actually because what you saw was a massive change in the race obviously when she came in instead of Joe Biden. And that's you saw this flood of donations to her. You saw the polls change dramatically.

It could be that we are sort of at the place now where those changes have been made and therefore, it's sort of starting to become a little bit baked in. But she has been the candidate of change as recently as, you know, last month.

BERMAN: What do you think, Lee, that Republicans should be most nervous about in this debate? Christy is saying the mere image of both candidates on the screen is something that sort of favors the Harris team.

CARTER: Well, I think that the one thing that the Trump campaign should be confident in is only nine percent of Americans think that they have anything else to learn about Donald Trump. Everybody is sort of saying they know what he is. So I think it's almost -- as he -- as he said in his own words, it's really hard for him to bumble too, too much because people expect some of that.

But I think, you know, he could have a disastrous debate. He is not disciplined. He can go off track. And I think that's something that the Harris campaign is going to count on.

I think Donald Trump really needs to focus on making the case that he is going to be different. He is going to say how do you feel today versus four years ago? Most people are going to say they felt better four years ago, even though we were in the height of COVID then, than they do today. Pessimism about the country is really, really high.

If he's able to make that case and stick to that, and not stick to the attacks and the other things, I think he'll do well.

[07:35:00]

I think if Kamala Harris is able to distance herself from the Biden campaign and represent herself as change -- because I do not believe that she does represent change. Yes, she's the next generation but I think people still don't think that she is different policy wise than what is there today. She's going to have a good night if she's able to distance herself from that.

BERMAN: All right, Lee Carter, Christy Setzer. Thanks to both of you.

I know it's going to be a late night tomorrow night for all of us. And you should all follow CNN for complete coverage and analysis before and after the debate. The "ABC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE" simulcast -- that's tomorrow at 9:00 Eastern right here on CNN -- Kate. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Donald Trump has lost his place, once again, on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, the list of the world's 500 wealthiest people, all because of his social media platform.

CNN's Matt Egan has the details on this one. Matt, what is going on here?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Kate. Listen, it's been an absolutely brutal stretch for this company. When they went public in the spring, the stock was flying high and money was pouring in. There were so many hopes for this company. But it's now down 74 percent since the peak in March.

Look at this. The share price is down by about half since July 21. What's the significance of that date? That is when President Biden dropped out of this race for the White House, and he endorsed Kamala Harris.

And listen, this is no coincidence because in a lot of ways this has become a way for traders to bet on the political fortunes of Donald Trump.

Now, this share price dropped to the lowest level since they -- the merger closed. It's wiped out a lot of value for a lot of shareholders, including the former and potentially future President of the United States, Donald Trump, right? He owns 115 million shares in his company. As recently as four months ago --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

EGAN: -- that stake was worth over $6 billion. It's still worth a lot of money right now -- but look at this, $4 billion less.

Now, as far as why this has happened there are those political implications that I was talking about as far as what the polls show. But there's other things out there, too. It's that -- one issue is that the lockup restrictions that were preventing Trump and other insiders from selling -- those go away in the coming weeks.

Now, experts say it will be really hard for Trump to dump all of his stake here, but just the fact that these lockup restrictions are going away has created a lot of uncertainty. It does raise the risk of more supply of shares hitting the market.

BOLDUAN: It doesn't stop others from doing it, right?

EGAN: It doesn't stop others from doing it.

Another issue though is that arguably, the stock never should have been trading as high as it was, right, because --

BOLDUAN: There's a lot of skepticism even from Jump on that.

EGAN: There were. Experts were saying all along that this was dramatically overvalued, right? This is a company that was losing money and generating almost no revenue. And Truth Social -- that's a really tiny player in social media.

I talked to Wall Street veteran Matthew Tuttle, and he told me that if this wasn't Trump, this thing would be trading at a dollar.

Of course, Kate, it is --

BOLDUAN: It is Trump.

EGAN: -- Trump and polls show that this race remains way too close to call.

So we should expect to see more turbulence ahead. The stock this morning is up six percent premarket, and I think we'll see even more volatility after the debate tomorrow night.

BOLDUAN: Right. The only thing that -- that this stock has proven is volatility.

EGAN: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: It saves his job (PH).

EGAN: It's been crazy.

BOLDUAN: All right, let's continue following the crazy. Thank you, Matt.

EGAN: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you, guys.

New video shows NFL star Tyreek Hill being handcuffed and detained by police on Sunday just hours before his Miami Dolphins kickoff against the Jacksonville Jaguars. There is the video there. The wide receiver can be seen handcuffed on the ground with four officers surrounding him. Hill was detained for a very short time before being released.

And one of the officers involved has since been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into that incident.

During a press conference after the game, Hill said he was still confused by his encounter that ended this way with police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TYREEK HILL, WIDE RECEIVER, MIAMI DOLPHINS: I wasn't disrespectful, you know, because my mom didn't raise me that way. I didn't cuss. I didn't do none of that. So, like I said, I'm still trying to figure it out, man. But I do want to say -- I do want to be able to use this platform to say, like, what if I wasn't Tyreek Hill, bro? Like, worst case scenario, you know? Because it's crazy.

But I want to be a cop one day. I got a state trooper hat and all that, you know, so I've got a lot of respect for cops, man. But obviously, you know, everybody has bad apples.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining me now is Tyreek Hill's agent, Drew. Drew, thank you so much -- Rosenhaus. I appreciate you coming on this morning.

We're all watching this video going what the heck happened to see him on his way to the game? Of course, maybe police didn't know that at the time but how did a traffic violation end up with him face down on the ground with an officer standing over him and handcuffed?

DREW ROSENHAUS, TYREEK HILL'S NFL AGENT (via Skype): I've been an NFL agent for 37 years. I've gone to countless games.

When I got the phone call that this was going on I was in disbelief. And when I got to the scene, I saw Tyreek in handcuffs surrounded by police officers. It was heartbreaking.

[07:40:05]

His teammates -- there were two teammates, Calais Campbell and Jonnu Smith, that were there trying to help.

Tyreek was just trying to get to work -- trying to play the game. Just trying to do his job. For police officers to detain him and to handcuff him and to put him on the ground like that and put their knee on him to (INAUDIBLE) him is just devastating. It was heartbreaking, upsetting, and uncalled for.

There's no question that we, as being a part of Tyreek's representatives and legal team were investigating this. We're considering all options, including legal action. It's just (INAUDIBLE) not only with a professional athlete, but with anyone. This was uncalled for. Tyreek did absolutely nothing to deserve this.

They gave him a ticket for a moving violation going into the stadium. It's just shocking.

SIDNER: You talk -- he talked about this -- that he didn't respond aggressively with police. He didn't cuss at them. He didn't -- he's, like, I didn't do any of the things that may have put me in this position.

And in speaking myself to several members of law enforcement they were, like, this is not a normal police response to a traffic violation.

Have you heard anything from police as to what happened? We know that one of the officers has been put on administrative leave.

ROSENHAUS: You know, I got the scene. I asked everybody what happened. Outside of the small group of officers that detained Tyreek, everyone was -- the people I talked to were just shocked. They -- whether they were other police officers, Dolphins security, Dolphins management, the players that witnessed everything, onlookers, Tyreek's family that came. It was just uncalled for. There's no question there will be ramifications that come out of this to Tyreek (INAUDIBLE). It was remarkable that he was able to compose himself and be able to go and play the game, taking a sensational play and an 80-yard touchdown. He helped his team win. (INAUDIBLE) the time. His performance was epic.

But what happened before the game is disgraceful, unacceptable, and should not happen in this society. Who would have thought after George Floyd that we would still see people treated like this unfairly and unnecessarily?

If Tyreek wasn't a world class athlete and an incredible shape who knows how this could have impacted him. He was sore. He was hurting. He was physically and mentally distraught. This is something where we're seeking answers, and we will pursue this to the fullest extent of the law.

SIDNER: Your client, Tyreek Hill, mentioned the same thing that you did. If this had of been someone who was not one of the most famous athletes in the country things may have been different. And he seemed very shaken up about it.

But as you mentioned, he did have an incredible game with a touchdown and celebrated with a teammate, pretending to handcuff him.

Do you see this as his way of trying to cope with this because it is -- it would shake anyone to have this happen before you're going to work?

ROSENHAUS: I feel terrible for Tyreek and his family. You know, just embarrassing to -- for images where you're in handcuffs and you're on the ground with police on -- their knee on you, pushing you and treating you like a criminal. It was just like a (INAUDIBLE) crazy.

It was so upsetting to Tyreek. I visited with him immediately afterwards. He was so upset before the game on the field. After the game we went to dinner last night.

But he did what he had to do. I absolutely believe that the celebration was his way of coping with something that was -- it's so upsetting. But he deserves a lot of credit for a) keeping his voice and not letting it escalate and be there for his teammates, his coaches, and all the fans that were there.

All of this happened two hours before game time. And for Tyreek to keep his composure and do what he did.

Hey, this has never happened before in the history of the NFL, much less professional sports. Plus, this thing we saw with Scottie Scheffler months ago before --

SIDNER: Right.

ROSENHAUS: -- a golf game. But this was just mind-boggling.

And again, I'm very proud of Tyreek. But we're going to do everything we can to make sure that this doesn't happen again. Tyreek mentioned turning this into a positive by shedding light to the type of misconduct and abuse. We will do that.

SIDNER: Drew Rosenhaus, thank you so much for taking the time to come on this morning and talk us through this story. Good luck to you -- John.

ROSENHAUS: Thank you.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: All right. There are a lot of bloodshot eyes around here this morning. At least this time it's because of extra football overnight.

The Detroit Lions, a lot of folks Super Bowl favorite -- they took an early lead in their Sunday night game over Sara Sidner's Rams. But the Rams --

SIDNER: Hey!

BERMAN: -- and Sara, and Matt Stafford would not go easy. I can't see any of this video so you're just going to have to take my word for it. They tied it with a field goal at the end of regulation.

In overtime, it was all David Montgomery, running back a -- or he run in -- ran in a touchdown -- the winning touchdown.

The Lions won 26-20.

The new highest paid player in NFL history, Dak Prescott, led the Cowboys to a 33-17 win against the really, really, really bad Cleveland Browns.

Prescott agreed to a four-year extension hours before the game for a reported $240 million. That's $60 million per year. Ask yourself this. Is he really the best player in the NFL? Patrick Mahomes, anyone?

All right -- and it is just the first game of the season, but we learned that Kendrick Lamar will headline the Super Bowl halftime show in New Orleans. This will continue an annual tradition where we talk way too much about the halftime show. And immediately after everyone will declare it was the best ever and six months later no one will remember it, Kate.

BOLDUAN: I still remember the Usher performance -- always will. It was fantastic. And you are wrong.

Let's turn to this though. We've got much more news coming up for you.

The grandfather of the 14-year-old accused of killing four people at his Georgia high school last week -- the grandfather is speaking out this morning, talking about the teenager's home life with his father now in custody as well.

And change is coming to health insurance. A new rule that could make it easier and more affordable perhaps to access mental health care. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:51:00]

SIDNER: On our radar this morning, a 73-year-old man was arrested after police say he crashed his car into the Elks Lodge in Apache Junction, Arizona. At least 30 people were hurt. One person remains in critical condition. Police say alcohol played a part in that crash.

Apple telling customers to get ready for a glow-up. Later today the company is expected to unveil iPhone 16, its first iPhone design for generative artificial intelligence -- hmm. The phone will feature enhanced AI capabilities such as improved Siri interactions -- thank goodness -- and email drafting.

A 17th century portrait that could possibly be a long-lost Rembrandt unexpectedly sold at auction for $1.4 million. Experts say the price soared because of the hope that it might be genuine. You got $1.4 million to throw around, cool.

An auctioneer found it at an estate in Maine. The painting had a label on the back indicating it was loaned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1970. The museum, however, could not confirm this -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning, students at Apalachee High School will be allowed to recover their belongings after last week's school shooting. Two students and two teachers died, and nine others were injured.

We are learning new details about how the suspect's mother tried to warn the school of an "extreme emergency" before the attack.

CNN's Rafael Romo is in Winder, Georgia this morning with the latest on this. Rafael, what are we learning?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. It's a new and dramatic development.

We have learned that Marcee Gray, the mother of a 14-year-old accused of the shooting, called the school counselor roughly 30 minutes before the shooting and described an "unspecified emergency." And this was first reported by The Washington Post and later confirmed by CNN with Annie Brown, the teenager's aunt.

That emergency turned out to be an alarming and apologetic text from Marcee Gray -- from Marcee Gray's son Colt Gray. The text simply said, "I am sorry, mom." Now, CNN confirmed over the weekend with Charles Polhamus, Colt Gray's maternal grandfather.

It was after receiving that text, John, that the mother placed the call to the school before beginning a 200-mile drive from Fitzgerald, Georgia to here in Winder. But by the time she had arrived, the tragic shooting had already happened. Throughout the weekend we witnessed how thousands of people arrived

here at Apalachee High School in Winder to pay their respects, bringing flowers and a show of support for the families of the deceased and the school itself. Many still can't believe such a horrific shooting could have happened here. And just a moment ago we saw a large group of what appears to be teachers and school staff gathering around the impromptu memorial that has been set up here.

Of course, the question is now what school officials and law enforcement knew before the shooting and that's what we hope to learn in the next few hours, John.

BERMAN: All right, Rafael. Keep us posted. Thank you so much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk more about this case. Joining us right now is a former prosecuting attorney for Genesee County, Michigan, Arthur Busch. Arthur, it's good to see you again. Thanks for coming in.

We have spoken -- we have spoken before because you have a unique perspective when it comes to cases like something like what we're talking about here.

In 2000, you were the prosecutor in a case after a young student in Michigan shot and killed another student. You brought charges against an adult in the child's life for allowing the boy access to a gun.

What do you think of the choice now and what we're seeing in Georgia as they're developing the case there, bringing charges against the 14- year-old's father?

ARTHUR BUSCH, FORMER PROSECUTING ATTORNEY FOR GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think the prosecutor there is amazingly on target. He started his press conference by saying he wasn't trying to send a message, which seems odd. But what he did say was he was trying to hold the dad accountable, and that is spot on and that's what we need.

[07:55:13]

Charging adults, however, for kids' crimes is a bit of a slippery slope. It's a difficult thing to do legally.

I want to correct one thing. I've been doing gun shootings at school since 1991. That's over 30 years of these. It was one of my first cases.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

BUSCH: But what I learned from that experience is that today's shooting really -- although we hear about them more, we don't see -- we lose about 15 kids a year since 1990 to gun violence in schools.

But I think charging the adult -- it has to be done. It has to be done for the sake of justice.

General deterrence -- you know, if that was the case. We had a case in Oxford, Michigan very similar to this one in Georgia where the parent provides a gun to a child. In my case it was an uncle. General deterrence, which is prosecutors and police stand up and send a message to the whole world. If that was really effective, we wouldn't still be talking about this.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

In your case -- and speaking back to the 2000 case that we've talked about before, you decided to not bring charges against the young child who pulled the trigger.

In Georgia, this is a different scenario, of course. Different age, different scenario, different circumstances. They want to try the 14- year-old for murder, and they want to try him as an adult.

What do you think of that?

BUSCH: Well, you know, I made that decision many times in other cases, including school-related gun violence.

But I -- you know, Miller versus Alabama, which is a Supreme Court case which says we have to be very cautious in charging young people under the age of 18 because we know from science that their brains aren't fully developed. That they can't -- you know, they can't process and have judgment as an adult would. So there are a lot of restrictions legally.

I don't -- I don't like to do it. I've evolved over the years. But I have had charges against young people like this most of my career. But evolving, I think blended sentences. They have that in Georgia so this kid can be both in a juvenile facility and eventually an adult facility with juvenile services.

So there's a lot of ways to go about it. We've become more sophisticated. What we haven't become sophisticated enough at and that is how to prevent these from happening.

BOLDUAN: And I wanted to ask you about that. You mentioned that charging the adults in a child's life may be legally a slippery slope. And you mentioned the Crumbley's, which we've covered very -- obviously very closely. Both the parents convicted of involuntary manslaughter related to their son carrying out the school shooting.

Do you think that this kind of -- this -- I'll call it a trend, legally. Do you think holding parents responsible is part of the solution to preventing these school shootings from happening?

BUSCH: Well, I think it's a -- I think it's a solution to enhance some confidence in the justice system that we can actually find people accountable for what they did wrong. But I don't think that's the -- that's a small part of the -- of the larger picture. I mean, a lot of people argue for gun control, assault weapons ban.

I helped organize the Million Mile March way back in the early 2000s. That didn't do much good. We've had all kinds of horrendous cases which haven't done much good to stop it. What we really need is some sort of national legislation that addresses how we can prevent it in a school itself.

And as strange as it might sound, many of these kids are learning from the wrong people about gun safety and about guns. You know, the NRA, at one time, had a very strong program to educate young people. In fact, in my hometown of Flint, Michigan we learned about gun safety at the YMCA.

A lot of these kids don't understand these guns and they need to understand how to handle any firearm, and usually when you're that age you don't handle one. That's the solution. Just more education.

And I -- you know, we can harden the schools up as we've done. They've had school police at this place. They had school police in every case I've handled and many of -- including in Oxford. The problem is that's kind of an after-the-fact response kind of thing. We -- we're getting that down. What we can't get down is the culture of violence, and it's that culture that we have to deal with.

For example, how have we -- how have we evolved to try to prevent this? Well, one thing, we have a lot more attention by yourself. CNN's done a great job, and the other media has done a great job of covering these stories.

In the old days, in 1991, there wasn't a single helicopter over Hamady High School in Mount Morris Township in Flint.