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Music Mogul Sean Combs to Appear in Court to Request Bail after Spending Night in Jail; Donald Trump Promises Increased Tariffs as Part of His Economic Policy if Elected President; More than 100 Republican National Security Officials Endorse Kamala Harris for President. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 18, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R-SC): -- they don't have enough resources to cover the threats that exist. And I'm sure the threats against Vice President Harris are going up. So what I worry about is if we don't enough personnel to deal with the threat levels that exist in this election and beyond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Now, the acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe yesterday said that the agency needs to move from a reactive mode to a readiness mode. But there are very serious questions about what exactly that will look like. One of the issues that is frequently cited is issues with staffing for the Secret Service. But even if you hire more agents, they still need time to be trained and they are facing a very serious time crunch with the election just a few weeks away.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Arlette Saenz at the White House for us, thank you so much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Sean Combs back in court today after his first night in jail, held without bail.

This morning, a new group of Republicans throwing their support behind Vice President Harris.

And new research into wildly popular weight loss drugs could help prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes very year.

I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today, Sean "Diddy" Combs is headed back to court, this time to make a plea to be let out on bail. Combs stayed overnight at a federal detention center after bail was denied by a judge yesterday. His lawyer is now preparing to fight that decision even before they've prepared to fight the very serious allegations and charges that Combs now faces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARC AGNIFILO, ATTORNEY FOR SEAN "DIDDY" COMBS: I called the prosecutors myself. I said Mr. Combs is in New York. Do you want to know where he is? If you want to where he is, I'll tell you where he is, but he wants to surrender. He's here to surrender. They didn't want him to surrender because if he surrenders, they don't get to tell the judge that he's a flight risk and he's a danger, because who as a danger and a flight risk would fly to New York and surrender?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Prosecutors unsealed the indictment yesterday, accusing the music mogul of leading a years-long criminal enterprise, a sex trafficking ring where drugs, violence, abuse, threats, all allegedly tools that he used to force women into taking part in a elaborate sex performances, and also to keep them silent. Combs pleaded not guilty to all charges.

CNN's Kara Scannell watching all of this for us. Kara, so much revealed yesterday. What could happen today?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: So today they'll be back in court, and Combs's attorney is taking a fighting posture both on the evidence in this case, but also on this question of bail. And as he was saying to Kaitlan last night, he wants the judge to release Combs on bail, he thinks that they've got evidence to support that. But he also is saying that they are going to fight this. Here's more of what he said in that interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Is there any chance Sean Combs takes a plea deal?

MARC AGNIFILO, ATTORNEY FOR SEAN "DIDDY" COMBS: I don't see it happening. I do not see it happening. He's innocent. I believe he's innocent. I believe he's innocent of the charges. And he is going to go to trial. And I believe he's going to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: now, the focus in court today, though, will be on bail. And the presumption is that based on the sex trafficking charges that he would be detained, prosecutors said that they have a lot of evidence, and all of that evidence even makes Combs more of a flight risk, they say, because he would be embarrassed once it all comes out at trial. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Talk to me about some of the evidence the prosecutors are detailing are pointing to in this indictment, which now becomes part of the case against him?

SCANNELL: Yes. I mean, Kate, they talked yesterday during the court hearing and in some of their legal filings about just the wealth of evidence that they have obtained. They said that they have spoken with more than 50 witnesses or victims in this case. These are either victims of the abuse at the hands of Combs or witnesses to it. They also said that they have financial records, travel records, hotel records, surveillance tapes, and that they have more than a dozen video recordings of those, what they describe as what Combs called the "freak offs." That's with sexual assault in the abuse the prosecution has laid out in the indictment. They have dozens of recordings of those taken by Combs himself of those freak offs.

They also said that they have obtained more than 90 cell phone records, laptops, and cloud storage devices through subpoenas, through coconspirators from Combs, from witnesses in this case, and from victims, over 30 hard drives, thumb drives, cameras, and surveillance systems. And that's all coming through more than several hundred subpoenas that they have issued. So they're telling the judge we have a lot of evidence in this case. We're going to put it on at the trial.

This makes this even a higher bar for Combs to overcome if Combs lawyers trying to make the point that he is not going to flee this.

[08:05:04]

He came to New York to try to surrender himself. They're saying give him the benefit that doubt, let him out. The prosecutors are pushing back on that pretty hard, Kate.

BOLDUAN: We'll see what happens today. Kara, thank you very much.

Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Now, politics on the campaign trail. Donald Trump heads to Long Island today, staunchly blue New York, is a state that Trump says the GOP has a real chance of winning for the first time in decades. In Michigan yesterday, Trump promised to put a 200 percent tariff on car imports from Chinese owned plants in Mexico if he is reelected.

CNN's Steve Contorno is joining us now. Tell us more about what he said to the crowd. I think he made some promises about bringing electricity down as well.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Sara. This was Donald Trump's first campaign events since that second attempt on his life. And he appeared relatively unfazed by recent events. In fact, he was largely the Trump that we have seen in recent weeks and all throughout this campaign. He was praising foreign leaders as stronger than Biden and Harris. He was pushing back on Harris's claims from the debates that people leave his rallies early. And he was continuing this message of trade wars and tariffs that have become central to his economic pitch to voters. In fact, he said it's these tariffs and trade wars that may have inspired this attempt on his life. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, only consequential presidents get shot at. When I say something like that, you have countries saying, this guy. But what can you do? You have to do -- you have to do what you have to do, right? You have to -- we have to be brave, otherwise we're not going to have a country left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: As I said, trade wars and tariffs were one of the key answers to many of the questions that he received last night from the audience. One person asked him what he was going to do to get down food prices, and his answer was to import less food into the country. I think you will find several economists that would suggests that would actually bring up the price of some groceries.

But however, this has just central to his economic message. And this is how he is trying to lure voters in this key battleground, as you mentioned, Sara. That includes a potential 200 percent tariff on foreign vehicles brought into the United States.

SIDNER: All right, Steve Contorno, thank you so much for your reporting there. John?

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, just a few minutes ago, more than 100 Republican national security officials endorsing Kamala Harris for president. On the list, George H.W. Bush's CIA and FBI director William Webster and Director of National Intelligence under George W. Bush, John Negroponte. And with me now is another person on that list, Sean O'Keefe, who was secretary of the Navy under George H.W. Bush, NASA administrator under George W. Bush, and he held about 18,000 other jobs over the last 30 years.

Secretary, thank you so much for being with me this morning. So why? Why did you put your name on this list?

SEAN O'KEEFE, FORMER SECRETARY OF THE NAVY UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: Thank you, John, pleasure to be with you.

I think this was a choice between choosing democracy over choosing chaos, with the idea of a redux of a Trump presidency was just more than I think anybody on that lives could stand, and the notion, really, of advancing an advocacy for a candidate like Vice President Harris, who believes in democracy, will protect the values that make that essential is what this was all about.

BERMAN: Do you think there's any risk, because J.D. Vance is out there saying that people saying that Trump is a threat to democracy, it's language like that that may have contributed to the assassination attempts on Donald Trump?

O'KEEFE: I think, when you compare that to the rhetoric he uses on a wide range of different issues this doesn't even rise to that. But it certainly is something in which an advocacy on the part of chaos is what has been his practice in his past administration. And as a consequence, that's just something we're not looking forward to seeing a repeat to do.

BERMAN: I'm looking at this list, which was just handed to me and it just came out a few minutes ago, and there are people on the system like Adam Kinzinger, Olivia Troye, who actually spoke at the Democratic convention. There's your name, John Negroponte, Eliot Cohen, others here. I can hear the response from some of the Trump campaign already in my head, saying this is a list of RINOs and neocons. What would you say to that?

O'KEEFE: Frankly, there is nothing about the campaign that I see on the Trump behalf that resembles anything approaching Republicanism as I've ever seen throughout the course of my life.

[08:10:00]

This is an abandonment of free trade principles, of a national security definition that is very, very clear, one in which we're focused very dominantly on responsible governance, an economic policy, all those different functions that we've seen in every other Republican administration in the past aren't even anywhere near in evidence in this particular campaign mantra that has been advanced.

So there's nothing here that resembles Republicanism in my mind. And if anything, the testimony of former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, in advancement of the Harris candidacy as well I think speaks volumes for precisely why we're looking for someone who will defend democracy as opposed to oppose it.

BERMAN: I mentioned you had 18,000 jobs, only a slight exaggeration. One of them was you were the deputy director of OMB, the Office of Management and Budget during the first months of the George W. Bush administration. I actually covered the White House then. So on issues of the budget and the deficit and the national debt, which, if any, presidential candidate now is actually talking about the debt in a responsible way?

O'KEEFE: Well, I think Vice President Harris is acknowledging this is an issue we've really got to focus on, and this administration, I think, has done a commendable job relatively to the conditions that they inherited, frankly, with the pandemic and so forth, that ultimately really is bringing us back into more of a discussion -- excuse me -- I think of a more responsible fiscal position overall. So this shows promise as well as evidence of the commitment to that particular objective going forward.

BERMAN: Changing subjects, "The New York Times" had an interesting story today on the foreign perspective on now what appear to be these multiple attempts on the life of Donald Trump. And "The Times" suggested that it's shaking confidence from foreign countries in the United States and in the idea of an organized rule of law here in the United States. What concerns do you have on that front?

O'KEEFE: Yes, there's no question this can't possibly be condoned or tolerated in any way, shape, or form on any candidate, and it is eroding the confidence here in this country as well as around the globe as a consequence of the fact that it keeps, in demonstration. It has been, unfortunately, most regrettably in this contemporary era in which we live a omnipresent condition in which every administration, Republican or Democrat, has had to deal with over the course of this time.

And I think really the actions on the part of the administration now, as well as the Congress, in really looking at how to two shore up the capability of the Secret Service in order to handle this, is the right approach that they're taking right now.

BERMAN: Administrator, secretary, professor Sean O'Keefe, thanks so much for being with us this morning. Appreciate your time, sir. Kate?

O'KEEFE: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Ahead for us, new details on how Israel's spy agency pulled off the massive coordinated, sophisticated, and complex attack on Hezbollah. How they managed to plant explosives in pagers headed to members of the terror group. The death toll continues to rise today.

All smoke and mirrors and centered on making money -- that is some of the new and testimony coming out now about the concerns raised years before the titan submersible imploded, killing everyone on board.

And the heart-stopping moment, a tree falls on top of a Little League dugout, all caught on video.

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[08:18:55]

SIDNER: This morning, CNN has learned that Israel is behind the explosions of pagers that were owned by Hezbollah members and they exploded across Lebanon.

The attack was a joint operation between Israel's intelligence service, Mossad and the Israeli military targeting Hezbollah.

CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller is here to walk us through the details.

I told you today, I only have one question how? How did they manage to do this?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the how is the smoking pager question, but it is also very complicated.

Now, we don't know how, but the scenarios are, you either have to create a vendor who buys these pagers wholesale and becomes the vendor to Hezbollah. That means you're going to sell two or three thousand in pagers to them, you have to penetrate the security of their procurement process, right, or a trusted source.

Probably, not the scenario, more likely that they created a way to get in-between the vendor and the delivery. Are they the delivery service? Are they the broker at customs?

[08:20:03] But they found a spot where they could take literally thousands of

these devices that were ordered and it is not like you snap a bomb on. You have to take it apart. You have to look at it. You have to predetermine before you ever do this.

What are we going to use for a power source? What are we going to use for a detonator? What are we going to use for our main charge? And then you have to put that in all of these devices.

But imagine this strategic thinking behind this, which is who in the world who was ever at war on multiple fronts, ever said, if I could press a button and eliminate thousands of my enemies without using a nuclear device or anything else, and send a message at the same time that would tear the organization apart from the inside, that took a lot of thinking and a lot of time.

SIDNER: And the company out of Taiwan said they had nothing to do with it. The United States says they had no idea that this operation was going to go down.

But what is the effect do you think is going to be within Hezbollah now? Because they already had said that their phones were infiltrated, which is why they went to pagers.

MILLER: So the effect is the desired effect.

Right now, if you are in Hezbollah today, if you're at the bottom of Hezbollah and you were wearing one of these pagers yesterday, you're saying, who am I working for? Do these people know what they're doing? They issued us these things and they all blow up. Do I belong in this organization?

People who are thinking of joining are saying, do I want to -- do I want to be with that organization?

But if you're at the top of Hezbollah, you're also asking what are they into? Are they into our computers? Are my phone is going to explode when I do the automatic starter in the car? Is the thing in my hand going to blow up?

And they have caused the level of insecurity and fear where the leadership of Hezbollah is saying, how did this happen? Where is our system broken? What else did we either buy from this company, these vendors or that chain that is going to be compromised?

What you have there is paranoia and panic, which I think is -- the tactical goal was to eliminate a lot of fighters and operators. The strategic goal was to make -- to set Hezbollah back on its heels and that clearly is going to succeed.

SIDNER: There is also this question of communication, right? Because now, they are worried about the cell phones. Now, they can't use the pagers because they are going to be worried about the pagers.

So ultimately, it could disrupt communication between members of Hezbollah. MILLER: I mean, it just knocked out their Plan B, as you point out,

and more than that, it is a stage in terms of the trade craft that we've seen where they were able to reach IRGC generals working for Iran in an embassy in Syria.

Hezbollah key generals and operators and leaders in other countries including Lebanon, where they've taken them out one at a time and they've proven today, and it doesn't just have to be a one-off. You know, we can press a button.

I mean, that page came in at 3:30 and simultaneously, people walking down the street, people paying at a cash register, a guy buying grapes, people at their home, pagers on people's dressers next to their bed all exploded.

This is an incredible feat of trade craft between two combatants in the middle of kind of asymmetrical war.

SIDNER: Yes. Psychological warfare, as well as physical.

Thank you so much, John Miller. It was really a great look into how this could have happened -- John.

BERMAN: All right, new accusations this morning about the Titan submersible. An executive with the sub maker says, officials ignored their safety warnings.

This morning, investors bracing for impact, standing by as the Fed is expected to announce its first rate cut in more than four years. What this could mean for your money.

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[08:28:08]

BOLDUAN: Damning and scathing new testimony in the investigation of the Titan submersible disaster, the vessel that imploded mid-dive to the site of the Titanic last year killing the five people onboard.

In new testimony, the former director of Marine Operations for the company behind the experimental submersible was speaking out, criticizing the company and its operations and how it went about its business and also casting blame on safety authorities saying this during the testimony: "... if OSHA had attempted to investigate the seriousness of the concerns that he raised on multiple occasions. This tragedy may have been prevented."

CNN's Miguel Marquez has much more on this and you followed this from the moment that this disaster happened.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I was up there --

BOLDUAN: I remember. I remember that.

What are we learning from this testimony? MARQUEZ: Well, you know look, we knew a lot of this. A lot of it has

been reported and all of the safety concerns that we had with his vessel were out there, but the details of just how fraught and how much was going wrong.

I mean, forget OSHA and complaints and everything else. There were so many warning signs.

On May 24th, just about a month before the fatal dive, the Titan craft had partially sunk along with its platform due to high seas and fog. Just days before, they had a ballast issue and everybody got slammed up against the wall of the Titan.

David Lochridge, who was a former executive who is the one that you're referring to also -- who had also complained to OSHA. He got fired from the company. There was legal stuff between them for years.

He testified that Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate in 2016, took another submersible down to the Andrea Doria, a ship that sank in the 1950s and the way he described it, he smashed down to the bottom and then went full ahead into the Andrea Doria -- into the wreckage, and this was with passengers.

He said that the passengers got so panicked, everybody got so panicked on board. It was a PlayStation controller. Lochridge, who was an experienced diver and knew the business was trying to get that controller from Stockton Rush and he kept putting it behind his back, farther and farther until one of the passengers screamed at him and he threw it at Lochridge.

Here is a little bit of Lockridge's testimony during this hearing.

[08:30:33]