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Wal Fighting Nerves Ahead of Debate; Ian Sams is Interviewed about the Harris Campaign; Routh to be Arraigned in Court; SpaceX Dragon Docks at ISS. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired September 30, 2024 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:33:33]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Sources now tell CNN that Tim Walz is fighting off a case of the nerves ahead of his debate with Senator J.D. Vance tomorrow. He is said to be nervous, that he might let Kamala Harris down.

CNN's Isaac Dovere has this reporting. He's joining us now with much more on this.

So, what more are you learning about how, I don't know, how he's all feeling ahead of tomorrow.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Hey, good morning, Kate.

What Tim Walz is going into tomorrow night is something that he hasn't done before, and most people haven't done before, a nationally televised debate. Obviously, high stakes. It could be, likely will be, the last big marquee event of the campaign. And Walz is looking at this saying he wants to make sure he is making the case for Kamala Harris, as strong as he can, even though he obviously didn't know Kamala Harris himself very well before he got picked, but he wants to do that both for the sake of not letting her down, making sure that she feels - continuing to feel that she made the right choice in picking him, and also because he is really committed to the idea that Donald Trump can't be president again and that Kamala Harris should be president.

So, it's a lot riding on it. And the reporting that I have on the site gets into all of that, the role that he's been playing in the campaign, both in front of the scenes, making people really feel attached to him and to her, and behind the scenes, lining up some key endorsements for Harris.

BOLDUAN: Also talk to me about this multi-multi page report that the Harris campaign has now put out. They're, very clearly, trying to target Donald Trump and J.D. Vance on the issue of health care. What are they doing with it?

DOVERE: Yes, so they have a report out this morning.

[09:35:01] Health care is regularly one of the places where all of these big political and policy discussions that we have really hits the road for most Americans. And what the Harris campaign is doing ahead of this debate, very specifically, is trying to highlight that comment that Donald Trump made in the debate that he had with Kamala Harris, where he was asked, does he have a plan to replace Obamacare, the Affordable - or the - and he said that he has concepts of a plan.

They - we are 14 years into the Obamacare debate, nine years into Donald Trump running for president. He's supported repealing Obamacare. And he still does not have a plan for it. He made clear for what it would be instead.

It's also beating up on J.D. Vance for something that he has been talking about on the trail, which is a way of separating out people in different risk categories and how they'd be covered by insurance, different pools. All of that the Harris campaign is saying is a way that would hurt Americans, and most importantly the thing that they're highlighting is that it would likely scale back things like preexisting condition coverage, which is, overall, one of the most popular places - or popular parts of Obamacare.

BOLDUAN: Yes. A lot to happen ahead of this debate, that's for sure.

Thank you so much.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with me now, senior spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign, Ian Sams.

Ian, thank you so much for being with us.

The vice president cutting short a trip out west. Did a rally in Nevada last night. Was supposed to have more campaign events today. Going back to Washington to focus on the hurricane. How was that decision made, and what are her plans exactly?

IAN SAMS, SENIOR SPOKESPERSON, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN: Well, thanks for having me.

And the vice president's been briefed over the weekend consistently by the FEMA director and the team on the White House side about this horrible devastation that we're seeing across the south.

I grew up in east Tennessee, right across the mountain from Asheville, North Carolina. Seeing the flooding that's happening there where I'm from is heartbreaking to me. And the vice president and the president are working hard to mobilize federal resources to the area to make sure that there are 3,300 federal personnel on the ground mobilized to help support this effort, to get generators, food, water into the area.

She wants to come back to Washington to get a briefing from FEMA today, to be updated on the latest of how that work is going on the ground. She spoke last night with Governor Cooper in North Carolina, and she's reached out to other governors across the south, to sort of see what they need. And she committed last night, as you heard from her at her event in Las Vegas, that none of these communities will be left to rebuild alone. She's going to make sure that the president and she get the resources into these communities as they are needed.

BERMAN: Over the weekend, also, Donald Trump held a couple of rallies. And there's often a debate - there are some critics of Trump who think, play all the rallies so people can see what he says and sounds like. Other say don't give credence to it.

I just want to play a little bit of what he said about Vice President Harris, then ask you about the big picture.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala is mentally impaired.

She's incompetent.

She's not a smart person.

If you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could have allowed this to happen to our country.

Joe Biden became mentally impaired. Sad. But lyin' Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, how do you calculate whether and how to respond to something like this versus the focus that the campaign wants to be talking about this morning, which is health care?

SAMS: Well, when you listen to what Donald Trump said just there, you know what you don't hear, you don't hear a word about what he's going to do to help the American people. You don't hear a word about real issues that actually matter to voters in this election, like health care. Today, we're talking about the fact that Donald Trump, on the debate stage, said, I have a concept of a plan. Well, J.D. Vance, who's about to be on the debate stage tomorrow night, came out and announced what that plan was, and it was putting people with pre- existing conditions back into these high-risk pools that cost them more money and could actually eliminate their health care coverage. This is what they are proposing And so Donald Trump, saying what he says, is intended to distract from the real issues that people actually care about.

And what we're not going to do is, we're not going to let their secret plans to take health care away from millions of people, 4 million people in places like Georgia and Michigan, 5 million people in place like Pennsylvania, who have pre-existing conditions, who their plan would put at risk of both higher costs and losing their coverage. That is what we are talking about in this race because Vice President Harris has a very different agenda. She wants - she casts the tie- breaking vote to make sure that seniors had their insulin capped at $35 and that they had $2,000 a year caps on their prescription drugs. She wants to expand that to all Americans. She's still focused every day on bringing down the price of health care for the American people. But Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and J.D. Vance has a chance to explain this on the stage tomorrow night, have a different plan, which is to take health care away from millions of people, raise costs on people with preexisting conditions.

[09:40:10]

BERMAN: So, you picked up the endorsement of "The New York Times" overnight. Shock. I don't think that's actually shocking at all. But in this endorsement where they called Vice President Harris a patriotic pick, "The Times" did actually criticize the vice president. It said that they would like to see her doing more unscripted events. They said, quote, "it's a disservice to the American people and to her own record and leaving the public with a sense that she is being shielded from tough questions, as Mr. Biden has been, could backfire by undermining her core argument that a capable new generation stands ready to take the reins of power."

Your response.

SAMS: Well, the vice president did a half-hour sit down interview on live TV last week. She's got an interview coming out, I think in about ten minutes, on a highly, highly listened to podcasts called "All the Smoke," where she talks about her vision for the country and, unscripted, about who she is and where - how she grew up and what her values are.

So, she's going to continue talking to the American people in these sort of settings and formats. She's taken questions from reporters on the campaign trail. She's going to continue to do that.

You talk about "The New York Times" endorsed. I'm more interested in yesterday we saw the endorsement of former very conservative Republican Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, who said she is the patriotic choice, that - that he's putting character over party, putting country over party to endorse her in this race. And I think that what you're seeing across this country is Republicans, independents, Democrats, but Republicans who are coming out and saying that she is the right choice in this election. And so she's very proud of the support that she's getting from Republicans across the country, including Senator Flake yesterday, including General Stanley McChrystal yesterday saying that she's the right leader to take on the commander in chief mantle during these times of great challenges around the world. Those are the endorsements that she's focused on. And, of course, she's going to continue talking to the American people in rallies and in interviews and in podcasts throughout the rest of this campaign.

BERMAN: Ian Sams, thanks for coming in this morning. Appreciate it.

Sara. SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, in just a few hours, the man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump is due back in court as he faces new charges.

And SpaceX to the rescue. The capsule that will give two astronaut stranded in space for months a ride home. That's finally arrived to take them. But when?

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[09:46:49]

SIDNER: This morning, the man charged with trying to kill Donald Trump in Florida is due back in court for his arraignment. Prosecutors say Ryan Routh stalked the former president in Florida for more than a month. He was captured shortly after the September 15th incident at Trump's golf club in West Palm Beach.

That's where we find our Randi Kaye this morning. She is outside federal court for us.

Randi, what can we expect to happen during this particular arraignment?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Sara.

We do expect that 58-year-old Ryan Routh will enter a plea this morning, an official plea at this arraignment through his attorney. He's now facing five charges in this case. Just last week prosecutors charged him with attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. That was in addition to the two gun charges he was already facing. Those were possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Two other charges now on top of all of that, include possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a federal officer. So, he will, as I said, enter a plea today.

Also, it's worth noting that the judge in this case is expected to be the federal judge overseeing the case will be Judge Aileen Cannon. She won't be here in court today, but for the future, she will be taking this case over. And she's the same judge who was overseeing Donald Trump's Florida classified documents case until she threw that out last summer - over the summer.

But just in terms of the findings that the prosecutors say they have in terms of evidence, they say that they have a letter that was turned over as part of - turned over by a witness in this case who said that Ryan Routh had dropped this letter in a box at his home weeks ago. And this letter reads in part, "dear world, this was an assassination attempt of Donald Trump, but I am so sorry I failed you." Prosecutors say that letter was written by Ryan Routh.

Also, they did search Ryan Routh's car. They say they found six cell phones there, including - included on one of those phones was a Google search that looked at how to get from Palm Beach County to Mexico.

Sara.

SIDNER: Wow, that letter going to be used as evidenced for certain if this case goes all the way to trial.

Thank you so much, Randi Kaye, for those details, outside of the courthouse this morning.

John.

BERMAN: All right, we are standing by as President Biden is set to deliver an update shortly on the rescue efforts underway, as the death toll from Hurricane Helene is rising.

And two astronauts still stranded in space for several more months, but their ride home just arrived. So, there's that.

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[09:53:48]

BOLDUAN: This morning, the SpaceX spacecraft that will finally bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home has arrived at the International Space Station. These two astronauts have been stranded in space after the Boeing Starliner that they arrived on had to return to earth without them due to a series of technical issues.

Kristin Fisher has much more on this, has been following - can we now call this a saga, because that's what it kind of feels like?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: You can call it a saga. Sure. But, you know, NASA is even reluctant to call this a rescue mission. They say that this is now just part of their crew rotation. And, you know, but whatever you want to call it, Kate, the vehicle that is now going to bring Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to earth, those two test - the two crew members that were part of the Boeing Starliner first crewed test flight, they are now going to be going home on this SpaceX crewed Dragon capsule that arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday.

And, you know, Kate, this is a mission that was delayed by the hurricane. It managed to squeeze out a launch in-between some big thunderstorms down at the Kennedy Space Center.

[09:55:01]

But it lifted off without a problem. And now the only big difference with that - that flight, Kate, was the fact that there were only two astronauts on board, a NASA astronaut, the commander, Nick Hague, and a Russian cosmonaut. There were two empty seats on that SpaceX Crew Dragon that launched on Saturday. And those empty seats are for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when they come back to earth.

But, Kate, they are still going to have to wait quite some time, until February of 2025. And I know you and some of our viewers are probably thinking, well, wait, the spacecraft is there, why can't they just come back now? BOLDUAN: Exactly.

FISHER: I know. I know. But, the reality is, you know, these spaceflights are expensive and they don't have a ton of Dragon capsules just lying around waiting to go back. And you want to give that crew that just got up there, Crew-9, a chance to fulfill their mission that they've trained for a year-and-a-half for. You don't want to cut that short. So, that all kind of plays into it as to why Butch and Suni are going to have to wait a few more months now.

BOLDUAN: Sounds like a plan, at least for now.

FISHER: A plan. A saga. Whatever you want to call it.

BOLDUAN: Thanks, Kristin. It's all - it's all gone as planned. Let's put it that way.

Kristin, thank you so much.

Butch and Suni are like, guys, if you could just do those experiments -

BERMAN: Yes, the car is parked in the driveway, right? Let's go. Let's go.

SIDNER: Right.

BERMAN: All right, thank you all for joining us. I am told that there is a mini-moon. There is a -

BOLDUAN: We're not going to talk about it.

BERMAN: We're not going to talk about it.

BOLDUAN: You're out of time.

BERMAN: This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. I'm John Berman. This is Kate Bolduan, Sara Sidner.

BOLDUAN: I'll so you one. Just kidding.

BERMAN: "NEWSROOM," up next.

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