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Trump Rally Speakers Spew Extreme Rhetoric, Racist & Vulgar Comments; Iran Vows Response To Israeli Strike But Says It Does Not Seek War; Diplomat: Gaza Ceasefire & Hostage Talks Resume In Doha; Matthew Perry's Friends & Family Launch New Foundation In His Honor 1 Year After His Death. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:34:13]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Republicans are in clean-up mode after the inflammatory, racist and vulgar remarks made by a slew of loyalists to Donald Trump during his rally at Madison Square Garden last night.

Here's just one example that targeted the U.S. commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY HINCHCLIFFE, COMEDIAN: I don't know if you guys know this, but there's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. Yes, I think it's called Puerto Rico.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The reaction has been swift. In particular, from candidates in Florida, where roughly one million Puerto Ricans live. And this is key, they can vote. They are American citizens.

Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott condemned the joke as unfunny and pointed out that Puerto Ricans are Americans.

While Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar said, "The rhetoric does not reflect Republican values."

[14:35:04]

Joining us now is CNN senior political analyst, Mark Preston.

And, Mark, you have a bit of a different take on this joke -- these sets of jokes from this comedian, essentially, that we shouldn't be looking for serious political discourse from a guy that tries to make funnies.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: One-hundred percent. And I would remove it from the rest of that vulgar, angry, like real hate rhetoric that we heard from all of the supporters of President Trump.

I suspect we will not see comedians be involved in politics like this again.

I will say I do not know this guy personally. I have followed his career. I don't find him to be racist. However, you can't go out onto a political stage and say the things that he said and have not people -- have people accuse you of that.

Having said that, I do think we have to be careful. And for all this -- this rhetoric is hatred rhetoric, we have to be able to protect the right to free speech and for people to say these stupid, silly things and allow us to make the judgment of them.

But for this guy, in particular, I would remove him necessarily because I don't think he understood necessarily that stage that he was on last night is not the same stage that he was on just a few weeks ago when he sold out Madison Square Garden to a -- you know, for his show.

KEILAR: Yes, this isn't the comedy hour, right --

PRESTON: No.

KEILAR: -- that he's doing this in a Netflix special.

But what I found interesting was who he targeted. Because his defense of himself was I made fun of everyone.

So I endured his spiel twice, to see if that was the case and it's not terrible.

PRESTON: Oh, yes.

KEILAR: I mean, no, I just want to be clear. He did not make fun of white people the way he made fun of non-white people. He was really like punching at, like historically, the mistreated groups.

There was no like -- you know, I think as a comedian, I think you're on safer ground. Maybe making fun of a group to which you belong. Certainly, if you're going to be making fun of other groups.

And he was -- I didn't see a whole lot of that, even from Travis Kelce, Joe Biden, he made fun of the Clintons. But I mean, there wasn't a whole lot of other jokes.

PRESTON: Listen, first of all, making fun of yourself is probably the smartest thing to do. Because, as you bring any criticism within, he could have probably brought the crowd along with him.

Now, it's interesting he didn't even get the crowd last night. But it was kind of like ha, ha, ha, like laughing, applauding.

Not only that, but, again, this guy went out and said these ridiculous comments. The Trump campaign, mind you, is not having a good day today, right? They don't want us to be talking about this.

They don't want every major news outlet to be talking about this because that is what they wanted to come out of this rally. However, when you play with dynamite, and you'd light these sticks of dynamite, you've got to be prepared for them to blow up. And in this case, it blew up on them.

SANCHEZ: The crowd and may have not responded to him. And as you said, he's a comedian, you differentiate them from other folks.

PRESTON: Yes.

SANCHEZ: But the crowds certainly responded to some of the other stuff that was said, including by Tucker Carlson, by Stephen Miller, by a number of folks

PRESTON: Check that.

SANCHEZ: Yes, check that -- have said disparate, like Kamala Harris is the anti-Christ, and just kind of crazy nonsense, right?

What does it tell you that the campaign is putting these people out there at this stage in front of one of the biggest crowds that they're going to get in Madison Square Garden, a place that, as Governor Tim Walz pointed out, has some history with contrary virtual events.

PRESTON: Sure.

SANCHEZ: What does that tell you about what the campaign is envisioning as their closing messages, as what they want to connect to voters with?

PRESTON: Wo when you think about this, how many times we sat at this table and talked about. In these closing days, they have to get these undecided voters out to the polls. And these undecided voters only live in six states.

While a lot of people are decided now, at this point, what they're trying to do is they're trying to get out their base. Unfortunately, part of their base is a hateful base.

It is a base that, you know, I don't necessarily would want to be part of it. I'm sure you guys wouldn't be part of it. A lot of Republicans don't want to be part of it.

However, for them to win, they think they need to get these -- these folks out and that's what they're trying to reach.

KEILAR: Mark Preston, thank you so much.

As mentioned, Vice President Harris is in Michigan right now. There are some issues with the signal as we're trying to see that. But we're going to bring that to you very soon here.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

[14:39:28]

And next, as Iran vows to retaliate, Israel's prime minister is appearing to be looking ahead to what comes after the war with Hamas. What he just said about potential peace deals with Israels neighbors, when we return.

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SANCHEZ: Iran is vowing what it describes as an appropriate response to Israel's retaliatory strikes over the weekend. The IDF saying it's attack on Saturday severely damaged Iran's ability to produce long- range missiles.

Iran says that five people were killed, but the Israeli strikes apparently did not damage the country's oil refineries or other energy assets.

In a speech to the Israeli parliament, Prime Minister Netanyahu said he intends to dismantle Iran's proxies in the region and forge partnerships with Arab nations once the war in Gaza is over.

KEILAR: Today, high-level diplomats are back at the negotiating table. They are in Doha, hoping a ceasefire and hostage deal may still be within reach. Egypt is now proposing a two-day truce in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages, as well as Palestinian prisoners.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live in Jerusalem.

And, Jeremy, a source says it's unlikely that those talks are going to yield much before the U.S. election. What are you hearing?

[14:44:59]

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. And a lot of that stems from the fact that we are really just jump starting the negotiations at this stage.

Remember, they have been frozen for so long now. And so just the fact that the Massad director, the CIA director, and other top negotiators flew to Doha, Qatar, yesterday and were there today as well trying to restart these negotiations is a positive indication.

But that doesn't mean that we are anywhere close to any kind of a deal happening between Israel and Hamas.

And the question right now really is, what kind of a deal are we even looking at? And the Egyptians have put forward on the table this proposal that really looks to break the mold with what we've seen over the course of the better part of the last 10 months.

And that is, instead of a multi-phase deal that looks to ultimately see the release of all the hostages and the war in Gaza, we're just talking now about a two-day truce. Four Israeli hostages, an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners also being released from Israeli jails.

And the hope being that this is almost a confidence-building measure that gets the two sides to further negotiations about ultimately ending the war in Gaza.

The Israelis, from speaking with sources, certainly seem open to this idea. But the real question is, will Hamas be?

We know that, in the past, they have made clear that they only want to engage in negotiations about releasing hostages if it ultimately leads to their end goal of the end of the war and withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza.

But in the wake of the killing of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, there's no question that Hamas has been significantly damaged. And so now the question is whether or not, in the wake of Sinwar's killing, they'd be willing to engage in something else.

And beyond that, who is actually making the decisions within Hamas about releasing hostages? That's also something that we don't have much certainty about.

And that's part of what these early stage talks could allow for, is also giving these negotiators a better sense of who is actually calling the shots within Hamas.

SANCHEZ: And, Jeramy, when it comes to this promised retaliation from Iran, what are you learning about that?

DIAMOND: Well, the Iranians over the weekend really seemed inclined to downplay the extent of the damage caused by these Israeli strikes, even as they acknowledged that four Iranian troops and one civilian were killed in this wave of Israeli attacks that came early Saturday morning.

But today, we did hear from the Iranian president vowing that Iran will respond at a time of its choosing. An appropriate response, is how he termed it.

But what he also made clear is that Iran doesn't want all-out war with Israel. And so we're -- while we are hearing these vows of some kind of response, it's not clear whether that would be a military response. It's not clear whether that would be another barrage of ballistic missiles that prompted this latest Israeli retaliation.

And certainly it seems like Israel is trying to give Iran a little bit of room here to de-escalate rather than leading to the next level of escalations.

And so it seems unclear at this stage exactly what Iran's calculus is, whether or not they've actually made a decision about what their response will look like.

But it also does seem like there's at least a window of opportunity here for tensions in the region to de-escalate between Iran on a potentially not responding anytime soon. And also, of course, these ongoing negotiations now happening in the region.

SANCHEZ: Jeremy Diamond, live for us in Jerusalem, Thank you so much.

Still ahead, Matthew Perry's family is opening up one year after the friends actor passed away from a drug overdose. What they have to say about his passing and the investigation into his death. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:52:40]

KEILAR: Family and friends of actor Matthew Perry, they are working to turn his death into a legacy of helping others who are battling addiction.

SANCHEZ: It's been a year since the "Friends" star was found dead in his California home. Perry's death, as described in an autopsy, was the result of the acute effects of the drug Ketamine and subsequent drowning.

Some of the people closest to him are speaking out today as they launch a new foundation in his honor.

CNN entertainment correspondent, Elizabeth Wagmeister, joins us now from Los Angeles.

Elizabeth, what are his loved ones saying?

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to believe that it has been a year since we lost Matthew Perry. I know we all remember where we were when we heard that heartbreaking news.

And Matthew Perry spoke about his dream being to help people that we're also suffering with addiction. He was incredibly open about his own struggle. He wrote a memoir in 2020 where he wanted to great detail about his life struggle with addiction.

And now his family, they have started a foundation, the Matthew Perry Foundation of Canada, where they're helping others on their road to recovery.

Now, this morning, Matthew Perry's family, his mom, his stepdad, Keith Morrison, and his three sisters sat down with "The Today Show" and they spoke about his life, his legacy, and the struggles that they are going through as they are leaving as a family.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUZANNE MORRIS, MATTHEW PERRY'S MOTHER: I'm very lucky woman. But there was one problem that I couldn't -- I couldn't conquer it. I couldn't help him, forget to lose so many million people there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: That is Matthew Perry's mother there. Obviously, a mother's worst nightmare, to lose your son.

And they also spoke about how, in his final days, that they did not realize that he was struggling with addiction. They said that they knew that he was being treated with the ketamine, but that they didn't know how bad it had gotten. And now they also said that they are very glad that people are being

held accountable in his death. We know that five people were charged and two will face trial next year.

[14:54:59]

Now, also, Jennifer Aniston today posting on the one-year anniversary of the law us of her beloved "Friends," co-stars, and real-life friend.

And I just want to leave us with a quote from Matthew Perry before he died. Here's some very powerful words that he said.

Quote, "When I die, I want helping others to be the first thing that's mentioned. Addiction is far too powerful for anyone to defeat alone. But together, one day at a time, we can beat it down.

KEILAR: Elizabeth Wagmeister, thank you so much. It's so touching, what his family is doing for others.

And ahead, officials are investigating after ballot boxes in Oregon and Washington, just 15 miles apart, were set on fire.

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