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Trump Hidden In Catering Truck, Moved To Secret Flight Amid Threat From Iran; Trump Tries New Line Of Attack On Democrats, Calls Them "Jihadists"; Doctors Push Back On Trump Order Calling For Fewer Childhood Vaccines. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 11, 2026 - 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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[07:32:40]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Happening now you can see oil prices this morning basically flat from where they were. You can see Brent Crude international oil up close to $90 a barrel. This is after the president started threatening Iran that he wanted to charge reparations for Iranian action throughout the years.

The two sides appear no closer to a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The president does say the strait is open; it's really not completely. Maritime data shows that just eight vessels crossed the waterway on Monday.

And it comes as a new report finds that gas, diesel and jet fuel are facing a new big squeeze. For that let's get to CNN senior reporter Matt Egan. Matt, what are you seeing on that front?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, John, the energy supply picture -- it just looks like a hot mess right now, right? You do have the Strait of Hormuz still largely paralyzed. You also have refineries in the Middle East and in Russia that have been damaged by not one, but by two different wars. Then some countries are actually limiting the amount of energy that they're exporting.

And so it had looked like maybe things were starting to normalize a bit. But now, S&P Global Energy says that this actually looks like the opening act of another supply squeeze for the jet fuel, for the gasoline, and for the diesel that really makes the economy go.

So S&P says that they now think that the amount of oil that was processed by global refineries in July -- it plunged by 7.5 million barrels per day. And they've also downgraded their outlook for the second half of the year.

And so, look, unless demand really goes down dramatically, less supply should equal higher prices.

So why is this happening? Well, again, a lot of it has to do with war, right? You do have the Strait of Hormuz still basically paralyzed despite what President Trump has claimed. You have these refineries and other energy infrastructure in the Middle East that's been damaged.

Ukrainian drones have damaged Russia's refineries. They don't have enough fuel for their own population so they're limiting their exports. And then China. China is also limiting its own exports as well.

Now look, prices have already gone up pretty dramatically -- not as much perhaps as some had feared. Gasoline up by about 35 percent just since the war started.

BERMAN: Here we go. They keep changing it just before you talk about it.

EGAN: A 41 percent increase for diesel since the war started. That's a big deal because diesel is what makes the tractors and boats and trucks and trains go.

[07:35:05]

And jet fuel, 50 percent more expensive. And we know airlines have not been shy about passing along those costs to travelers.

Now the silver linings that U.S. refineries are running as hard as they ever have been, but we also have the hurricane season looming. Also, fall maintenance season looming. That's when they typically slow down their production. And so there's really very little margin for error right now, John.

BERMAN: Hurricane season -- bite your tongue.

All right, Matt Egan. Great to see you this morning.

EGAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Thank you very much -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much, John.

We are learning more this morning about a secret flight to protect the president's life. A U.S. official tells CNN that President Trump covertly swapped planes while leaving the NATO summit in Turkey last month after an assassination threat from Iran. At 8:24 p.m. on July 8, the president was seen boarding Air Force One, but we're told he was secretly moved to a catering truck that took him to a smaller plane while Air Force One was used as a decoy.

The story was first reported by The Washington Post. Joining me now are CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier and CNN political and global affairs commentator Sabrina Singh. Thank you, ladies, for being here.

Sabrina, let me start with you. What does this tell you about the severity of the threat from Iran that they took these extraordinary measures?

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR, FORMER PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: What this says is that the threat was very, very real and the fact that the Secret Service and the military took such extraordinary steps to shuttle the president off Air Force One into a C-32A with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and did not even take the protective pool or even a photographer or a print reporter with them, it shows how severe this war has really expanded and the -- and the threats to the president's life.

And I think, you know, this is exactly what our military and Secret Service are designed to do. They're meant to do these things to protect the president and it's good that he's safe. But now there's the issue of transparency and accountability and I think what this administration really does need to brief Congress on is make sure that this can never happen again. And why was Air Force One not able to fly out as scheduled?

SIDNER: Look, Kim, this is certainly not the first time that Iran has threatened to assassinate the president, but it is the first time we're hearing of these extraordinary measures used by the staff to make sure that the president escapes the threat.

What does that do to the threat, ultimately, having these details out in the public now?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yeah. This is going to so embolden Tehran that a threat like this caused the president to have to get into some sort of good cart to go to another plane that the memes are going to be lit.

It also means that the U.S. didn't have enough confidence in Turkey's defense situation to -- presumably they were worried about possibly a shoulder-fired rocket, some sort of physical attack on the plane, or they were worried that somehow the plane had been tampered with. And that's why he had to move to a different airplane.

Either way, it makes the Iranians look like they are skilled assassins that made a president scuttle in fear for his life, and that is not the kind of message that the U.S. president wants to be sending while he's trying to be tough in negotiations right now.

SIDNER: Sabrina, I do want to bring this us because we know the priority is to keep the president safe on these trips. But essentially, they left the reporters and other staff members as targets on that plane.

Is this sort of the normal protocol?

SINGH: Well, nothing about this was normal, you know. The president getting on the C-32A and didn't even use the call sign Air Force One. And that was, of course, very intentional to protect the president.

But all the circumstances regarding this situation of flying -- of the president not being on Air Force One -- it's highly, highly unusual. And you -- and, you know, presidents -- I mean, President Biden, President Obama, even President Trump have been to warzones before where they have flown in on Air Force One and there are precautionary measures --

SIDNER: Right.

SINGH: -- that can be taken.

So I think the questions that really need to be answered are why wasn't Air Force One -- why wasn't it allowed to be able to fly out that day? And also it makes sense why the president was so furious when The New York Times and CNN reported that the president couldn't fly out on the Qatari jet because of safety concerns. It now kind of all makes sense and the --

SIDNER: Yeah.

SINGH: -- pieces are sort of falling together.

SIDNER: Yeah, it does. It is much more clear now.

Kim, I do want to ask you about this because you brought up, you know, the negotiations in Iran. How does one negotiate with Iran when there is clear evidence that they're literally gunning for you? And at the same time, the U.S. and Israel have in the past targeted and killed many members of the Iranian leadership.

How do you go forward when you have this going on?

[07:40:00]

DOZIER: The two sides are clearly still at war. The only way negotiations happen is that people on the sidelines -- basically Gulf leaders who are tired of being on the receiving end of Iranian potshots -- step in and offer some sort of alternative compromise. We can see Oman trying to do that in what it's brokering in terms of access through the Strait of Hormuz. That it controls one route and Iran would control another just to get the markets moving again and get those oil prices down.

But there isn't sort of a threat hanging over Iran's head that forces it back to the negotiating table, and it is on war footing. Whereas the U.S. -- it has been revealed in multiple different reports, the U.S. doesn't have the ammunition, especially the defensive ammunition, to back up its threats, and that leaves the White House in a very weak negotiating position.

SIDNER: We'll leave it there.

Kim Dozier and Sabrina Singh, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for walking us through it this morning -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With us now senior contributor for Axios, Margaret Talev. Margaret, great to see you.

So a few hours ago I was filling in for Abby on her show and there was a lot of shouting and I asked great questions. But the best question wasn't from me. It was from a viewer who wrote in and said about this whole plane issue and the president hiding in the catering truck there: "Can you imagine how MAGA would have reacted had Joe Biden hidden in that catering truck, you know, four years ago?" It's an interesting question, isn't it?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY (via Webex by Cisco): Well John, yeah, it is interesting because none of the standard protocols were followed here and maybe it's because it wasn't a standard situation.

But I think it does raise a lot of questions about how the decision came together to make these moves and what the White House's commitment is going forward to this idea not just of transparency and accountability to Congress but also to the notion of the protective pool -- the reporters traveling with the president for the purposes of the American public understanding what's going on.

And I think, you know, during 9/11, for example, they -- the White House -- the Bush White House made this very difficult decision to take half of the press corps or like a little bit less than half of the press corps, but to keep journalists on the plane because you want the account for history and you want the ability to have information that the public can believe regardless of who the president is because it's coming from a neutral third-party source.

So I think Congress is going to have a lot of questions for the president, but the question is: Is the president's own party in Congress going to demand the sort of accountability? There's just a lot going on here. There are national security issues.

BERMAN: Yeah.

TALEV: There are transparency issues. And there a lot of safety questions also about whether the staff that was left onboard --

BERMAN: Yeah.

TALEV: -- understood the risks that they were unwittingly, I think, taking to remain on that flight as it went up.

BERMAN: Yeah. Again, people keep using the word "decoy" but as some have pointed out to me overnight, another word for decoy is target. If you were on the plane that the president wasn't on, they're trying to fool the would-be killers.

All right, Margaret. I want to talk about primary politics here because President Trump seems to have taken on a new line at the suggestion of someone who called him on labeling Democrats right now who are running for office -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, the one thing is we have Jihadists being elected all over the place. We have this -- whether it's communism, Jihadism, it's a lot of -- a friend of mine called up and he said, "You know, really..." -- he said, "use the word Jihadist" because that's what's happening. And I'm not sure that anybody -- if you take a look at what happens in other countries, I think that's not going to be necessarily the way we want to live. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Not one for subtlety there, Margaret. And in case you missed the point -- just -- I want to read a tweet from Nancy Mace earlier. She wrote, "Every single Muslim holding public office in American is a Trojan horse and a threat to both national security and our republic."

So this is clearly the president leaning into the religion of Abdul El-Sayed who is the Democratic nominee in the Senate and who knows what else.

TALEV: Oh, yeah, it's certainly what it looks like. There doesn't seem to be a lot of mystery here.

The president has been going after this idea that communists are trying to infiltrate the leadership of the United States through the Democratic Party. I don't know how that's message testing in polling, but this is a different version of that that is not very thinly veiled, sort of, fearmongering around Muslim candidates. And there's no, you know, evidence. Jihadi is, you know, the common definition is a radicalized or a sort of terrorist version of Islams. There's absolutely no evidence that there are Jihadi candidates poised on the ballot across the United States.

But I think you have heard Republicans using El-Sayed's full name -- his formal name -- with a lot of Muslim-sounding names to emphasize his background.

[07:45:00]

And we have seen in recent years polling -- the University of Maryland, I think, did some really interesting polling on this that just shows that consistently when you ask Americans about their interest or resistance in candidates, candidates who happen to be Muslim have a higher bar to meet with the general U.S. population in terms of, you know, skepticism or resistance to election. A lot of Republicans like the idea of having the U.S. be declared a Christian religion.

So these sort of tactics, you know, they're shocking to hear. There is some data that may be driving the president's thinking. And it also moves the conversation away from the economy, from affordability, from a very unpopular war. So I think we're seeing all that come into play right now.

BERMAN: Exactly what Abdul El-Sayed said in his interview with Jake the other day. He said he'd rather be talking about grocery prices, and Americans might be as well.

Margaret Talev, thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. This morning medical groups are pushing back hard after President Trump signed a new executive order aimed a reducing the number of immunizations recommended for children. The president made numerous false or misleading claims, including wildly over stating the size of the vaccine doses that children receive -- listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So the MMR -- we want to have separate visits, separate times. I saw this early on, and I've seen proof of it where they have a vaccination that looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child's body. And bad things happen in many cases -- in too many cases because this is an explosion. This is an epidemic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Not only is there no evidence to support the president's claims, no one has ever heard of a bottle that size being poured into a child's body.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard joins me now. Jacqueline, look, this is something that has a lot of medical professionals -- doctors, nurses -- talking. But it also has parents really concerned because this will mean their children are going to have to get more sticks. And it could also mean that they get less protection.

Give us some sense of what you heard during this press conference.

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: That's right, Sara.

So what we heard during the press conference and what is written in the president's executive order is that basically, this executive order will separate childhood vaccinations into three distinct categories.

In one category, the executive order does recommend these vaccines that you see on the screen here for all children. The MMR vaccine, DTaP, polio, Hib, pneumococcal, HPV, and chicken pox. But these are the only vaccinations recommended for all in this executive order.

In another group the order says that these immunizations can be administered based on shared decision-making with your doctor, but these immunizations would no longer be broadly recommended. You see, again, here hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, the flu shot, and COVID-19.

And then, Sara, there is a third category where the executive order recommends vaccinations based on high-risk groups. So these would be for certain high-risk populations and that category includes the RSV immunization among others.

But overall, this executive order essentially overhauls the childhood vaccine schedule, and it also recommends to take the combined MMR vaccine -- the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. And it says that vaccine should be administered as three separate single-disease shots.

So like you said, Sara, that would mean more shots for kids if you separate this combination vaccine, and that also has many medical groups and doctors concerned about if you separate the MMR, will some children fall through the cracks and not get all of the vaccinations needed to protect themselves against those diseases.

So this is getting a lot of attention right now, Sara.

SIDNER: Can you give us some sense of what different medical groups are saying? For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics? How are they responding to this? This is a huge change from what we have all known for decades and decades and decades.

HOWARD: It is huge and many medical groups are saying that there really hasn't been a change in the science or evidence, or research to suggest an overhaul like this.

And the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics had this statement. "As measles cases reach a 35-year high in the U.S. and with cold and flu season quickly approaching, today's executive order..." -- the statement was made yesterday. "Today's executive order on vaccines is not only disheartening but dangerous. Instead of ensuring every family can access lifesaving vaccine for measles, influenza, RSV and more, federal leaders are once again spreading misleading claims.

[07:50:13]

Today's executive order is not based on 'gold-standard science.' There is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance."

So, Sara, that message of there's no new evidence is a message we are hearing from different medical groups.

And Sen. Bill Cassidy also posted on social media yesterday a strong response to this executive order. The senator, who is a physician, wrote "This executive order is wrong. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines do not cause autism."

So we are seeing this pushback Sara from medical groups as well as from physicians themselves.

SIDNER: Yeah. I mean, there's a reason for that. And the only thing that really has changed is that RFK Jr. is a vaccine skeptic and the president is jumping on board with him.

Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for all your great reporting there -- John.

BERMAN: All right. It barely got off the ground. A rocket explodes after takeoff. The new investigation this morning into what went wrong.

And hurricane-force winds and heavy rain threaten millions across the Midwest.

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[07:55:30]

BERMAN: I have been watching baseball for more than 50 years, which I know seems impossible because I'm so freaking young, but last night I saw a play I have never seen before and I had the sense the umpires, the managers -- no one in the stadium had seen it either.

CNN's Andy Scholes with the details here. If you can, explain what happened --

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- because I don't think they know yet.

SCHOLES: I will try to explain this as best as I can, John. I, of course, have never seen it as well. You know, a couple of times a year in baseball something weird happens that needs explaining and this play needed lots of explaining. It even took the umpires 16 minutes to figure it out. So here we go.

In the top of the seventh, Red Sox have got first and third and one out, but the scoreboard was actually showing two outs. Ceddanne Rafaela flies out to centerfield. Both runners took off thinking there were two outs. The Blue Jays causally throw it in and double off Nick Sogard at first.

Now, Anthony Seigler didn't tag up. He ran in from third. So that run doesn't count, right? Wrong. So because Toronto doubled up Sogard at first and then everyone just walked off the field, the run actually scores because the Blue Jays did not appeal that he left early. It's known as the "Fourth Out Rule." It rarely comes into play. The Blue Jays needed to appeal at third even though they had already got the third out and the inning was over.

It took the umpires in New York 16 minutes to figure out this conclusion. The Red Sox -- they get that phantom run, but it was the only run they got all night. They ended up losing for a third time in a row 2-1.

All right. Meanwhile in St. Louis, Bryson Stott at the plate. He's going to foul a ball back right here. Check out the reaction from this young fan who makes the catch. I mean, that right there is what you dream of as a kid when you bring a glove to the ballpark. Look how happy he was.

The Phillies -- they won that game by a final 6-5.

Finally, the most sought-after sports card has now been found. Cooper Flagg's one-of-one Topps Chrome debut patch -- it was pulled by a Rhode Island shop called RhodyBreakers in a break online last night. So a break is where people buy in for a fee and then they get whatever cards are pulled based on their spot. The lucky buyer who got the Flagg card -- he paid just $515 for his spot.

And John, that card already has offers of more than $3.5 million. The Dallas Mavericks want the card. They've offered all kinds of stuff, including season tickets for 32 years. We'll see what the guy ends up doing with that card. But man, what a lucky pull that was.

BERMAN: Yes, although I will note people do strange things and things have strange value at strange times. Not saying anything about Cooper Flagg. Good guy but card a little bit pricey for my taste. Andy Scholes, thank you very much.

SIDNER: It's because it has nothing to do with Boston, I suspect.

BERMAN: No, no. He's from Maine. He's practically from Boston. He's a New England guy.

SIDNER: Wow.

BERMAN: It's like why do you want to spend $3 million for a piece of paper? That's why.

SIDNER: I am with you on that, John Berman.

All right. On our radar for you a scary incident. Moments after takeoff an American Airlines flight leaving Myrtle Beach hit a flock of birds causing visible flames. You see them here coming out -- spewing from the engine and forcing an emergency landing. Onlookers from the beach below say they heard several loud popping noises and could see the orange flashes coming from the left wing. The plane though, thank goodness, able to land without further incident. There were no injuries reported except, of course, to those birds.

All right. In China, a rocket set to launch a satellite into orbit blows up just seconds after liftoff -- watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Chinese rocket exploding seconds after liftoff.

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SIDNER: That was quite the reaction -- wow. You can hear people there just yelling and gasping. This is relatively rare though for a rocket that has been reliable in Beijing's space program. And China's state media appeared to downplay the incident barely mentioning the explosion.

BERMAN: I mean, the reaction was like fireworks. It's like when people go --

SIDNER: Whoo! I think maybe it's just --

BERMAN: It's a rocket. A more expensive fireworks.

SIDNER: -- shocking -- yes.

BERMAN: All right. This morning millions of Americans are in the path of severe thunderstorms. Violent storms that could bring flash floods and damaging winds all across the Midwest.

Let's get to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam for the forecast. Derek, what are you seeing?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, there's not only a severe weather threat today, but also a flash flood threat. There was Perry County, southeast of Columbus, Ohio. They picked up a month's worth of rain in just a three-hour span last night, prompting a flash flood emergency. That's the highest level from the National Weather Service.

Look at the radar lighting up like a Christmas tree. We've got one, two, three rounds of rain lining up.