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Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) is Interviewed about ICE at Polling Locations; Catholic Relief Services Senthil Kumar Gurunathan is Interviewed about Nepal; Brown University Professor Jeff Colgan is Interviewed about Energy Costs. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 03, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:39]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: When voters cast ballots in the upcoming midterm elections, they could encounter ICE agents at the polls. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said they could be deployed around the country at polling places, but only in response to a specific threat or to serve a warrant, he said.

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MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: I was being very, very clear when I said, ICE isn't there to patrol the polling places. We're there to enforce specific threats. The only reason why we would be at polling places, if there is a threat to that polling place, or we're serving -- to, yes, or we're -- or we're serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down.

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SIDNER: Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

Do you believe that is only for the purposes of a specific threat by undocumented people at polling places, something that I don't know that we have heard much about?

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Well, good morning, Sara.

And I want you to file this under, these are not normal times. That entire conversation with the Homeland Security secretary makes no sense whatsoever. It is completely un-American. There is no call for this.

But what the administration is doing is telling us that they recognize they're going to lose this midterm election badly. And so, instead of just recognizing that loss and their failure to lead, they're threatening the American people, they're threatening the election process. The American people will have no part in it.

And that's why I'm here today to tell you about legislation that I introduced last night alongside Delia Ramirez. We introduced the No Shock Gloves Act. And this is, perhaps you've seen this, this news reporting that ICE, DHS is trying to buy $17 million worth of shock gloves. Gloves to put on people to restrain them and they put an electric shock into the person. Six -- 6,000 gloves they're trying to buy. And think about this. This is masked, unmarked agents. Now they want electric gloves.

So, these are not normal times, leading to us having to introduce this legislation to prohibit ICE from buying these gloves and from implementing their use.

SIDNER: I want to talk a little bit about those gloves. We learned last week that there was a $16.7 million contract for about 6,000 gloves that deliver electric shocks for the ICE agents. And when you -- when you look at that, they'll say, look, we're using these for non-lethal -- an option for non-lethal management of trying to bring in undocumented workers.

Judging from what you have seen, what we have seen in Minneapolis, for example, and in other areas, in Maine, are you concerned about how they are being trained and then adding these gloves in to that training?

DEAN: I -- I'm appalled that they think that's even a possibility to use these. Compliant Technologies, who's the manufacturer of them, says they should not be used for longer than 15 seconds. They should not be used on pregnant women. They should not be used on the elderly, the handicapped, on children. We should not be using these at all. You shouldn't use these on a dog, for crying out loud.

[08:35:01]

So, I'm appalled by this. And that's why we had to introduce this legislation.

Take a look at what has happened around ICE immigration enforcement. More than a half a million people have been detained. I've visited many of these detention camps where children and adults and families are being abused. Thirty-five people died in ICE custody last year. Twenty-four have died in ICE custody so far this year. Eight people have been killed by ICE immigration officers, some of them citizens.

This is an administration out of control, un-American. And again, I want to say, along with the other things that you are covering, we must never normalize these things. This is not law enforcement. California has banned the use of these gloves. Nebraska is looking at it too, after they've been used in schools there inappropriately. These are not normal times.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about Pete Hegseth. Republican Senator Thom Tillis calling for the defense secretary to be fired, saying that he's inept after yet another resignation from a top member of the military, that being Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who was butting heads with Hegseth. Hegseth is being accused of paying more attention to culture wars than the actual war that U.S. troops are fighting. And some Democrats are now really outwardly talking about impeachment. Where do you stand on this?

DEAN: I have called for Mr. Hegseth to resign or to be removed by the president a very long time ago. He's over his head. He was never up to this job. And we all know that. His focus on, brawn and white males, frankly, shows he's just not up to it. It also shows that he doesn't understand the gravitas of what he's doing. His dismissal of dozens of top generals and admirals has put us in jeopardy.

I had the opportunity this summer to observe some of the RIMPAC exercises in the Pacific, alongside the Pacific Command. We were on the USS Teddy Roosevelt. Seeing the most exquisite of our military, Navy and Marines, so ready to protect us and ready to do exactly what is necessary. Our military is ready. The civilian leadership is failing them. And here we are, in a hot war with Iran, Hegseth not focused on how to get out of that, and the administration not focused on how to get out of it.

How we get out of it is diplomatically. But this president has no diplomatic understanding, nor does he have top diplomats to do it. We're in a hot war with Iran with no end in sight. Eighteen service members have died. Hundreds have been injured. You just showed the aircraft carrier coming in to port after way too long a deployment. And then we're in a crazy trade war with our partners, Canada and many others. This is an administration out of control.

I wonder if you saw last night, I think it was CNN reporting, where the president posted pictures of himself and other presidents naming himself as the greatest, and then some greats, which included Lincoln and Washington, and then some other categories of presidents. What more does the Republican Party need to see, to see that the president is delusional? What president, what person of that stature needs to put up a poster of himself as the greatest? There's something very wrong here. The president, the emperor has no clothes.

SIDNER: The president would certainly say to you, that is not true, but that is what you are seeing and a lot of people are talking about it.

Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Well, meanwhile, this morning, the death toll in Nepal continues to rise. More than 1,200 people are now confirmed dead, and close to 5,000 still missing. Among the missing, hydropower workers feared trapped alive in tunnels. Officials say hopes are fading that they will be found at this point. And then new drone video shows the destruction from last week's catastrophic floods as humanitarian organizations are intensifying their efforts to help survivors.

So, joining me now to discuss those efforts on the ground is Senthil Kumar Gurunathan. He is the south Asia representative for Catholic Relief Services.

I really appreciate you taking the time. What have you seen on the ground that has stuck with you the most in

this effort here?

SENTHIL KUMAR GURUNATHAN, SOUTH ASIAN REPRESENTATIVE, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES: Well, this is a disaster which is unlike many other situations. So, we are, actually, as an organization, we have been working in many contexts, but then what we are seeing here is quite unique and different. The challenges are very different.

[08:40:01]

We have all seen the images of the impact which it has caused with villages and settlements being wiped out. But then what is unfolding is the magnitude of the situation, not just the death tolls as such, but then also in terms of the millions of people who have been impacted and who have been really uprooted from their own villages and towns, and who are actually staying in crowded settlements and looking for the future.

JIMENEZ: What have you found to be the biggest need at this point?

GURUNATHAN: Certainly, the urgent needs are food, drinking water, safe shelter, because people are actually staying in crowded places, whatever they could find, and these are like public institutions, schools and government institutions. But then they urgently need spaces where they can actually sort of live with dignity. But then, at this point in time, setting up those safe spaces is becoming a challenge. It's still raining. It continues to rain in that place. It's continuing to actually cause challenges in terms of getting the much needed relief assistance to these communities.

What would have necessarily taken few hours is taking a day at this point in time. So, it's time is actually a challenge. And with winter fast approaching, we are expecting that it's going to be very difficult in few weeks to come. So, there's a sense of urgency, which is already setting in.

JIMENEZ: And it's not just the supplies themselves, as I understand. I mean the damage is also to major roadways and bridges. It's making it pretty difficult to actually distribute some of that aid.

Just, can you give us an idea of what you're actually dealing with and how difficult that dynamic has actually been here?

GURUNATHAN: Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, there are sort of several bridges which have been washed away. The infrastructure has been seriously affected. And villages, which have been sort of well- connected are now completely disconnected because of the -- of the lack of bridges. It's not just about the major bridges which is in the news, but then there are these small trail bridges which actually connect the villages, which are actually the lifeline for access to some of these villages. Now, all of that is actually gone, and we still do not have a full account of how many such smaller bridges have been damaged.

So, essentially, people have been cut off. And even to get relief to them, even though we have supplies, the challenge is actually the roadways. So, we are actually, as I said, like with the rain actually setting in, it's actually difficult to actually get to these people and it's taking hours and days to get to these people.

Just to share like a -- I just sort of heard from my colleagues that they just got stuck for a day and a half to reach a village where they wanted to actually get relief.

JIMENEZ: Wow.

GURUNATHAN: So, that's the magnitude of the challenge which we are facing. We are trying to do our best. We are trying to make all sorts of adjustments, explore all sorts of routes which are possible, which is actually possible, but then still the challenge ahead of us is enormous.

JIMENEZ: All right, really appreciate you taking the time. Senthil Kumar Gurunathan, thank you.

But I do want to ask one more thing, was that, in terms of what you are seeing there on the ground, what don't people understand who are watching from the outside, who are not there? You know, they're seeing this on TV. Just, what don't people understand?

GURUNATHAN: People are possibly not relating to the -- to the challenge because what they are seeing is the impact on infrastructure and the washing away of villages. But then what's -- what's happening to people is they are carrying this trauma. They have just seen this happen in front of their eyes. And we are talking about children who are actually seeing this. So, they are all carrying this trauma, and this trauma is going to stick with them for quite a while. So, it's going to be very, very important for all of us to pay attention to the mental health of these people, in addition to restoring the infrastructure and also getting them the urgent relief assistance.

JIMENEZ: Yes. All right, well, Senthil Kumar Gurunathan, really appreciate you taking the time.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Omar.

Ahead, troopers forced to run a driver off the road after seeing she was driving in the wrong direction on a highway. What we're learning about the driver this morning.

Plus, a brand-new CNN film exploring the legacy of the iconic Windows on the World. The restaurant that used to sit atop of the World Trade Center. Those stories and more, ahead.

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[08:48:40]

SIDNER: Breaking overnight, women's rights trailblazer and feminist icon Gloria Steinem has died. Steinem's storied career spanned decades. She fought for women in the workplace, access to abortion and sex education. She became the face of second-wave feminism in the 1960s and 70s. She co-founded "Ms." magazine. She was also a celebrated author and journalist. In 2013, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Here's Steinem, in her own words, after receiving the honor.

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GLORIA STEINEM: I feel blessed and enthusiastic and lucky to be part of a movement that is fundamental. Humans are communal animals. We need to have that kind of shared community, which doesn't have to do with how different we are. We need to be different. We learn from difference, not from sameness, but from shared values. And I have that. I mean, that's what you have in a movement. It's huge.

And so, it enables you to keep going and also to be angry when you need to be angry and to do unacceptable things when you -- because you know that there's -- somebody over there is going to understand why you did it.

We are linked as human beings, not ranked. That we are also linked to the environment to try all together to have a paradigm in life that's a circle, not a pyramid, not a hierarchy.

[08:50:05]

To have companions in that worldview. And then, at the same time, you know, that we understand that we're shared humanity, to also understand that we're each unique. We are each the combination of, who knows, millennia of environment and heredity that got combined in this particular way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: A post on her official Instagram page says Steinem died peacefully yesterday, surrounded by some of the many who loved her. It went on to say "Gloria's greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard. Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor."

Steinem stayed busy up until the end. She has a new memoir that is due out later this month. Gloria Steinem was 92 years old.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right, new this morning, sources tell CNN the U.S. military escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz amid Tuesday's tit for tat attacks between the United States and Iran. Remember, before the war began about six months ago, it was roughly 20 million barrels of oil passing through that critical waterway per day. It comes, though, as data collected from -- as data from collected Brown University's energy cost tracker, you see it ticking up as it's going, it's stressing me out a little bit, but we're going to talk about it in a second because it shows the war has cost American consumers $96 billion as gas and diesel prices continue to rise.

Meanwhile, the national average for a gallon of gas now $4.14 a gallon, which is the highest since June 10th.

So, I want to bring in Jeff Colgan, professor at the Watson School of International Affairs at Brown University. He's also the director of the Climate Solutions Lab, which created the energy cost tracker.

So, I was talking -- I was joking a little bit about it earlier, seeing it on screen was stressing me out, just seeing how quickly those numbers were going up. How did you think about breaking down these numbers, specifically in terms of how much this war is costing the average American household?

JEFF COLGAN, PROFESSOR AT THE WATSON SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yes, thank you.

We all know that gas prices have gone up, but we wanted to make sure that we really did an accounting of how much this is affecting ordinary Americans who are paying the price at the pump for a war that started on February 28th, that is costing them, you know, straight out of their pocketbook. And what we found is that ordinary U.S. households, on average, are paying $740 extra for gasoline and diesel since February 28th. And just to put that in context, I mean, the average week's worth of groceries for a U.S. household is $290. So, $740 is two and a half times that. And it's no wonder that many Americans are more worried about affordability than they were before the war began, before President Trump decided to start a conflict that most Americans didn't want in the first place.

JIMENEZ: And look, we were talking about the price at gas stations. And, you know, you sort of laid out how much that ripples through the economy in terms of at least people's paychecks. So then, on the -- on the inverse side of that, what would it actually have to take for Americans to actually see some meaningful relief in not just their energy costs, but actually in feeling like their money's going further?

COLGAN: Right. Well, you said right at the top that, you know, this -- when we add all this up, it's $96 billion. And so, I think it's fair for us to ask, as a country, you know, are we spending that money wisely? You know, it turns out that the total budget for NASA is only $24 billion, right? So, we've paid four times that, our space program, four times that. Kind of put that money into a cookie jar that ultimately contributes to the profits of the oil industry. And this is -- these are windfall profits, right? The oil industry didn't do anything extra to earn these profits.

So, I think you're right to ask, well, how can we bring those prices down? And for that to happen, you know, in the short term what that really means is for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened up. And it's great that maybe we got more ships through yesterday, but that's just one day. And overall what we've seen is that the flow of oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been a trickle compared to what it was before, and that's what's been driving prices up. You know, it's been, you know, oil prices now are over $90 a barrel. And that translates into higher fuel, not just gasoline and diesel that we're tracking, but for jet fuel and for all kinds of other, you know, plastics and other substances that are in our economy because fuel -- oil is such an important feedstock for so much of modern life around us.

[08:55:07]

JIMENEZ: And I just wondered, just truly from a motivational standpoint, I mean, we're continuing to show the tracker, why did you feel something like this was important to track in the way that you're doing it? Because, you know, we've seen estimates in all sorts of places, but to do it in this particular way, why did you believe it was -- it was especially effective?

COLGAN Yes, it was really crucial for us to show how ordinary Americans are being affected by this war and to calculate the difference between the price that we're now seeing at the pump, which is, you know, over $4 a gallon in most parts of the country, compared to what the price would have been if the war hadn't have happened, right? So, the prices in February were about a dollar per gallon cheaper and -- or actually more than a dollar per gallon cheaper in gasoline and closer to $2 a gallon cheaper for diesel fuel.

And we wanted to show Americans how that was adding up. And I was fortunate to work with a terrific Brown undergraduate student named John Purdue, who helped me just do the math and put that calculation up on a tracker so that we could see this mounting cost of a conflict that the Pentagon, of course, will occasionally give estimates for how much it has cost the military to do its operation, the missiles and the ammunition and the personnel costs associated with the war. But that's actually only a small slice of the total cost of this conflict for the U.S. economy. And quite frankly, we haven't -- we're not even talking about the rest of the cost for the global economy, for how people are feeling this around the world.

JIMENEZ: Sure. Sure.

Jeff Colgan, really appreciate the time and perspective.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, on our radar for you this morning, an escape with the simplest of tools. An inmate used a pencil to get out of jail in South Carolina. The 30-year-old prisoner was being held for charges involving vehicle theft and drug distribution. He was able to get the pencil into the lock of his cell door and somehow jimmy it opened there. He then went through the kitchen and an unlocked exit where he climbed the barricaded wired fence to escape the jail. Officials found him about a half an hour later. The sheriff's office is conducting a full review of the jail procedures and probably those locks. Security measures as well.

All right, three hikers had to be rescued off of California's Mount Shasta after using A.I. to plan their trip. The men told rescue officials they used Google Gemini to choose the route and decided what to pack with them. The A.I. told them to expect an eight-hour climb. In reality, the hike took about 16 hours. Because of that, the men say they did not pack enough food, water or emergency gear. They also got lost on the way down and had to be rescued on the mountain.

All right, a brand-new CNN film, "Top of the World" tells the story of Windows on the World, that legendary restaurant atop the World Trade Center that became one of America's most celebrated dining destinations. Its extraordinary story came to a tragic end, of course, when the 9/11 attacks claimed the lives of 79 employees and 91 guests, among the thousands of others. Our own John Berman sat down with former executive chef Michael Lomonaco where he reflects on the restaurant's legacy. Here's a preview of that.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are in your glistening new restaurant, Brasserie Cognac American. What lessons did you bring here from your time at Windows on the World?

MICHAEL LOMONACO, FORMER EXECUTIVE CHIEF AND DIRECTOR, "WINDOWS ON THE WORLD": You know, that's a really good question because no chef can work alone. They need a crew. And I think that Windows on the World was probably most famous for its greeting, its warm welcome, its hospitality.

BERMAN: One of the things that was so unique about that restaurant is it wasn't just about the restaurant, it was about this building as well. It was about selling the whole place.

LOMONACO: Windows really was opened in 1976 as a way to humanize those two buildings. When it first opened, magazines called it the most spectacular restaurant in the world. It was very popular with a lot of celebrities. New York has a drive about it. New York has an energy about it. Windows had that energy. You know, when you got in the elevator on the ground floor and went to the 107th floor, I mean, you were energized, that floated above New York.

BERMANN: And it was so special. And then, of course, it all came to an end, right? The morning of September 11th, you would have been at work in the restaurant.

LOMONACO: I was there at 8 a.m. every day. But on that day, for whatever reason, my reading glasses, the -- I needed to have them repaired.

[09:00:07]

And I was still sitting there when the first plane hit.