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Polls on Democrats Feelings on Fetterman; "The Wall Street Journal" Reporter Siobhan Hughes is Interviewed about her Article on Fetterman; U.S. Envoys Push for Peace; Germany's Far-Right AfD Party Secures Win; Democratic Strategist Matt Bennett is Interviewed about Third Way's Platform; Mortgage Rates Hit New High. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 07, 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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[08:30:15]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Democratic Senator John Fetterman slamming some of his former staffers who are publicly accusing him of shirking his duties and being indifferent toward his work and constituents. "The Wall Street Journal" article cited multiple text messages from ex-aides who say Fetterman was more focused on buddying up to conservative media than working for his constituents. Fetterman is calling it all lies. But this puts a spotlight on a senator who is growing increasingly unpopular within his own party.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten is with me now and has looked into these numbers.

So just how much of Democrats' view of Fetterman changed from the time that they put him into office as a senator to now?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I'm hoping I'm growing increasingly popular with you, though, Sara Sidner.

SIDNER: You are never -- can be never more popular with me.

ENTEN: Tremendous. Tremendous. My popularity with Sara Sidner is sky high.

SIDNER: A hundred percent.

ENTEN: There we go, 100 percent popularity with Sara Sidner.

But if you look at John Fetterman within his own party in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it's a totally different tune. Look at this shift.

SIDNER: Wow.

ENTEN: Wow. Wow.

OK, Pennsylvania Dems Fetterman's net approval rating. You know, you go back to 2024. It was plus 70 points. Plus 70 points. Seventy points more of Pennsylvania Democrats approved than disapproved the job that John Fetterman was doing. By 2025, it was down. What is that? It was down 91 points in the negative territory at minus 21 points.

But you think that's low. Look at this, minus 50 points. Minus 50 points. That is a, get this, if we do our math correctly, a 120 point drop-a-ru from 2024, just two years ago at plus 70 points, to now minus 50 points. Fifty points underwater, down there under the Susquehanna River, baby. That's what we're talking about right now. Pennsylvania Democrats absolutely despise John Fetterman at this point. I don't think I've ever seen this much of a change without a scandal going on.

SIDNER: That is -- and speaking of scandals, get give us some perspective, because this is really all the perspective you need, but there's more.

ENTEN: Yes, there is more perspective. OK, you see this minus 50 points and you think it's low. How low is it? How low is it? How about we just make a historical comparison. Bob Menendez, in 2024, after those criminal indictments in New Jersey among Democrats, he was 42 points underwater. John Fetterman, who is under no indictment whatsoever, he is 50 points under water. He is more unpopular than Bob Menendez was after criminal indictments that forced him from office. That is how unpopular John Fetterman is right now. These are the types of numbers you usually see when you're associating a candidate for office or an officeholder with scandal. He has no scandal, really, when it comes to any sort of breaking the law. And we're seeing here 50 points underwater. That is historically low for someone in Fetterman's position who, it's just mind boggling given where he was two years ago.

SIDNER: Some of it is some of the things he says. He is very critical of his party on some things. And, clearly, the staff coming out is a real issue. But just how much has his voting record changed, or not?

ENTEN: Yes, OK, how much has his voting record changed? So, part of this is just his attitude, right? You see him on Fox News. You see him criticizing Democrats. But it is also the case that if you just look at the percentage of the time that he's voted with his party on these party unity party line votes, the average, the median Democratic senator in 2023, 2024 is 90 -- 99 percent of the time. Fetterman was 99 percent of the time.

Look at this Congress, though. It's now dropped significantly to 79 percent of the time, while the median Dem was 96 percent of the time. So, we do see Fetterman voting with his party a lot less than he used to, but he's still voting with them the clear majority of the time. So, this is partially about record, but it is also partially about rhetoric.

SIDNER: Well, there's a lot of people wondering if he's going to switch parties because he's so unpopular, especially --

ENTEN: This makes it very difficult, in my mind, to say that he could run in a Republican primary and win unless he really changes his record. But it doesn't take away from the fact that he now defects from his party more than any other Democrat.

SIDNER: Yes.

ENTEN: So, very unhappy with -- Democrats very unhappy with him, but I'm not quite sure he could run as a Republican and win come 2028.

SIDNER: And the context in all this, in the midterms, if there is a blue wave, he could be the swing vote in the Senate. So --

ENTEN: He could be. He could be. You'd much rather have someone voting with you 79 percent of the time than someone voting with you far less than that.

SIDNER: All right, Harry Enten, it is good to have you back.

ENTEN: Nice to see you, Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now is "Wall Street Journal" reporter Siobhan Hughes. She is one of the reporters who broke the story that they were talking about there.

It's great work, and we appreciate you being with us.

And I just want to actually read people a little bit of what you uncovered with the text messages here. This had to do with meetings that his staff had set up for him with representatives from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, known as Chop. So, in these text messages, Fetterman allegedly wrote, "why do I have to keep having to meet" with them, "with CHOP," he said.

[08:35:02]

And then the response was, "because they're worried about vaccines and Medicaid cuts." Fetterman responded, "well, I'm not. I'm convinced they just want free trips to D.C."

So, that was in your article. Now, Fetterman didn't respond to you in this article, but Manu Raju did hear from him over the weekend. And in a statement to CNN, Fetterman called that comment a "dumb joke, and for that, I sincerely apologize." But the senator did add that he's met with representatives from CHOP a lot "virtually and in person." He posted a picture or he sent a picture, or a link to X, where there was a picture of him with representatives from CHOP and said he would always "advocate for CHOP and support their requests."

So, what do you think about the fact he didn't respond to you, but he's now trying to clean this up. What do you think about the cleanup?

SIOBHAN HUGHES, REPORTER, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Well, judging by the reaction in my inbox, the cleanup is insufficient for a lot of people. It does not really address the bad feelings that he has stirred up across Pennsylvania, where many constituents already felt that he had checked out. And when they read the article, they got a window into somebody who wasn't just not showing up, but somebody who almost didn't respect his own population. And that's the real issue here.

You know, I think it's notable that you do not see his fellow senators coming out to defend him. You did get a defense from the Republican senator, Dave McCormick, but not a lot of people defending this right now.

BERMAN: And your reporting, there is perhaps more to come in the coming days and weeks in terms of text messages or other stories here. What's going on there?

HUGHES: So, you saw a group of former Fetterman aides post on the social media platform X that they were going to release more texts. They indicated they were going to do it on September 14th, which is when the Senate comes back into session. And what that means is that Senator Fetterman, when he returns, is going to have a whole slew of new texts to confront, and also, so will the other senators as they stream back in for votes.

BERMAN: And what about sort of the subtext, or maybe it's just the flat out text that Harry and Sara were talking about just there, which is the question of John Fetterman's role in the Democratic Party. He is so underwater with Democratic voters right now. Does this increase the possibility that he would switch parties? Would Republicans want someone who may not be engaged with the constituents?

HUGHES: I mean, what Republicans would like is the other vote. Theres's sort of a raw politics going on here. You know, and one possibility is they could kind of have it both ways. If Fetterman leaves the Democratic Party, he doesn't formally have to say he's a Republican. He could become an independent who caucuses with the Republicans. And what that means is, in these midterms, Democrats don't have to win a net four votes, they would have to win a net five. And that's the important part here.

BERMAN: Yes, it really has enormous implications. So much of your reporting isn't about partizan politics at all, it's just about the job of being an elected official in Washington there. Very good reporting. Very interesting. We appreciate the work you and your team have done here, Siobhan. Thank you.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much.

Overnight, Ukraine says it responded to multiple Russian strikes, including an attack on an oil refinery. This comes as we are learning new details about a new push by the Trump administration to try and negotiate itself out of this war. U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner meeting Sunday with Ukraine's president. This is their first visit to Kyiv since the war began. Zelenskyy posted this quote this morning saying, "we have substantive discussions about our air defense needs, the relevant technological cooperation and the winter package we need," indicating that the war is certainly going to continue now. This isn't ending it. Witkoff and Kushner came to Kyiv straight from Moscow, where they held a three-hour meeting Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by a dinner with him.

Joining me now is retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks and CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier.

It's good to have you both here.

Kim, to you first.

Witkoff, Kushner, they've now met in this sort of trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy. And they're saying, look, this is going well, but what actually has changed so far, anything?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Just the fact that they're talking and that they now have focused their attention back on this problem after so long focusing on Iran, that is being seen as a good move within Kyiv. They also got the two men to actually visit Ukraine, even though reportedly Witkoff was very worried about a continuation of Russian drone strikes. Russia did hold off. But the moment the two men were out of the country, as you said, overnight, there was something like 90 drones, including those jet powered drones that are so hard to stop.

[08:40:00]

And the defense forces were only able to shoot down 70 of them. That meant 20 met their mark, and a bunch of people were injured and killed.

SIDNER: And, Spider, just give me a sense here. You know, Ukraine is clearly not seeing the end to this, asking for air defense. What do you hear when you listen to what you're hearing from Volodymyr Zelenskyy about what their needs are versus what they're getting?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Clearly, there's a gap between what the stated requirements look like and, oh, by the way, we don't necessarily even need to have a conversation with Zelenskyy. Obviously, we will, but our assessment is they clearly need to have enhanced air defense capability and the counter-drone capability. They also need to have a sustained effort to continue their ability to reach deep, make the pain felt within the population.

But at the same time, you've got two fights going on. One is the deep fight, really brings it home in terms of the constituents within Russia feeling the pain of this war. And then up front, you have to be able to maintain an ability to hold what you have. And what we are seeing now is this transition into a positional warfare. Positional warfare is as a result of this proliferation of drone warfare. You know, you move, you get killed on this battlefield. So, there's a hesitancy and an inability to try to outmaneuver your opponent. Maneuver still applies here, but they've got to be able to, and I think Ukrainians are starting to advance the ability to create an ability to get around this enemy. So far it hasn't happened. And the Russians certainly are very adaptive. Kim has described that very, very well. But what we have right now is an inability to really force the

opponent into a position where he needs to put his hands up and say, I got to get out of here. That's what we're seeing right now. So, the horizon for this conflict doesn't seem to be moving any closer in terms of a resolution.

SIDNER: Kim, has this all been made a bit more confusing because of the sort of wishy washiness of the president when it comes to Russia, first telling Ukraine, well, maybe you can -- I'm leaning towards, you know, giving you Patriot missile technology and then sort of leaning away from it and then saying Putin lied to him and then backing up. And it feels like, are they being strong enough with Russia? Is that what needs to happen here?

DOZIER: Yes, there are a lot of calls for stiffening the spine, stiffening the message that goes to Putin. The president could be giving Putin a hard time about arming Iran and giving Iran intelligence that's then used to target U.S. troops. He's not doing that. And even the reporting out of Kyiv about the next steps is that the president will talk to Putin first, then Zelenskyy. And from the perspective of watchers in the region, Putin is just buying time for a winter campaign in which he hopes he can grab more territory and then negotiate from a position of strength.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you this, Major General, about what's happening with the Navy. We saw the reports from the Abraham Lincoln, the USS Abraham Lincoln, where it was on the longest deployment in history. And now there's talk from the Navy that they're going to extend deployments for longer periods of time because the war in Iran is going. We saw the U.S. just struck three Iranian oil tankers after Iranian missiles were fired at U.S. warships.

What does that mean to the fighting force, the U.S. fighting force, to inform people like, hey, these are going to be much longer or extended deployments?

MARKS: Well, at least they're being up front. The service member wants honesty from his or her chain of command. Tell me what you think is going on. And then you're also going to sprinkle within that communications from the top down. There's going to be some skepticism in terms of what they hear and what this is really going to look like. So, if you tell them it's six months, they're going to expect seven and a half months. I mean, that's what soldiers and sailors and marines do.

SIDNER: Right.

MARKS: But it's absolutely what we're describing here is an enhanced presence in the Mideast. And what that right size looks like, in order to carry on the operations against Iran in a sustained manner, I don't think we're going to see an Epic Fury 2.0, but we're going to see initiatives against Iran, against very specific targets.

Look, the Iranians have demonstrated that they can't hold to any type of diplomatic agreement. So, we're really talking about an economic, as well as a military engagement policy. So, our military is going to have an enhanced presence there. What does that look like? But most importantly, how does that affect all the other combatant commanders? Indo-Pac, European Command, Southern Command, in terms of their demands, because they all rely on the same force structure. We've got the Indo-Pac, you know, the Indo-Pac carrier is now in the Mideast.

SIDNER: Right.

MARKS: The Indo-Pac does not have a carrier. How does that affect Taiwan?

[08:45:02]

So, it's got to be that type of discussion across the board.

SIDNER: Retired Army Major General James "Spider" Marks and Kim Dozier, thank you to both of you for laboring on this Labor Day.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, political shockwaves in Europe. The far-right Alternative for Germany party known as the AfD, won 44 percent of the vote in the election in one eastern state. Now, that's just short of an outright majority. This is the closest the far right has come to holding power in a German state since World War II.

Let's get right to CNNs Fred Pleitgen, live in Berlin this morning for the latest here.

This is a huge deal, Fred.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a huge deal for Germany. It's a huge deal for Europe and possibly the world, really. If you look at it on the face of it, John, it really is a very small state here in Germany, the state of Saxony-Anhalt. It only has about 2.1 million people living inside that state. That's actually far short of even the German capital, Berlin.

Nevertheless, if you look at overnight some of the things that have happened, President Trump posted those election results on his Truth Social page. They were congratulated by Elon Musk, the AfD one, that far right party that won that election. Several members -- MAGA members of Congress also congratulating them as well. So, clearly, this is having big repercussions.

Now, it's unclear -- you just mentioned the fact that they were somewhat short of an outright majority. Whether or not they are going to be able to take the governorship, because they do need a coalition. But one of the things that is in the cards now is possibly snap election in the coming weeks if a coalition cannot be formed. Nevertheless, John, as you can imagine, all of this sending massive shockwaves here through a political Berlin. We actually just heard from the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, a couple of minutes ago, where he said that there are going to have to be big consequences before -- because of all this. He didn't say that he was going to have any personal consequences, that he would resign or anything of the like. However, he did say that Germany certainly needed a lot more reforms at a faster pace. The economic situation here very difficult.

And if you look at some of the things that this Alternative for Germany was running on, a lot of them is -- a lot of it is much tighter on immigration, mass deportation of undocumented foreigners here from Germany, but also more proximity towards Russia and cutting aid to Ukraine. So, as you can imagine, John, the Russians also very happy about these election results that took place. In fact, the chief negotiator for the Russians with the United States, Kirill Dmitriev, he also posted on X how happy he was about these election results.

So, certainly a small German state, for the first time possibly since World War II, a right-wing governor could be on the cusp there. But also big repercussions here in Europe because of all this as well.

John.

BERMAN: It is so interesting to sort of see the confluence of people reacting to this.

Frederik Pleitgen for us in Berlin this morning. Fred, always great to see you. Thank you very much.

So, mortgage rates surged to their highest levels of the year. What is causing the spike and what it means for you if you're out there house shopping.

And a puppy abandoned in a cage at a rest stop. How a trooper helped find a new home.

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[08:52:05]

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, the Democratic organization Third Way has launched a new platform called "A New Economic Bargain." The platform consists of 20, quote, "ambitious and ruthlessly pragmatic ideas to help improve the lives of working Americans," they say. The policies are broken up into two categories, "drive down costs" and "boost income, wealth and jobs." The ideas include a health care bill of rights, universal child care, universal private retirement accounts and the A.I. displacement plan.

With us now is Matt Bennett, executive vice president of public affairs and co-founder of Third Way.

Matt, it's always great to see you.

You know, you and I have talked about how more moderate or centrist Democrats you felt needed to give Democratic voters something to support here to counter some of the progressive movement on the left here. To what extent is this platform today that response?

MATT BENNETT, EXECUTIVE VP OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND CO-FOUNDER, THIRD WAY: Well, look, we have just ended the primaries and now we're on to the general election. So, what this platform is intended to do is provide Democrats something they can run on in '26, they can legislate on in '27 if we win the majority in the House and/or Senate, and then they can run and govern on in '28 if we can win a trifecta. These are the kinds of things that you could actually -- each one of these things, all 20 of them, you could actually envision becoming law if we had the right kind of president and a Democratic Congress.

And so, we want to provide people with not only ideas that are big and bold and that would fundamentally transform the lives of working Americans, but also could actually happen. And that's the intent here.

BERMAN: Could actually happen. You keep on harping on that. Or you keep on emphasizing that, I should say, Matt.

So, how does that differ -- how is that different than some progressives have been running in the primaries up until this point?

BENNETT: Well, look, we think, for example, on health care, we agree with everybody in the party that the health care system is fundamentally broken for too many people. There's 100 million Americans with medical debt. That is an outrage. People have no idea what their costs are going to be when they go into the hospital. They're not sure they can keep their doctors when they change their plans. All of these things have to be addressed.

Our plan builds on existing law, on the Affordable Care Act, and other aspects of law that can be extended so that we can address all of these problems, rather than trying to, you know, completely throw out the system and start fresh. The problem with some of the other proposals, including Medicare for all, is it would cost $40 trillion. And we just don't have that kind of money lying around. Our program does cost money, but it is something within the realm of the possible, and that could provide relief to people immediately.

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BERMAN: I'm checking the calendar. I'm getting verification that today is, in fact, Labor Day, Matt, which traditionally was the launch, right, to the campaign season.

BENNETT: Yes.

BERMAN: I don't know if that still holds. We're sort of in the eternal campaign now. But insofar as traditionally this would be the day, today and tomorrow would be like, here we go, here's the sprint to November. Where do we think, where do you think things stand right now? NBC News/Survey Monkey just came out with a new poll that has the president's approval rating in their numbers, you know, tying or a little bit below an all-time low. His numbers on Iran, you know, woefully underwater for him. Where do you think that leaves things heading into the midterms?

BENNETT: Well, look, when the president is that unpopular, that generally means that there is some kind of wave election coming. It may not be enormous, it may not be a tsunami, but it's going to be a wave. I think there is almost no doubt, unless something radical changes between now and Election Day, Democrats will win the House. And because we have very strong candidates running in very tough places, places that no one thought would be on the map even a year ago, like Iowa and Alaska, I think we have a shot at picking up the Senate as well.

The problem for Republicans is that normally the president gets either too much credit or too much blame for the economy. In this case, with the war and with tariffs, Trump has intentionally done things that have driven up prices, and voters know that, and they're very angry about it.

BERMAN: And he wants the focus to be on him. For better or worse, we will see the impact of that.

Matt Bennett, always great to see you. Happy Labor Day, as they say.

Sara.

SIDNER: Thank you, John.

All right, on our radar for you, new video showing the tense moments after a Colorado murder suspect who was out on a $3 million bond is accused of crashing into two vehicles and then fleeing the scene. As he allegedly tries to leave, another driver steps in front of his truck, trying to stop him, yelling at him. Moments later, the suspect backs up, drives away. He has not been charged yet in that alleged hit and run, but authorities arrested him a week later for violating the terms of his house arrest.

In Los Angeles, police arrested 66 people and cited 570 in a massive operation to stop a street race and a street takeover, as they're known. More than 150 LAPD officers took part in what they call Operation Street Sweeper. Police say they used drones to predict for potential street takeovers, and they called in a fleet of two trucks and busses. In all, some 200 vehicles were impounded that day.

Now to Ohio, where a state highway patrol trooper finds this, an abandoned puppy in the parking lot of the highway. And what does he do? Take a look.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we'll get you out of here, OK? Someone left you. It's OK. How long have you been here? Oh, you pawing me? Oh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Oh, he's so happy to see him. I love it so much. The pitbull named Miles has been left in a crate with no food, no water, just thrown on the side of the road there. Miles has now been adopted by a friend of that state trooper who's also in law enforcement. Oh, that's so nice, John. Happy, happy.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, pricing pressure hitting the housing markets. Mortgage rates have surged to their highest level of the year. It makes it more expensive to buy a house or refinance a mortgage. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now 6.71 percent. That's the highest level since July of 2025. CNN's Samantha Delouya joins us now with the latest on this.

This makes things tough for people who want to get into the housing market.

SAMANTHA DELOUYA, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Absolutely. This is a difficult moment for people shopping for a home and also for people who bought a home in the last four years, hoping that they'd have an opportunity to actually refinance their loan. That's because, you know, for basically 14 years, until four years ago, there were lower mortgage rates. But since 2022, when we first started tackling difficult inflation, mortgage rates have stayed stubbornly above six percent. If you had a mortgage rate that was three percent during the pandemic versus someone who bought just two years later and got a mortgage rate at six or seven percent, that can be hundreds of thousands of difference -- of dollars difference over the life of that 30 year mortgage loan. So, this is a difficult situation for people who, you know, were told that mortgage rates might come down sooner than they actually have.

I spoke to a bunch of homeowners who are very frustrated. You know, inflation has gone up. Property insurance has gone up. And their mortgage payments have remained extremely high. And they haven't been able to refinance.

[08:59:59]

I spoke to one woman who said she's paying $900 more per month on her new home for the past four years than she had on her previous home, even though the mortgage payments.