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Kamala Harris Returns To Campaign Trail For Michigan Progressive El-Sayed; Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) On Johnson Recessing House Early, Staving Off Hegseth Vote; Axios Founders' New Book On Cutting "Toxic Complexity." Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 17, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Isaac Dovere following this for us. Look, whenever you see someone like Kamala Harris hit the campaign trail in a midterm, it does beg the question of what else is going on here.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER (via Webex by Cisco): It does. And in this case, the answer is we're not sure because she's not sure. She is still very much thinking about it, taking some steps as you say that may give off that feeling like hey, she might be getting ready to run for president again.

But on the other hand, as the reporting that I've got up on our website today shows, she has not done some of the other things that people who are thinking about running for president do like reach out to former staff or make major policy speeches or get a real plan together for what that kind of campaign would be.

So we're in this intermediate stage of her thinking about what to do. Obviously, she wasn't planning going into 2024 to be the Democratic nominee. That all changed up rather quickly. And now she is taking her time.

One person that I spoke to who has spoken to the former vice president in recent weeks said to me, "She is not in the same kind of hurry as other folks who seem to want to announce before 2027 even hits." The person said to me, "She is not going to rush her deliberation to fit anyone else's schedule."

And so that, of course, all comes as we saw from the Jake Tapper interview with Gavin Newsom that aired earlier this week where he said he wouldn't run if she runs.

Notably, John, I talked to a bunch of other people who are connected to potential candidates and the feeling I got from all of them was that they're not really paying attention to what her decision is as they make their own.

BERMAN: Yeah. I mean, you're kind of looking everywhere, and she's maybe not running but also not not running, at least right now.

Isaac Dovere, as always, love your reporting on this. Thank you very much -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us right now to talk more about this is Tia Mitchell, the Washington Bureau chief for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. It's good to see Tia.

OK, so you have what -- you have Isaac's great reporting, as always. You also this week have Gavin Newsom telling Jake Tapper that if Harris runs, Newsom will not. I don't know. What do you make of it? What's the general timing for all of these may be possible, testing the waters, laying the groundwork, visiting states, not visiting state Democrats who might be running right now?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, I mean there are a lot of Democrats who are really interested in running for president. I think they have -- they are likely to have an even more crowded field than Republicans because JD Vance and Marco Rubio are seen as the frontrunners on the Republican side. It's a lot wide -- more widely open on the Democratic side.

But with that being said, people know that Harris does have a lot of things that benefit her if she chooses to run that may not completely freeze the field but will change the calculus if she is running for president. It will change the calculus of other people who also want to run, particularly people like Gavin Newsom because they are both from California. Their base of supporters and donors -- there's a lot of overlap there. So it would be very hard for both of them to raise the amount of money they need to raise to be competitive if both of them are trying.

And so -- but for other candidates it's not the same calculus. And that's why I think, yeah, the reporting that we just heard is so interesting because she won't -- again, she won't completely clear the field.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

And before then, midterms. President Trump in North Carolina last night. He was kind of doubling down on the I should -- you know, vote like I'm on the ballot, even though some Republicans would say please stop saying that, and also making the argument once again of short- term pain with the economy with the moves he's made for long-term gain. And that the U.S., he says, is bringing in so much money from tariffs that they can, and he still continues to promise these $5,000 checks if Republicans win the House and Senate.

But JD Vance, though, Tia, seems to be saying something slightly different in terms of his messaging to voters. Let me play that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do. Don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of that?

MITCHELL: Yeah, I think that's so interesting and it seems to me that JD Vance is being a little bit more -- he's acknowledging what we're hearing from voters. He's acknowledging the fact that the Republican agenda is being questioned by a lot of voters who did support President Trump in 2024.

[07:35:00]

So instead of -- you know, President Trump seems to not want to acknowledge what's out there. The concerns about the economy. The concerns that -- you know, the war in Iran, for example, is taking too many federal resources. He's not listening, quite frankly.

Well, it seems like JD Vance is listening, and so he's tailoring his message to what he's hearing from voters, but still saying, hey, vote Republican. Trust us, we can still fix it.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Tia. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With us now is Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, a Democrat from New Hampshire. Congresswoman, thanks so much for being with us.

So the House is done until after the midterms. Speaker Mike Johnson sending you all home. Does that mean that there's nothing left to vote on? No way the House of Representatives could address the concerns of the American people before November.

REP. MAGGIE GOODLANDER (D-NH): Well, John, thanks so much for having me.

Look, the Speaker of the House has been taking his direction from the President of the United States since I started this job in January of last year. And it comes at great cost to the American people.

You know, we have been in session, which is to say we've been at the Capitol legislating, conducting oversight work for fewer days throughout this Congress than we've actually been out of session. It's -- it is -- it's an infuriating fact, and there's a whole lot of work to do, you know.

I serve on the House Armed Services Committee, and we are 201 days into President Trump's disastrous war of choice in Iran. We've only had one public hearing with the Secretary of Defense. We haven't gotten clear answers to the most basic questions that every American, every service member, every military family deserves answers to.

We will keep doing the work no matter what the Speaker of the House does, but he's made this so much harder for the Congress and it's at great cost to the American people. BERMAN: One vote you did take before you were basically told you could go home was last night on the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill on Russia. You voted no on that. Why?

GOODLANDER: Well, John, look, from before the beginning of my time in Congress I have been on the front lines fighting for our Ukrainian brothers and sisters who are literally in the fight of their lives for freedom.

You know, more than a decade ago, I was really proud to work for Sen. John McCain and alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham on the first big package of sanctions against Vladimir Putin and his corrupt and lawless regime. And as a result of that work, I'm banned from Russia for life.

I believe in the cause of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters. And in the House of Representatives, months ago, we passed the Ukraine Support Act, which was a really important piece of bipartisan legislation. It was hard fought. We -- the speaker wouldn't take it up on the floor, so we had to collect 218 signatures to get it done. We got it done. That bill is sitting and could be passed by the Senate today.

The difference between the two bills really comes down to the tariff authorities that the bill we voted on last night and gave to the President of the United States. They are sweeping authorities, and my core concern really is about the ways in which this president could abuse those powerful authorities. And that is what led me to my vote.

But at the same time, John, the president could do so much right now to help our Ukrainian allies, including by releasing $400 million that we appropriated last year and promised to our Ukrainian partners. He's been holding that money up. He should release it right now.

BERMAN: One other vote you took recently or actually in a way didn't take was on an impeachment vote for President Trump. Al Green, of Texas, submitted, you know, articles of impeachment of the president or suggested he should be impeached and you voted present. Why? Why didn't you think that you should advance impeachment on President Trump?

GOODLANDER: Well, this is not the first time that our colleague Al Green has introduced articles of impeachment that, you know, frankly were hastily written and did not go through the right process. And I do believe that in this case, you know, impeachment is an awesome power under our Constitution.

I served as counsel in the first impeachment of President Trump -- the first successful impeachment of President Trump in the House and, you know, this was an effort that we undertook very seriously. There was a detailed factual record. These articles were written very carefully, and I believe that's what the Constitution requires and that's what the American people deserve.

[07:40:12]

I believe that these articles -- that every article of impeachment that's been drafted to date should go through the process in the committee. And look, my hope is that next year we will have a judiciary committee with a chairman who is prepared to actually take this this important oversight work up and take it seriously and advance it in a way that's consistent with the Constitution and that's going to serve the best interests of the American people?

BERMAN: All right. Congressman Maggie Goodlander from New Hampshire. You're going to have time to spend there before November now that the House says it's done with its business in Washington. Until then, thanks so much for being with us -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So a seismic shift is potentially coming in environmental regulation and one that experts say exposes endangered animals even further and could lead to the ultimate extinction for certain species. The new move by the Trump administration is sparking also rare bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill.

CNN's Bill Weir has much more on this and he's joining us now. Bill, what's happening here?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (via Webex by Cisco): Well, this actually started back in July when the Trump administration tried to essentially gut the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act. It started in July. It officially takes effect this week. And it changed what -- it redefined what constitutes harm to an endangered species and habitats, and it would open up all these spaces to new drilling and mining and farming and real estate development.

But there's a new internal memo The New York Times has seen from the head of Fish and Wildlife, which completely changes the definition of harming an endangered species. Now it's essentially saying if you do it by accident, there is no crime. If you cut down a tree and it holds some endangered bats, that was not an intentional act to hurt the bats. They are just the unfortunate consequence of your development there.

This flies in the face of the entire meaning of the act, which is to look out for these species in their habitats and save as many as you can. Maybe some will be lost, but there's a process to get waivers for that. But this completely guts any intent of this.

The law, of course, was passed in 1973. It is credited for bringing back the whooping crane, the California condor, the grizzly bear. Other endangered species right now that are sort of on the brink are the Florida panther, the red wolf, black-footed ferret, Hawaiian monk seal. And it's not just about these particular species; it's the entire ecosystem they live in. These are keystone species that indicate the health of these beautiful pieces the environment people love right now.

But this would just completely rip up the Endangered Species Act as we know it. It, of course, has environmentalists and animal rights folks quite agitated. But there will be bipartisan opposition to this, we can guess, from those states where hunters and fisher -- anglers really care about the protection of these places as part of their, you know, value system and as a responsible steward of the land. So this is just the beginning of this fight, I imagine.

BOLDUAN: It does seem that way. Bill, it's great to see you. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Developing overnight gas prices jumping seven cents. They're up nearly 40 cents in just the last month and they could go even higher. The Washington Post reports that analysts are predicting a big jump coming.

Still, diesel prices also surging, tracking this morning at a record high of $6.40 a gallon. The cost of diesel directly impacts prices of groceries and just about everything that travels on a truck.

Oil prices -- both Brent and West Texas crude are over $100 a barrel this morning, but I will say they've been ticking a little bit downward.

All right. New allegations coming from the brother of Princess Diana. He claims that King Charles said the princess would be forgotten, and he said it just days after her death.

And a suspect breaks free from handcuffs, then punches a deputy in the throat and makes a run for it. What happened in his attempt to escape?

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:48:45]

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, in a new interview with Axios and Alex Thompson, left-wing political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker said America conducts more terrorism in the world than al-Qaeda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, AXIOS: You once said that America is the top dog in terrorism.

HASAN PIKER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND STREAMER: Yes.

THOMPSON: Do you think America then is worse than al-Qaeda?

PIKER: Pound for pound, as far as the number of deaths, yes. We have caused tremendous terror all around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. With us now, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, the co- founders of Axios. They are the authors of a new book, "Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less." And we're going to talk about the book in just a second.

But first, I did want to start with this really big development overnight with Axios with Alex Thompson -- that interview. And what struck me as I was hearing about this interview going on I'm like, oh, Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan -- he's going to have to address this. He's going to have to answer questions about this. And sure enough, he had a statement in Axios this morning. "I do not agree with this statement out on al-Qaeda, nor do I give much weight to the statements made by a social media streamer."

But this is just another example of Hassan Piker won't go away.

[07:50:00]

MIKE ALLEN, CO-FOUNDER, AXIOS, CO-AUTHOR, "SIMPLIFY: DO 50% MORE WITH 50% LESS": Yes. He has become a central part of the political conversation, and that's why the Axios show went out to L.A. Alex Thompson did the great interview in his house. Piker afterwards told Status it was the most contentious interview he's ever done. And Alex was prepared and he had things that Piker had said over the years that Piker didn't remember.

And we now see in Michigan Republicans spending tons of money to amplify his connection to the Democratic Senate candidate. That's only going to get hotter.

BERMAN: So, I promise you this, Hasan Piker is not simplifying Abdul Al-Sayed's life, right?

JIM VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER, AXIOS, CO-AUTHOR, "SIMPLIFY: DO 50% MORE WITH 50% LESS": Not at all.

BERMAN: So, you guys have this book. It's "Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less." It's already making my morning better here. It's making my morning easier.

You've got a three-step formula. Confront, delete, amplify. What do you mean?

VANDEHEI: Yeah, we wrote the book because we put this into action at our company and then our personal lives saw dramatic change on both fronts.

And the idea of confront, delete and amplify is almost none of us take the time to confront. Why are we doing what we're doing both in our personal life and at work? Like, do I need to be at that meeting? Should that meeting exist? Are we talking about something that's never been talked about? It's amazing no matter big or small, top or bottom in terms of where you are at a company, you have these exact same problems. You have to confront why am I doing what I'm doing?

Then you get to the delete part, which is there's so much that we do that doesn't need to be done. We have a lot of research in the book that the average person is probably wasting 25, 35 percent of their day doing things that shouldn't have been done, they don't want to do, and that they can use that time to do something that actually brought meaning or brought value.

Which brings you to amplify, which is if you can get rid of some of these things in your life, it gives you time to do the things you should do at work. The things that bring you joy, bring you value. At home, the stuff that you want to do. The hanging out with your kids who are in college or hanging out with friends or just doing the things that you really think bring you meaning. If you don't, otherwise we just drift along with life and we just assume it has to be complex, and I don't think it has to be.

BERMAN: What have you deleted, Mike?

ALLEN: Yeah. So I used to be a pack rat. You remember being on the campaign trail together? We were on lots of campaign buses together. I had a laptop case. You can remember the laptop case. It had so many cords coming out of it that people called it the tumbleweed.

And I realized that it was a small thing, but being a clutter bug also cluttered my mind. And the big idea of "Simplify" is how can you clear your mind, your life, your schedule, your calendar, your inbox to give you more time for what you need to do to be personally and professionally successful.

Something else that we've deleted -- and the great thing about "Simplify," it's all things that either we got wrong or discovered in our life. A big thing that confronts all of us that we were chatting about backstage, decision fatigue. Choice equals complexity. And the more time we spend on what we're going to have for lunch or what we're going wear or what we're going do on this day versus that day, that is eating up your time that you could be using for something that is going to bring you happiness and success.

So, like Jim's thing about drifting along -- the going with the flow -- that's a huge thing that we discovered with "Simplify" is that if we aren't super intentional about doing a master plan for our life, having a North Star for what's going to make us happy and successful personally and professionally, we -- inertia will kill us.

BERMAN: And that's one basic thing that you guys sort of -- that kind of broke my head a little bit. You say you should take half an hour, sit down and think about what you want --

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- in life. And I mean, like, what's the one thing you want to do more than anything else, right?

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

BERMAN: Why is that so hard?

VANDEHEI: Because we just don't do it, right? Like, everybody watching this would say I'm more anxious than ever before.

ALLEN: Yeah.

VANDEHEI: We all say it. And we all feel like there's all these taxations on our time that we don't control. The truth is, we do. We just don't have the time. We don't even have kind of the operating system -- the permission to just sit down and say, hey, -- one of the things we say in the book -- what are the three things when it's all said and done on your deathbed you want to say you achieved with your life, that people remember you for? And for most of us, it's family, it's faith, it's all the things that you would think about. But once you do that and you create that hierarchy, it gives you direction of what should I say yes to? What should I say no to?

Same thing at work. If you understand where you're trying to get and the things that you're actually good at and the things you need to get better at. When we did this exercise with our team, the number of junior employees who listed things that we should delete, we deleted tons of them because they're things we used to do, and then we just kept doing them from habit that we shouldn't have been doing.

BERMAN: While I have you guys here, I've been dying to ask you this. I'm such a fan of Axios. I'm also such a fan of both of your work forever. And you're two of my favorite political reporters ever.

[07:55:00]

Axios, you know, a year and a half ago, two years ago, started turning away a little bit in the mornings in, you know, the hard-hitting political note focusing on AI.

VANDEHEI: Yeah.

BERMAN: And I give you guys huge credit for that because it turns out I think you were way ahead in addressing some of the big issues --

VANDEHEI: Right.

BERMAN: -- in AI. And now it's become the political story here.

What don't you think that we are confronting in terms of the challenges of AI?

VANDEHEI: I think that we're now starting to confront it. I think the reason that we got to it early is we were utilizing the technology. We were talking to these companies. We realized that this is going to be the single greatest challenge to all of us and all of our kids. I think this is going to go down in history as one of those pivotal moments that reshapes everything we do.

And I think people don't realize the power of the technology. They don't realize how quickly it's seeping into their industry, into their job, into their phone, into their life. It could have many, many great outcomes. I do think it could help us cure disease that we would love to see cured. It can also have really bad outcomes which have come into the public light in the last week.

And I just feel like whether you're young or old, you need to be spending more time understanding this, thinking about the ethics, thinking about the implications, and then making business leaders and political leaders and these people running these companies do the right thing. Do the right thing by humanity. Do the right thing by all of us as opposed to a couple people getting more power and more wealthy. That doesn't do anybody any good and I don't think it does the companies any good. ALLEN: And John, people are understandably leery, worried, scared, afraid of for all some real good reasons, but AI can also do tasks -- take things off your plate --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

ALLEN: -- that can help you simplify your life.

So one thing we do in the book is show you how to make -- be the master of AI, and not have it be the complexity machine that it is like AI, which was supposed to make our life easier, has turned out to be an incredibly complexity --

BERMAN: Yes.

ALLEN: -- intensifier because it's sending more texts, more options, more dashboards.

In "Simplify" we say, like, what are the three things that you need to do to crush your job or to be successful in your life? What can you delete? What can you cut back? Every single person at Axios -- we say, what can you stop doing? And we have some case studies in here of some teams that have wound up with 500 extra hours just by deleting.

And what can you automate? What can AI do for you? That's an empowering way to think about AI as opposed to the societal issues which are understandably overwhelming.

BERMAN: All right, Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei. Like I said, "Simplify: Do 50% More or 50% Less." It's wonderful. Axios is great. Great to see you both.

VANDEHEI: Thank you.

ALLEN: Thanks for having us on. You can get it at smartbrevity.com. And Alex Thompson's entrancing interview with Hasan Piker up on Axios. The whole show next week. Hassan Piker -- I saw the video. He looked shell-shocked when he was done talking to Alex Thompson.

BERMAN: All right, looking forward to seeing more of it. Thank you, guys.

VANDEHEI: Thank you.

ALLEN: Thanks for having us.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: So there's a new flood threat today to tell you about for parts of the South -- Southwest that has already been dealing with flash flooding. There's a video in showing a helicopter rescue. The crew airlifting people from their cars in Arizona. This is yesterday. More than three inches of rain fell in just three hours around Phoenix. In New Mexico, three people died after being swept away in floodwaters. The threat continues today with a level three out of four risk for floods in parts of Arizona and New Mexico. So Travis Kelce -- he has been named as one of the victims of a $35

million Ponzi scheme. The NFL star and Taylor Swift's husband reportedly invested in a fund established by -- well, we'll show you -- this man, Siddharth Jawahar. He has now been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. Some of what he is accused of, prosecutors say, is between 2016 and 2023 using money from new investors to repay older investors -- the definition of a Ponzi scheme -- and fund his extravagant lifestyle like luxury apartments in New York and Austin.

In Ohio, a man punched not one, but two sheriff's deputies while trying to make a run for it from his own sentencing hearing. Surveillance cameras show Timothy Regal escaping from his handcuffs -- one, I have questions about that -- then punching the deputy that was with him. Then he tackles another man who was in his way. Other deputies and bystanders inside the courthouse chased after him. It wasn't until a deputy actually tased him that Regal stopped.

Officials say he was supposed to be sentenced on charges of aggravated assault, menacing, and failure to comply with police. He is now expected to face new charges. Really? The least shocking of news today, right?

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

BERMAN: The vice president begs voters to give Republicans another chance ahead of the midterm elections.

Russian spies in a murder-for-hire plot. The Justice Department now charging several people they say orchestrated a plan to kill a Kremlin critic living in the U.S.