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Trump Speaks At Crypto Convention; VP Harris Calls GOP Ticket "Plain Weird"; Israel Officials Accuse Hezbollah Of Deadly Rocket Strike; Polls Show Harris, Trump Locked In Tight Race With No Clear Leader; Still No Return Date For Starliner Crew On Space Station; Delta Cancellations Investigated After Global Tech Outage; "How It Really Happened: The Atlanta Olympic Bombing" 2-Hour Special Airs Tomorrow At 9PM ET/PT. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired July 27, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:59:22]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

And we are just 100 days until the election for the White House. And fresh polling showing Vice President Harris' sudden entrance has upended that race and shifted the dynamic into a tie for now.

Harris has essentially erased former president Donald Trump's lead. He's now leading by three percentage points, that is within the margin of error in the latest CNN poll. Other major polls have similar findings.

This weekend, Harris and Trump are crisscrossing the country.

[16:59:51]

DEAN: Trump just finished speaking at a crypto convention in Nashville. He went after Harris as he sharpens his message against her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Very smart people, too. Congratulations at all that you've accomplished. This room is amazing. The people in this room, high IQ individuals.

I'm running against a low IQ individual, her. I'm not even talking about him -- her. I got a low IQ individual.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's Steve Contorno is in Nashville. And Steve, Trump and his team still trying to figure out exactly how they're going to message to confront their new opponent. Their campaign was built to attack and run against Joe Biden. So what more do you know about this.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, today Jessica, the message was all about bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

And you know, a few years ago, he called bitcoin, quote, "a scam, highly-volatile and based on thin air". Well today, he said cryptocurrency was about freedom, sovereignty, and independence. He compared today's bitcoin entrepreneurs to Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.

Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As you know, our excitement about the future of bitcoin and crypto could not be more difficult from the approach of our opponents. You can't be -- look our opponents have gone a difficult route.

They're going old old-fashioned stuff. We're going to take it right down the middle. We're going to -- we're so different from anybody else in terms of a campaign.

First of all, we understand that they don't understand it. They are blocking your path. They're blocking your way. But I've made it a lot easier for you because the SEC has been very, very tough on you.

And now they see that you've embraced me. All of a sudden, people that were under investigation they're being let go. They say, oh, no, we don't want to do that. We love crypto.

If they win this election, every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious, they will be ruthless. They will do things that you wouldn't believe.

But right now, because of me, they are leaving you alone. So please say "thank you, President Trump. Thank you very much."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Trump went on to say that he would fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one. He is someone who the crypto community views as one of their top public enemies. He also said that he would create a crypto advisory committee that within 100 days would provide a new regulatory framework for bitcoin that is pro cryptocurrency. And he said he had plans to make United States the bitcoin mining powerhouse of the world.

That was essentially everything people in this room wanted to hear. When we asked Trump's campaign, what's behind this total 180 flip on bitcoin. They really didn't give us much of an answer. But I will point out that Trump has received considerable financial support from the bitcoin community. Many of its investors and founders have contributed to his campaign.

Trump himself has -- his campaign has taken about $4 billion -- excuse me -- $4 million worth of bitcoin. That's something that we heard from his campaign and he also received a bitcoin on stage today as this community continues to court him.

It'll be interesting to see how this courtship though plays out with the rest of the country. When you look at polling on bitcoin, a majority of Americans -- the vast majority believe it is unsafe and unreliable, especially given some of the controversies that it has faced over the years.

But Donald Trump fully embracing it to hear on this stage today, Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Steve Contorno for us in Nashville. Thanks so much for that reporting.

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris fighting back against some of Trump's new attacks on her, saying he's quote, "pushing some wild lies about her". She called Trump and his running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, plain weird at a fundraiser today in Massachusetts.

CNN's Eva McKend joining us now.

And Eva, these two are really starting to sharpen their attacks against one another as we get into this race.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: They are Jessica, but what Harris has on her side is this burst of momentum. We have seen massive zoom calls over the last week rallying support of her. They've been a key feature.

It began with a win with black woman and several other coalitions followed with similar calls -- black men, Asian-Americans, queer men of color, white women and now white dudes for Harris, that's what they're calling themselves. They said they've got 25,000 people signed up to join their call next week.

Busy day for the vice president. You mentioned that fundraiser in Massachusetts. Right now, she's giving virtual remarks to the youth- focused Voters of Tomorrow Summit.

But despite all this momentum, she says that -- she's cautioning her supporters rather that she faces an uphill battle. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let us be clear (INAUDIBLE). We have a fight ahead of us. We've got a fight ahead of us. And we are the underdogs in this race, ok. What (ph) I said, we're the underdogs in this race.

[17:04:48]

HARRIS: But this is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MCKEND: Now, many of the governors that she's reportedly considering to be her running mate, they are out on the trail too. Governor Walz, Governor Beshear, and Governor Shapiro all out on the circuit this weekend.

And when asked about this, Governor Walz said that he trusts Harris' judgment to make the right decision in the days ahead about her running mate.

DEAN: All right. And we'll see -- we'll see what she chooses.

Eva McKend, thanks so much for that reporting.

Joining us now Alex Thompson national political reporter for Axios and Marc Caputo national political reporter for "The Bulwark". Great to have both of you here with us.

Marc, let's start first with you. You have some new reporting from inside the Trump campaign about how they essentially thought maybe they could cruise to victory before President Biden dropped out. That this was all kind of shaping up in the way they wanted it to.

Now there's a question of if Trump even wants to debate Vice President Harris. Is this a sign of a larger worry on behalf of the Trump campaign? What -- where are they in all of this?

MARC CAPUTO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE BULWARK": Where they are is they're fighting the fight that they now have to join in. So the fact that we're asking and talking about whether he's going to debate or not, that I think is part of the strategy to get the ok, we were the normal campaign before while Biden was the chaotic one. Now, Kamala Harriss campaign is looking like the normal one, so time to inject some chaos into this.

And so as a result, you saw Trump's campaign say, you know what? Maybe we're not going to debate Kamala Harris. She's not the nominee yet. And oh, by the way, Barack Hussein Obama -- and, you know, welcome to the Trump show.

DEAN: And it is interesting because not, you know, we've lived in -- it's like dog years we're living right now. A week is a year.

But it was not that long ago that Trump was going to be the unification candidate and the one that brought everybody together. So it is interesting to see that shift.

Alex to that end, it's been six days since President Biden dropped out of the race. There is a lot of momentum around the Harris campaign. They have that record fundraising haul from grassroots donors, not necessarily -- I mean big donors have also jumped on, but -- but a lot of small dollar donors.

Do you think that they can keep this enthusiasm up through election day or is this the sugar-high that the Trump campaign pollster thought it might be? ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, the greatest

mobilizer of Democrats in American history has been Donald Trump. And the greatest unifier of Democrats in history has been Donald Trump.

So while there is this, you know, sugar-high of cash and enthusiasm, the prospect of another -- a second, Donald Trump term is going to continue to propel Democrats forward and propel enthusiasm. Now, maybe it won't take place in the same way that were seeing now.

You know, another thing under the radar that's been happening as Harris has tried to start leading the campaign is the Trump team while they were initially caught a little bit off guard, they have invested tens of millions of dollars in TV advertising that are focused on a few select things.

One is Kamala Harris and the border. Kamala Harris' record before she was vice president. You have to remember in the 2020 primary, she ran well to the left of Joe Biden and was among one of the most progressive members on those debate stages.

And the third thing they're going to focus on is what did she know about President Biden's health and why was she such a public validator of it?

So those are the three notes they're initially doing in this first week and Harris' campaign has still to really put any money on air so far despite raising a lot.

DEAN: And Marc, to that end, it really is in this moment, this race to define Harris. And there is some conventional wisdom thinking about whoever can successfully do that the quickest is going to have a major advantage here, whether her campaign can help put out the version of her they want voters to know, or if what Alex is talking about, if the Trump campaign is able to put out that version of her.

And so to that end, what are you hearing from your Trump sources about the efforts behind that and how they've gone about trying to find what's going to be the most effective way for them to do that?

CAPUTO: Yes, I'm told now by one and understand that the things you learn in Trump world from one person is not necessarily true of the next.

But generally they believe as Tony Fabrizio's memo, the top advisor for Trump said, she's going to be in a honeymoon period for quite some time.

You have the Olympics right now, but right after the Olympics, you're going to have the DNC, the Democrat National Convention.

And so the likelihood of the Trump campaign itself spending a lot of money on air before that, I think is relatively slim but you never know.

What it's doing is it's forcing the Trump campaign to spend money that it didn't have to spend before. Because when Donald Trump was running against Joe Biden, he was up against someone who could not create his own weather patterns and Donald Trump was the one who was the hurricane in that scenario.

[17:09:45]

CAPUTO: Now you have Kamala Harris creating her own weather patterns and Donald Trump is having to sort of weather the force of that. What we're going to see after the convention, which I believe begins August 19th, that's really when you're going to get a good idea of the paid media campaign and what's going to happen to Kamala Harris or what's not.

DEAN: Yes. And Alex, I want to bring up the -- we have new battleground polling from Fox News. And I think we're going to put it up right now.

But essentially, what it shows is that she's closing the gap in a lot of these very important swing states. Actually leading there in Minnesota knowing that all eyes are on her next big move is what -- who is she going to pick to be her vice president?

How much of this sort of polling is going into that assessment as she and her team are trying to evaluate who's the best pick for her.

THOMPSON: I mean, it's going to be really important, but there's also an open question of, does someone like Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, win you that state? How, I mean he has some of the polling in the last few days showed him with a 60 percent approval rating, which is very unique in a swing state in this sort of polarized era.

But is it enough. What does the Kamala Harris' internal polling say. Does its actually swing any sort of state?

The other thing you have to think is they're doing a very rushed vice- presidential process. You are vetting these candidates in record time because she's looking to nominate a ticket by August 7, not August 19 when the convention starts, but through a virtual process.

You are asking to go through and pick someone very quickly. And most of these people with maybe the exception of Pete Buttigieg, who isn't one of these main governors being discussed, but none of these have actually gone through a presidential campaign before and have been sort of that crazy, that craziness and how will they respond after being picked in record time.

But you're obviously seeing them auditioning on cable news on the stump just trying to show that they're up to this.

DEAN: Absolutely. And Marc, vice presidential pick J.D. Vance is just -- has had a week. There's a lot of stories out there?

CAPUTO: Yes. Yes.

DEAN: Yes.

What are you hearing from the Trump campaign? You know, are they surprised by this? Are they frustrated by this? Is he a liability?

CAPUTO: What is surprising not talking to the Trump campaign is they're doing a good job, at least showing that they expected this, that they've got it, and they're projecting confidence. Now whether that's a ruse or not, I'll leave that up to other people at the side.

What I am getting from the Trump campaign is this is a blip. These are sunken costs. We anticipated this was going to come. Welcome to the show.

But ultimately, this is Donald Trump and his record against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' record. And they believe they can win that. We'll know what November 5th or 6th.

DEAN: Yes. In the end, the voters get to decide and we're going to -- we're just along for the ride --

CAPUTO: It sure is.

DEAN: -- to see what they decide.

All right. Marc Caputo and Alex Thompson, our thanks to both of you.

CAPUTO: Thank you.

DEAN: Breaking news out of the Middle East, the IDF saying at least 11 people are dead, nearly 30 injured in a rocket attack in the Golan Heights. What we're learning one about who's responsible as the Israeli army is calling it the deadliest strike on Israeli civilians since October 7.

Plus mission still not accomplished -- that Starliner crew has been hanging out in orbit for weeks now as engineers try to fix problems plaguing their spacecraft. We're going bring you the latest update on when they might finally be able to come home.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:13:23]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: A deadly strike in the Golan Heights could have Israel and Hezbollah closer to all-out war than any time in recent memory. Israeli official say rockets fired from Lebanon struck a football pitch, killing at least 11 people including children and wounding dozens more.

Hezbollah, the militant group that is largely-backed by Iran but operates out of Lebanon, has denied responsibility for that attack. But that may not matter given the months of tensions preceding the strike.

CNN global affairs analyst Barak Ravid is joining us now.

Barak, great to have you on this Saturday. Help us assess the threat level here in terms of this incident escalating this into a full-scale conflict there in the north.

BARAK RAVID, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good afternoon, Jessica.

I think it is -- we're in a very dangerous situation, maybe the most dangerous situation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon since October 11, when Israel was on the verge of launching an attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon, a preemptive attack.

This did not happen eventually. And since then, both parties have been engaged in those skirmishes along the border. But I think that what we saw today could take us to a whole new level in the war that started on October 7th and escalated bit by bit. And now we're in a very dangerous point.

DEAN: And so, are their dots to connect or maybe there aren't in terms of any effect this attack could have on the ceasefire and hostage talks that are supposed to happen tomorrow in Rome.

RAVID: So I think it is connected because everything is connected at the end of the day to the war in Gaza. And we have to start from there.

[17:19:44]

RAVID: Because what U.S. officials, for a long time told both Israel and Lebanon and through Lebanese officials through Hezbollah is that this will not stop and it was clear to the Biden administration that this will not stop without a ceasefire in Gaza.

And I think that also in the meeting between Biden and Netanyahu just last Thursday, this was one of the points that the U.S. was making to the Israelis. We have to get a ceasefire and the hostages in Gaza in order to calm down the north.

And U.S. officials were concerned that if you don't get a ceasefire in Gaza, then you'll get exactly to where we are today, that there will be some sort of a rocket launch that will hit civilians and will lead to a very serious escalation.

And what senior U.S. officials told me today that would happen in multiple (INAUDIBLE) in the Golan Heights is exactly what they've been worried about and tried to avoid for ten months.

DEAN: And so here we have these civilians who are -- these Israeli civilians who are now dead, including children playing soccer. And you turn to what the Israeli response to this might be.

Do you have any sense of what that -- what that response might be and how involved might the U.S. be in talking with them about this or will they just act as they see fit?

RAVID: So the U.S. has been talking to the Israelis in the last few hours, both of President Biden's top advisers, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk and many others in the Pentagon and people at the U.S. embassy in Beirut and in Jerusalem have been working the phones. And, you know, we have to remember Prime Minister Netanyahu, as we speak, is still in Washington after a visit of five-day visit, he cut short his visit by five hours to come back to Israel and convene the security cabinet.

Why is this a key moment? Why is this important? Because Israel cannot, according to the law, cannot go in the military operation that might lead to an all-out war without a vote in the security cabinet. This will only happen tomorrow evening.

So I think everything will have to be decided there. So I think that until tomorrow we're not going to see the major Israeli response. You might see some small responses, but the big response I think will happen only after the security cabinet convened.

DEAN: And it is worth underscoring that civilians were killed in this rocket attack today. And that is going to inform how they respond.

RAVID: Yes. And it's not only civilian, it was you know, children, boys and girls, teenagers. And it's -- it has another layer of complexity because those civilians were of the Druze community in Israel.

There's a very big Druze community in Lebanon, and there's a very big Druze community in Syria. And those communities are highly concerned about what happened today. And the Druze community in Lebanon is quite significant, both politically and militarily.

So I think there's another layer of concern here that this will not only lead to a confrontation, to war between Israel and Hezbollah but it could also lead to an internal conflict in Lebanon between Hezbollah and the Druze community.

DEAN: It could be very de-stabilizing and I also just noticed as you're talking and laying this out, you have Prime Minister Netanyahu is out of the country. The war cabinet cannot convene until he's back.

What do you make of the timing of this attack?

RAVID: You know, Netanyahu was not supposed to be in the U.S. right now. He was supposed to leave on Thursday after his meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris.

He decided to extend his trip by another day in order to meet Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. And then he couldn't fly back because of the -- of the Sabbath that an Israeli prime minister cannot fly under usual circumstances on the Sabbath. He had to now cut short his trip, fly on the Sabbath because of what happened.

But I think that there's a lot of criticism in Israel about the fact that Netanyahu decided to extend this trip and he was out of the country for six days during war. And there's a lot of criticism about it in Israel.

DEAN: All right. Barak Ravid, it's always great to have you. Thank you so much for that context. We appreciate it. RAVID: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: Still ahead, is the Harris campaign on a honeymoon high or is this momentum here to stay? We're going to look at how this new enthusiasm compares to other candidates.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

[17:24:37]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: A seismic week in presidential politics, sending Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, the latest CNN polling now showing her edging in on Trump's lead. It is just three percentage points separating them.

That is within the margin of error. No clear leader in that poll. The next 101 days will be something.

Joining us to discuss, CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali.

Tim, there is no, no roadmap in our political history in this country that Kamala Harris can really look to. How do you -- how do you assess what's happened in the last week and what do you expect we're going to see as we go forward?

[17:29:43]

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, the ease with which Kamala Harris was able to unify the Democratic Party and see a significant, not dramatic yet, but a significant change in the polls, I think says a couple of things about this most extraordinary week. And actually will help us think about what might come next.

First of all there's a lot of Trump fatigue in the country. And President Biden's performance in June -- in June had a seismic, in a negative way, effect on Democratic voters and Independents who would like to consider the Democratic option.

There was such a flagging in enthusiasm and concern about President Biden's health and his ability to be present for four years, let alone win the election.

Once he moved out of the way, stepped aside, just the idea of a vibrant energetic Democratic nominee -- for a couple of days, we weren't -- for a day and a half, we weren't sure that it would be Vice President Harris.

That alone restored a lot of hope among those who just don't want to vote for Trump.

During the period just after the debate, when it was -- when there was much concern about President Biden, if Donald Trump had not been the Republican candidate, I believe that the difference between President Biden and the Republican candidate would have been much more than six points.

But there is -- there seems to be a glass ceiling to how far president -- former President Trump could go. So that's the first thing.

The second really big development is the extent to which the Democrats managed to avoid the chaos that many people feared would happen if President Biden stepped aside.

I can't wait to read the story. We're getting little bits and pieces about the role behind the scenes that Nancy Pelosi played, former President Obama played, and others.

In, first of all, moving the current president aside. Absolutely unprecedented in American history. But also in making clear to the rest of the Democratic Party it was a time to unite.

At the same time, one has to look at those that could have run against Kamala Harris and decided not to. Very significant, very interesting.

So now the real race among the Democrats is not for the number-one position.

It's for the number-two position.

DEAN: No, and now all eyes are on who that vice presidential nominee is going to be, who she will pick.

I'm curious to just, as a student of history, what do you think about this particular moment in history? How is it -- it's hard to know because we're in it.

But how might it be remembered? How -- you say you can't wait to read the story. It will be quite a chapter.

NAFTALI: Well, first of all, president -- former President Trump was very clear that he intended to use the federal government as a weapon for vengeance.

He made clear in his -- during the primary season, that that he was going to come back with a taste for revenge. No presidential candidate of a major party has ever made that claim or made that promise. They've never sought a mandate to wreak havoc on the country.

And so the question was, were Americans willing to embrace that kind of deeply negative vision for the future?

And with President Biden -- not debilitated, but certainly weak -- it looked like President Trump would have an easy glide path to the presidency. It doesn't look like that anymore.

So in the next hundred days, we're going to have a discussion, a national discussion about what we want our future to be. Do we want a dark future of recrimination or do we want to find a way to work together in a more hopeful approach?

That debate might not have happened if President Biden had remained at the top of the Democratic ticket. It's not his fault. His body betrayed him at this point. But we will have it now.

And so that'll be extraordinarily important. Because whomever wins in November is going to have a very strong mandate. And now we will see which direction this country wishes to go in.

DEAN: Yes. And the country gets to decide.

Tim Naftali, thank you so much. It's good to see you.

NAFTALI: Nice seeing you, Jessica.

[17:34:39]

DEAN: Still ahead, the longest layover ever. A new update on the Starliner crew that's been delayed in space for weeks and weeks now. How close are they to returning? Details ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE STICH, MANAGER, NASA'S COMMERCIAL CREW PROGRAM: We don't have a major announcement today relative to a return date. We're making great progress, but we're just not quite ready to do that.

We have contingency options. We've put those in play. NASA always has contingency options. We know a little bit of what those are and we haven't worked on a whole bunch, but we kind of know what those are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: More than seven weeks after arriving at the International Space Station, the two Starliner astronauts still don't know when they're coming back to earth. After weeks, officials say they may be closer to fixing problems with the spacecraft.

[17:40:07]

CNN aerospace analyst, Miles O'Brien, is joining us now.

Oh, man, Miles, you think about being gone for weeks and weeks that you didn't anticipate. What's the latest now?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Yes, Jessica, I'm sure the astronauts are probably enjoying the view, but it is kind of nice to know when you might possibly be going home and how.

This is actually a very important weekend of testing for the Boeing Starliner capsule. They're going to -- the term is called "hot fire," which is test the thrusters to see if they will perform as they hope they will.

When they docked the spacecraft, a lot of things went wrong. They did not work up to the specifications. One of them has now completely failed.

And on top of that, they have a series of helium leaks in the fuel system, which they also are going to analyze this weekend.

All of this is being done in parallel with some testing at the White Sands Missile Range with similar equipment.

And the hope is that, after all this happens this weekend, NASA can -- engineers can get a little more confident about return and perhaps setting a date before too long. It's been 60 days.

DEAN: And these astronauts, we know, prepare for every scenario. They work so hard to be prepared. But talk us through some challenges involved in an unexpected situation like this.

O'BRIEN: Well, there's one other little detail, too. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams gave up their suitcases on launch because they had to carry up a crucial piece of equipment for the space station's plumbing system. Essentially, its toilet and recycling system for water.

And so -- but they we're like, oh, we'll just be up there for a week. We don't need any clothes. So they've been up there for quite a long while and there's no laundry on the International Space Station.

So they have lots of extra stuff up there, lots of provisions to last a big crew for a long period of time. But, you know, astronauts are very mission directed and mission focused. And when it just day after day without a specific flight plan, they get a little bit antsy, even if the view is spectacular.

DEAN: I think we can all appreciate that.

We also know that SpaceX is set to launch its next mission, Crew Nine, next month. Is there any potential that the crew could ride back with them? Does it work that way?

O'BRIEN: That's not the plan right now, but there are scenarios that the Dragon capsule is capable of holding up to seven crew members. And so there is not -- it's not inconceivable that come -- it could come into play. No one's talking about that just this moment, but there are other options.

And in an emergency, these two astronauts would, in fact, get on the Starliner and leave the space station with that as a lifeboat.

NASA is framing this as not a high level of concern about the spacecraft. But the fact that they don't fully understand why so many things have gone wrong, they want to figure it out.

And the equipment that is in question here, Jessica, will be jettisoned and will burn up in the atmosphere on the way home. And so they won't have any way to examine it and try to get evidence later. So this is their time to figure it out they figure.

DEAN: Trying to get that information.

Before I let you go, I do want to talk about the travel meltdown that we saw. Delta Airlines finally starting to recover after days of delays, thousands of cancellations due to the CrowdStrike outages. And the Department of Transportation saying that they're going to

investigate. How do you see that moving forward?

And this was -- this was so bad for Delta because of their reliance on this software that kind, my understanding is, helped coordinate where all their pilots and crew members and everybody was, right?

O'BRIEN: Yes. Yes, Jessica, this is an interesting, ironic twist of technology. You know, if you'll remember, in December of '22, Southwest Airlines had a huge meltdown. In that case, that was an antiquated system that was overwhelmed by events.

This is the flip side of that. Delta is an I.T. leader and has an extremely sophisticated network, a suite of software that tracks everything about the airline. They don't lose bags anymore. They know where they are. They just know that it's not where you are.

It -- it keeps track of the passengers, the bags, the crews. It literally knows when a bag is put on the airplane, how that affects the weight and balance calculations for the aircraft.

So on a good day, they have tremendous visibility into the operation of their airline. But it's intertwined, interwoven. And a failure like this is kind of like pulling the plug out of the wall and everything went dark.

So they were extremely reliant on technology, more so than others who haven't embraced it quite as much. It was a two-edged sword, evidently. They knew a lot when it worked, and when it went down, it was very difficult to build that system and put it back together.

[17:45:02]

So I suspect, Jessica, what you're going to see, it's going to be, not -- a computer crash and an airplane crash may have a parallel here.

After an airplane crashes, the lessons learned tried to put into the next aircraft or the rules. In this case, I think they're going to analyze this in much the same way, so they don't have this kind of single-point failure.

DEAN: Yes. All right, Miles O'Brien, thanks so much. Good to see you.

O'BRIEN: You're welcome, Jessica. Likewise.

DEAN: Still ahead, we have breaking news. Israel blaming Hezbollah for a delay late rocket attack in the Golan Heights. It claims Hezbollah denied children and teenagers among the now 11 dead. Israel is vowing to respond. We'll have more.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:50:27] DEAN: In 1996, people came to Atlanta from all around the world for the Summer Olympics. On July 27th, Mark McKay was reporting from -- for CNN from Centennial Olympic Park when an explosion rocked the park, killing two and injuring more than 100 other people.

A new CNN original series talks to people on the scene at the Olympics bombing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK MCKAY, FORMER CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: At approximately 1:25 a.m. this morning, an explosive device detonated in the Centennial Park downtown. At this point, we understand that we have 110 injured and two people who have died.

At approximately one 1:00 a.m. also, the Atlanta Police Department received a 911 call. The individual is, we believe, a white male with an indistinguishable accent.

(BEGIN AUDIO FEED)

911 CALLER: There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes.

(END AUDIO FEED)

WOODY JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATLANTA: The bomb had gone off within 15 or 20 minutes of the call.

(SHOUTING)

JOHNSON: Particularly, when it went off early.

(SIRENS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Let's talk to Mark McKay now.

Mark, you immediately began reporting on what was going on. What was it like in those initial moments?

MCKAY: We -- all we knew, Jessica, was there was an explosion. I was walking through the park with my producer, Mike Flash (ph). We were getting ready to do a regularly scheduled update on that Olympic -- the day's Olympic events from the Olympic Park, from Centennial Olympic Park nearby.

And I was behind the stage. It almost took me off my feet. You could feel it, the explosion, in your body.

I asked Mike, I said, "That was a heck of a way for the band to end the show," because they we're having nightly shows. And he said, "No, I think something bad just happened."

I ran up to the live shot location, put my earpiece in and reported until police and law enforcement told us we couldn't stay there any longer, Jessica, because there may have been more explosive devices in the park.

DEAN: So scary.

And in those moments, when you're in a situation like that, you don't really know what's going on. It's easy to look back now and say, oh, and then this happened, and this happened.

But in those moments, you're really trying to just figure out basic information.

MCKAY: I wrote three things down. I guess -- I don't know if reporters have reporters pads anymore. But I wrote three --

(CROSSTALK)

MCKAY: -- things down on that pad. Here we go.

(LAUGHTER)

MCKAY: That's good because devices may not work.

I wrote three things down, Jessica: "1:20 a.m." You heard just before we came in about the time of the explosion. I put "explosion" and "AT&T Global Village." That's all I knew for sure.

What I was on are elevated platform above the park, I saw a sea of red lights come in. That was where the ambulances, to tend to the injured. Then I saw a sea of blue lights, law enforcement, as they quickly shut off that part of downtown Atlanta.

DEAN: And then, of course, you have an -- a massive investigation that -- that comes as soon as they kind of can start to wrap their arms around this. What was that like?

MCKAY: It's -- it did it took away a little bit from the games itself. Although Atlanta was resilient in trying to get back and not let this bomber completely take over the games.

It was a tragic situation, for sure, Jessica. But the feeling was Atlanta will bounce back, people will come back to Centennial Olympic Park, the games will continue.

There's a bit of controversy around that. But then the investigation wore on. My colleagues on the CNN news side took over that. And then it took some crazy winding turns before we got to Eric Rudolph's eventual conviction.

DEAN: It certainly did.

And now, of course, we have the Olympics that are happening in Paris. There are tremendous security measures in place there. What do you -- what do you make of that?

MCKAY: I've -- I did five Olympics for CNN. Honored to have done five Olympics, including Atlanta. And the other four were overseas. And you're always on edge about what could happen. And that's - we

already saw, with the Paris Olympics here, that, on the opening ceremony, the day the opening ceremony, there were fires that affected the train system there.

So anything can happen at any time. And just because you're reporting sports doesn't mean you'll eventually get into a situation like I did 28 years ago tonight in Atlanta, reporting on a very tragic situation, too.

DEAN: Yes, that's the thing about news. It can turn on a dime.

All right. Mark McKay, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[17:55:00]

The two-hour special, "HOW IT REALLY HAPPENED, THE ATLANTA OLYMPIC BOMBING" airs tonight at 9:00, right here on CNN.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:03]

DEAN: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

And we are following breaking news out of the Middle East tonight.