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Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Is Interviewed About Lawmakers Accuse Patel Of Luxury Travel, Personal Perks, FBI Denies It; Source: Platner To File Paperwork To End Senate Bid On Monday; Source: Mexican National Fatally Shot By ICE In Texas Was Not The Target Of The Immigration Operation. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 10, 2026 - 04:30   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: First time in over a decade, Team USA, I'll see you there

[04:30:03]

Director Patel was asked about the Olympic trip at a congressional hearing in May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): You attended the Olympics in Milan. How much did your trip cost and to what extent did that help you carry out your mission?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: We purposely planned that trip around the Olympics because, as I mentioned in my opening, the top cybercriminal from the CCP was housed in Italian custody. While there, we were able to work an agreement, an arrangement to have that individual expelled from Italy instead of going back to China. That individual was returned to America two weeks ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: CCP refers to the Chinese Communist Party. He's speaking about this man, a Chinese national extradited to the U.S. from Italy more than two months after Patel's Olympic locker room celebration. The investigation also cites special perks on official international trips, including VIP snorkeling in Hawaii.

That is likely referring to a snorkeling trip the director took -- reportedly took to the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, hallowed ground, a military cemetery where more than 900 service members are entombed. Snorkeling there is not allowed, with some rare exceptions from military and government officials, normally those responsible for managing the memorial.

The VIP snorkeling was not on Director Patel's official schedule for his trip to Hawaii. Beyond VIP perks, international travel lawmakers on both sides of the aisles are demanding answers on how Patel gets around Washington. It was revealed today by Durbin and Raskin that Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a stalwart ally of President Trump, sent a letter to Patel asking him to defend his purchase of BMW SUVs.

Patel had reportedly directed the FBI to purchase the luxury vehicles, despite the longstanding policy of the FBI director being driven around in Chevy Suburbans. In Grassley's letter, he also wanted Patel to list each flight he took on an FBI aircraft, if it was for personal reasons, and if so, if he had reimbursed the government. When asked for comment on the story regarding the SUVs, an FBI spokesperson said that two of the FBI's armored Suburbans needed to be replaced and that the BMWs, "had already been purchased by the State Department, sitting idle and unused in their warehouse. The FBI purchased the vehicles from the State Department."

Whatever the explanation, the many questions surrounding FBI Director Patel sure seem a far cry from then-citizen Kash Patel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: Chris Wray doesn't need a government-funded G5 jet to go to vacation. Maybe we ground that plane, $15,000 every time it takes off. This is odd.

Go take their money. Chris Wray doesn't need a private jet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Chris Wray was the former FBI director, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. Jamie Raskin joins me now. So, Congressman, you've obviously been a frequent critic of Director Patel. How confident are you that Senator Grassley, who's been a staunch ally of President Trump, is committed to getting to the bottom of who is paying for what when it comes to the director's personal travel?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, he sent a letter back on May 6th. We've been demanding answers to this set of problems for several months. All the evidence that we have indicates that the taxpayers are footing the bill for junkets and splurges and special recreational experiences for the FBI director. And now we know that there is serious bipartisan concern.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chairman Grassley, is demanding answers, and Senator Durbin, who's the ranking member over on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter with me today demanding an accounting.

Now, look, the FBI director is supposed to travel on an official plane even if he's taking a personal trip. But it seems pretty clear to the whole world that that was a personal recreational trip when he went out to see his beloved American Olympic hockey team play, and we saw him chugging the beers and partying with the boys. He said he should pay for that trip.

You know, he's talking about grounding an airplane the FBI director used on official business for $15,000. That trip to Milan cost more than $100,000. So we want to make sure that he has written a check to the taxpayers to reimburse us for that because we don't pay for VIP snorkeling. We don't pay for jet skiing. We're not paying for luxury travel. That's not what we're in it for, and it's obviously a massive diversion and distraction from the real work of the FBI.

COOPER: And has Director Patel offered Senator Grassley, to your knowledge, any proof of reimbursement for private use of FBI aircraft?

[04:34:54]

RASKIN: No, we are aware of no proof or documentation of reimbursement on any of these cases, and we know that Senator Grassley has asked for it, and we're asking for it, too. So we now have bipartisan and bicameral determination to get to the bottom of what's happening over there, including on the purchase of the BMWs.

COOPER: I also want to ask you about one of your constituents, the former Olympian David Hearn. He appeared in court today. He's facing a felony charge, charged with allegedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which has obviously become one of the President's, you know, projects as he seeks to renovate the nation's capital. He denies he had done anything wrong. I'm wondering what your reaction to the case is.

RASKIN: Well, first of all, I know David Hearn. He is an upstanding citizen. He is a great guy. He was an Olympic canoeist. He has taught canoeing and kayaking to generations of young people in Montgomery County, Maryland. He would never desecrate or post graffiti or engage in vandalism towards a federal building, whether it's the Kennedy Center or the Reflecting Pool. He would never demolish hundreds of millions of dollars of material at the White House without congressional consent, and he's being swept up in an absolute Kafkaesque and Orwellian prosecution where he apparently, I'm just going on public reports now.

He apparently touched some of the peeling paint. He didn't even rip it off or anything, but he touched it when he stopped there on his bike and then suddenly was the subject of an arrest, and now they're accusing him of creating more than $1,000 worth of damage. So while, you know, we're watching corruption unfold, including at the FBI, including at the White House, for millions or hundreds of millions of dollars, they are attacking and prosecuting one of my constituents for basically the act of putting his hand in the water at the Reflecting Pool, which my constituents are now calling the Strait of Warm Ooze after the millions of dollars that Donald Trump wasted in turning it into an algae farm.

COOPER: Congressman Raskin, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you.

Up next, we go to the Democratic Senate race in Maine. Now that Graham Platner has announced he's suspending his campaign, has not dropped out yet.

Plus, a family seeking answers after ICE fatally shot a man in Texas.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:41:37] COOPER: Maine Democrats are now scrambling. It was just over two weeks to pick a new candidate in the critical Senate race after Graham Platner announced in that 11-minute video last night that he's suspending his campaign. Platner's exit comes after this woman, Jenny Racicot, accused him of raping her in 2021, which he has strongly denied. This woman, Lyndsey Fifield, accused him of physical violence, which he also denies.

The party's new nominee will take on Republican Susan Collins in a Senate race that could decide what party takes control of the chamber. State party leaders are planning to hold a nominating convention with about 600 delegates before the July 27th deadline. Who those delegates will be and how they make that decision, that's not yet known. Joining me now are CNN political commentators S.E. Cupp and Xochitl Hinojosa. So, S.E., does it make sense to you that Platner would wait until Monday to the deadline day to formally end his campaign?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, it feels very much contrary to what he said in the video that he does want to influence this process, and that feels very much like entitlement. We are in this position because you messed up. You messed up with the things that you did in your past and pretty recent present, actually. And you messed up in not being transparent. You don't get to play anymore. You're done.

And unfortunately, you let down the Democratic Party. You let down voters in Maine. I think you let down your campaign staffers by not being transparent and up front about the things you had done, not being apologetic or accountable for the things that you had done.

So, you're done. You're out of the process, and now Democrats are left with a mess to pick up, and they've got to figure this out. But the mess is Platner's fault. Platner's why they're in this mess.

COOPER: And, Xochitl, if Platner does indeed wait until the last possible day to officially drop out, how much does that throw a wrench into what is already a complicated and vague process to pick another Democrat to replace him?

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's right, Anderson. If Graham Platner were to get out of this race and sign the appropriate paperwork today, then on Monday, we wouldn't be talking about Graham Platner anymore, and we would be talking about the process moving forward.

We would be talking about the people getting in the race. We would be talking about how we need to beat Susan Collins. But the reality is that the Democratic Party has not been talking about Susan Collins, their opponent that they are trying to beat for weeks now because we've been talking about Graham Platner.

Listen, I -- if he gave a speech last night or a video that talked about and if he exited this race gracefully, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt, saying maybe he needs to raise to clear up some debt, et cetera, ahead of Monday. This man is a narcissist. He's a scumbag. That's not what he wants. He cares only about himself. And so this is, if he wants to help Mainers and the Democratic Party, then he would get out before Monday. But that's not what he cares about. He cares about himself.

COOPER: Xochitl, I mean, as he won the primary, do you think he has a right to have any influence over what comes next? I mean, clearly you don't.

HINOJOSA: No, I don't think so. When you rape someone, you have lost all rights to have a say in who is going to replace you. The other thing about this, if you listen, we all listened to his 11-minute video yesterday, he talks -- he sounded a lot like Trump. He sounded like someone who not only lied, but was trying to find an enemy.

[04:45:02]

And that enemy was the establishment. But if you really think about this, and you look at his so-called movement, you would see that both Bernie Sanders and Ro Khanna are part of that. And they're not standing by him. They have actually called on him to resign, and they don't seem to believe that -- what he is saying. And so I do think that this has become all about him. He has lost all rights to do this.

He has put the party in a terrible position, as S.E. Cupp has said. And now the Maine Democratic Party is in a lot of pressure for them to hold a nominating convention that is successful and transparent.

COOPER: S.E., what lessons do you think Democrats, or I guess anyone in any party, should take away from this situation?

CUPP: Yes, I don't know if folks have listened to "The Wall Street Journal" interview with the two young consultants that hand-plucked Graham Platner out of obscurity and made him the candidate. Don't. You'll want to pour battery acid in your ears. But there is a lesson in there that you can't just parachute into a state.

Crowdsource a candidate from social media and then foist him on voters barely do a vetting process. These two people admitted they did about an expedited three-day vetting process. They paid about six grand to do this. It didn't turn up all the things that we now know. Some of the mechanics of running for a political office still apply.

I know that 2024 kind of scrambled the brains of some Democrats, right? Both on the establishment side and the progressive side. How did we let this happen? We have to throw everything out and start over. I understand that, but some things are still true. Candidate quality still matters. And it seems like we've all decided that the political stakes are so high now, on the left and the right, that character doesn't matter. We can overlook it.

We've watched Republicans overlook Donald Trump's character again and again and again. We've watched Republicans overlook a character because the stakes were just too high. Democrats, I think, did the same thing with Graham Platner. I'm still hearing some women today on the left say things like, well, the victim should have gone to the police then, or I'd still vote for him even with these sexual assault allegations. That is insane. When we all decide character doesn't matter, bad things happen.

I don't have to point to all the examples. You know them. But character does matter. It has to matter. And turning a blind eye to these things because you want to hold the seat, keep the seat, flip the seat, that's no excuse. We end up paying for those mistakes in the long run as voters.

COOPER: Yes. Appreciate it. To be clear, Graham, we should just point out Graham Platner has denied accusations of non-consensual behavior. S.E. Cupp, Xochitl Hinojosa, I appreciate it.

Another ICE-involved shooting, this time in Texas. A Mexican national was driving to a construction site in Houston with a crew of workers Tuesday morning when he was shot and killed by an ICE agent. ICE says the man attempted to evade arrest as agents tried to conduct a traffic stop.

Now a source says he was not the target of the immigration operation. And like other shootings, there's limited video, and there is the question why agents were not wearing body cameras. CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Texas with the latest. First, a warning. What you're about to see could be disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The only video that has emerged so far of the shooting death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo captures the 52-year-old construction worker lying on the ground moments after ICE agents shot him as he drove a white van with three other men inside. The medical examiner says Salgado was struck in the torso by a gunshot. In the video, you can see him bleeding on the street.

DOMINGO GARCIA, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, LULAC: Crying, screaming after he'd been shot in the stomach. And he's screaming for help.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say agents were conducting a, "targeted enforcement operation." This is how ICE described what led to Salgado's death. The agency says Salgado tried to, "evade arrest, rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer, resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense."

But a source familiar with the preliminary details of the incident tells CNN Salgado was not the intended target of the operation. In a new statement to CNN, DHS says agents conducted surveillance based on a, "credible tip from our law enforcement partners" weeks prior to the shooting and spotted two white vans at a property.

On Tuesday morning, as agents approached that location, they saw Salgado's white van and initiated the vehicle stop. The statement does not make clear if Salgado's white van was the same van spotted by agents weeks earlier. Salgado's family and Latino civil rights activists questioned whether DHS is telling the truth.

[04:50:00]

JUAN PROANO, CEO, LULAC: We do not believe them. They are playing by a playbook. They're using a template in shootings and murders that have happened across the country time and time again, and it is time to stop.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): At 6:46 Tuesday morning, video shows Salgado Araujo's white van turning onto Canal Street, followed by a black SUV, which turned out to be one of the unmarked vehicles carrying ICE agents. Shortly after that, another camera captured the black SUV, pulling up alongside Salgado's white van with a second unmarked black SUV following seconds behind them.

At 6:48 a.m., a woman driving by the scene --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's so -- up.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): -- recorded the video of Salgado on the ground suffering from the gunshot wound.

GARCIA: Put yourself in his shoes as a driver. He has all his tools for construction. His livelihood is in that vehicle. He has his brother in the vehicle. He has two of his workers in the vehicle. Would you not be concerned and maybe try to go to a place where it's public when you have unmarked cars trying to ram you and stop you?

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Salgado lived in the United States for 35 years, supporting his wife and three college-educated sons by working in construction. The family says they learned about his death by seeing a video posted on social media.

RONALDO SALGADO, SALGADO ARAUJO'S SON: I recognize him immediately. Not from his appearance, but from his voice. Crying for help as he lay on the street, bleeding out.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The FBI's Houston field office says it's investigating the incident as a potential assault on a federal law enforcement officer. But Salgado's son disputes those allegations and says his father would have complied with law enforcement if they identified themselves.

SALGADO: Because he had been in the process of getting a work permit, he knew what to do in case he was stopped by ICE, OK. He knew the process.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): The shooting, like those that came before, is now prompting protests in Texas --

CROWD: Justice for Lorenzo.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): -- and calls for justice and reform.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are coming to our streets not to make people more safe, but to terrorize our communities.

(END VIDEOTAPE) LAVANDERA: Anderson, activists and the family have also been calling on ICE agents and ICE officials to release any body cam footage, dash cam footage from those vehicles that were pursuing Salgado and those three other men. But DHS officials late this afternoon tell CNN that body cam does not exist, that the agents who were there on that scene were not carrying body cam equipment with them, and the vehicles that they were in did not have dash cam cameras either. The agency went on to blame Democrats for multiple government shutdowns for slowing the process down in that funding. But there's also been questions, and the family has been calling for a full independent investigation apart from the federal investigation, but that appears very unlikely.

We've reached out to city officials in Houston as well as prosecutors. They say that the feds hold all of the evidence and a local investigation seems very unlikely. Anderson?

COOPER: Ed Lavandera, appreciate it. Thank you.

[04:53:20]

Coming up, my conversation with author and former diplomat Nicole Avant for the latest episode of my Greek podcast, All There Is, Nicole's mom, Jacqueline, was shot to death by an intruder in her home in 2021. Nicole talks about the role of faith in her grief, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: A new episode of my podcast on loss, All There Is, is just out. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or by scanning the QR code at the bottom of your screen. This week's guest is producer, author, and former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, Nicole Avant. Her mom, Jacqueline, was shot to death by an intruder in her home in 2021. She was 81. Her dad, Clarence Avant, a legendary music producer and businessman, then moved in with Nicole and her husband, Ted, and died two years later at the age of 92. Here's some of what she told me about loss and faith.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICOLE AVANT, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE BAHAMAS: My mom was really good at reminding me that inside the circle of life is death. And we all like to look at death as being outside of the circle of life, which is why we struggle in our culture a lot to even talk about it.

One of the best gifts she ever gave me was real faith, not, oh, if you have faith, everything's going to go right. No, when you have faith, you call on it, especially when things go wrong. You have to believe that this trauma or this terrible thing is not going to last forever.

COOPER: Oprah said that she called after your mom was killed. She called you up, and Oprah was crying. And do you remember what you said to Oprah? I'm here standing in my faith.

AVANT: And she said, what?

COOPER: But I love that line, that idea. AVANT: Yes.

COOPER: In that moment when you said, I'm standing in my faith, was it also part of a wish of, if I say it, it will be true?

AVANT: Oh, 100 percent both. I said it to myself over and over again, hoping, like, maybe this is really going to feel like this. But it felt good to say it, and it didn't mean that I didn't grieve. But my mom would always say, and my grandmother gave this to me all the time, the only way out is through. The only way out is through. There are no shortcuts. You have to feel it, because that is life. You have to feel joy, you have to feel pain, you have to feel laughter. You have to feel sadness. That is the gift of being alive. You're going to feel so many different emotions, and the sad ones remind you that you're human, which is a good thing. And it reminds me, we don't know what someone's going through. So I used to be so like, God, what's wrong with that guy? What could be so wrong? Always thinking, why isn't he in a good mood? He's got. I don't know what the hell happened to him in his life. What am I judging for?

[05:00:05]

COOPER: I think that's such an important thing. Everybody is going through something, and we have no idea what somebody else is going through or has been through. And to give the person some grace.

AVANT: Some grace.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: You can listen to the full conversation with Nicole Avant wherever you get your podcast or watch the entire episode at CNN.com/allthereis.

The news continues right here on CNN.