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Donald Trump Touts Economy, War With Iran And Blasts Democrats; Anthropic Employee Quits And Sounds Alarms On A.I. Safety Concerns; Trump Says Putin Eager to Reach a Deal on Ukraine; Fighting Picks Up Between Yemen's Army and Houthi Rebels; Haaretz Reports Netanyahu Says He Will Sue Following October 7 Report; Trump Administration to Seek $45 Million Security Funding for Ecuador; NOAA Says 2026 is Hottest U.S. Summer on Record; Seahawks Start Title Defense With Rally Over Patriots; Elena Rybakina Reaches Semifinals, Will Face Coco Gauff; Julien Anton Wins Ocean Photographer of The Year. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired September 10, 2026 - 02:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:00:37]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead here on CNN NEWSROOM.

President Trump asks Republicans in Texas to pretend he's on the ballot, making more promises and false claims at the midterm convention.

Plus, experts analyzing satellite images say there's a surge in activity at one of Iran's suspected nuclear sites.

And another warning about artificial intelligence. Why one researcher quit a leading company, leaving a disturbing message for humanity behind.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Appreciate you joining us. Well, it is just past 1:00 a.m. in Dallas, Texas, where U.S. President Donald Trump has wrapped up the first day of his midterm convention. He pledged to campaign tirelessly for Republican candidates ahead of November's elections, and in an extraordinary move, he promised to give every American adult a $5,000 dividend if Republicans keep control of the House and Senate. Though he didn't explain how he would do that.

The president falsely claimed that prices for consumers are falling, and he blamed the Democrats for creating the affordability crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This has been the most successful two years financially and every other way in the history of the presidency. They use the word affordability, right? Fake. They are so fake, because it was them that caused the affordability, to use their word, crisis, and I'm bringing the prices way down, way, way down. They caused the crisis, but we're fixing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Attorney General Todd Blanche praised the president for what he called making America safe again, but his appearance is drawing criticism from government watchdog groups who say it's highly unusual, if not unethical, for the nation's top law enforcement officer to engage in politics. More now on the night one highlights from CNN's Alayna Treene.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump spoke for nearly two hours on Wednesday, and the purpose, really, of Republicans' first-ever midterm convention can be signed up in these few words from him.

TRUMP: I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot.

TREENE: That really is the goal that some of the president's political advisers and members of his operation tell me that they want with this event, which is essentially they are trying to drive out as many members of the president's base, the fiercest supporters who make up the MAGA universe to the polls on November 3rd, and they have 55 days to do it.

Now, you heard the president really hit on a lot of the same things that he actually talks about on a daily basis. He talked about Iran. He tried to explain, of course, that even though this war is dragging on, maybe even past the midterms, that he believes the goal of it, that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon is still an important one. He talked about the economy, also not really an issue many Republicans particularly those in these vulnerable battleground districts want to be talking about right now. He also discussed his ballroom.

So, these are all hot topics. We know he hits on a lot, and a lot of this actually gave me deja vu from the campaign trail in 2024. It was a type of event and scene that you would have seen back when he was running on the ballot and when he was running for president once again.

But look, I also think, you know, he talked about the stakes a bit. He talked about Mike Johnson, who has a very small lead in the House right now with the House majority. Mike Johnson got a standing ovation. He also talked about the Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Thune actually got some boos, which I think is emblematic of the type of crowd in the convention center on Wednesday, but Trump defended him, saying he's facing a lot of opposition. I think that was a point to show just how high the stakes are for lawmakers in Washington D.C.

All to say, the president said he's going to be campaigning aggressively over the next 55 days. He wants to visit all of the different battleground districts. So, stay tuned for more speeches from the president.

Alayna Treene, CNN, Dallas, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Joining me now is Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. He's also co-author of Campaign of Chaos: Trump, Biden, Harris, and the 2024 American Election. Great to have you with us.

[02:05:11]

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thank you, Rosemary.

CHURCH: So, President Trump is holding his midterm convention in Dallas at a time when oil prices are surging. The war with Iran is intensifying and his approval ratings are at historic lows in most polls. So, why is the president holding this event now, and what will it likely achieve?

SABOTO: Trump's theory is that if he can just get out his MAGA forces, who are normally voting only when he's on the ballot, then he can score an upset or win the election or however he would put it.

The problem with that, of course, is that he has lost a fair amount of support, not among the absolute committed MAGA people, but among the next layer people who like him, who voted for him three times for president.

But they're unhappy, as you just noted. They're unhappy about the cost of almost everything, they're unhappy about the corruption and greed that they see. So, there are a lot of reasons why his people aren't excited. They aren't going to vote Democratic, but they're probably not going to show up in the numbers he expects.

CHURCH: Right. In addition to that, some Republicans aren't happy with the event being held at this time, questioning whether it strikes the right tone, while other Republicans in competitive races say they're skipping the event altogether in favor of campaigning. What does that signal for both Donald Trump and his party?

SABOTO: The ones who are skipping this are the ones in the competitive purple states and districts. They're the ones who fear that too close an association to Trump will produce their defeats-and I think many of them are absolutely right.

This is an unusual circumstances midterm convention. Though Trump started out his speech with a misstatement, what a shock. He said, This is the first midterm convention in American history for any party, wrong. The Democrats had three midterm conventions in 1974, 1978, and 1982. I remember them.

Now, they didn't work even for the Democrats when the Democrats did well as they did in '74 or the '76 election. It didn't really work. Mainly, people remembered the discussion about what was going to happen in the next presidential election. They didn't focus on the upcoming midterms, and I don't think it's going to be that different for Trump. Even after this is over, there'll still be 50 days to go before the end of the campaign, and I assume most of his MAGA people are going to vote on election day rather than by mail. Even though Trump votes by mail, because Trump has told them that mail voting is corrupt.

CHURCH: And you mentioned the Democrats, they are hoping that this midterm convention will backfire on Republicans. We heard from James Talarico on what he thinks his party needs to do. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES TALARICO (D), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR TEXAS: I honestly think people are just ready to vote for a senator under the age of 80. And so, I think that that fresh blood, that fresh perspective, is necessary.

I'm also unhappy with the Democratic Party nationally. I'm unhappy with its inability to fight for working people. And so, that's why I call myself a Texas Democrat in the tradition of Lyndon Johnson and Barbara Jordan, Lloyd Bentsen, people who fought for the middle class, people who fought for working Texans, and that's exactly what the Democratic Party has to get back to, if it hopes to actually change this country so that it works for regular people again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: So, Larry, are the Democrats doing enough to offer an alternative?

SABATO: No, not everywhere. And I think the candidate, the Democratic candidate Talarico, is correct in suggesting that Democrats need to get back to that. I don't think a midterm election enables them to do it.

But what it does enable them to do is to get some people elected, maybe like Talarico, who can steer the party over the next two years, so that the presidential nominee in 2028 has a better idea of what working-class Americans actually want and need.

Nonetheless, the Democrats are doing remarkably well in deeply red seats, and it's because of Donald Trump. He has low popularity. He's as low as he has ever been in the low to mid 30s. All the other reasons we've discussed already, from the war to prices, gas, and corruption, all of that is working in the Democrats' favor.

And I think people are just tired of seeing Donald Trump every hour on the hour saying and doing something controversial, and that matters in a midterm election because people have the choice of whether to vote or not.

CHURCH: Larry Sabato, thanks as always for your perspective and analysis. Appreciate it.

[02:10:01] SABATO: Thank you, Rosemary.

CHURCH: President Donald Trump says he expects the Iran war to end after the midterm elections, but concedes gas prices probably won't fall before then. He claims Tehran is trying to drag out the conflict to hurt him politically as fuel costs become a growing issue for American voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer. They're desperate to try and affect the election, so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: This comes as at least seven oil tankers have been hit in and beyond the Persian Gulf since Tuesday, as the U.S. and Iran step up a tax. The escalation briefly pushed global oil prices above $100 a barrel for the first time since July. Here's where oil prices stand right now. You can see Brent crude at 100.47. Now it's just changed.

Well, this means Americans are paying more at the pump, of course, AAA says the average gallon of gasoline is $4.22, up sharply from a month ago, and well above where it was when the Iran War began. Diesel is also at a record $5.94 a gallon.

President Trump is now raising the possibility of another strike in Iran. He says he's aware of new activity at Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected nuclear site near Natanz. Analysts tell CNN satellite imagery suggests there's been a surge in construction at Pickaxe Mountain, and the underground facility is likely designed to be a safe haven for Iran's nuclear program. Here's what one analyst from the think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies told CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH RODGERS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, PROJECT IN NUCLEAR ISSUES, CSIS: I think that the construction at Pickaxe Mountain illustrates Iran is trying to make its future nuclear program unbombable. The construction at Pickaxe is into a very deeply fortified granite mountain, about 100 meters into the mountain, and the U.S. probably is unable to destroy this facility.

I think also Pickaxe is just one of several undeclared and underground nuclear facilities inside of Iran, and that really illustrates the need for a diplomatic solution. Tehran's nuclear ambitions likely cannot just be bombed away. Iran will just continue to go further underground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog has just reported Iran to the Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing breaches of its non-proliferation obligations. That is according to a Reuters report. Iran is condemning the move as the IAEA says it still can't verify nuclear material at sites hit in last year's strikes.

At least five people are dead and more than 80 missing after a ferry caught fire in the western Philippines. The Philippine Coast Guard says 43 people were rescued after the incident Wednesday night, new drone video from the Coast Guard shows the aftermath with the vessel completely gutted. Officials say the ferry's manifest listed 117 passengers and 17 crew members. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Newly released government documents show Spain's intelligence agency warned Moroccan and Spanish officials about plans to storm Ceuta. The warning came a day before more than 70,000 migrants crossed into the enclave at the end of July. Spanish intelligence says the mass crossing was largely organized online. They warned officials of the plan, saying this about social media groups, "There are two different groups with a total of 180,000 followers. Just to give you an idea of the scale."

Well, more than a month later, about 10,000 migrants remain in Ceuta. They live in makeshift camps on the streets or on the beach. Residents in the enclave and across Spain have protested what they believe is government inaction to deal with the migrant crisis.

Well, there's much more to come here on CNN NEWSROOM. Another person who works with artificial intelligence has quit over safety concerns. Who will tell you about the warning that got people talking on social media.

Plus, Apple makes big changes to its flagship product and enters the foldable smartphone market. Details on the company's newly unveiled products, next.

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[02:19:16]

CHURCH: Apple has announced the biggest change yet to its most important product, the iPhone. New CEO John Turner's unveiled the iPhone Duo, Apple's first foldable smartphone, on Wednesday. The new iPhone Duo is roughly the size and shape of a passport when folded. And the thinnest iPhone yet when opened. It's also the most expensive, starting at just under $2,000 in the U.S. Apple is hardly blazing a new path, though, as rivals Samsung and Motorola have been selling foldable smartphones for years.

Well, Apple announced a number of new products and features at their showcase in California on Wednesday, the iPhone 18 will have Apple's virtual assistant Siri enhanced with A.I., along with improved camera functions and battery life. And the Apple Watch will soon be able to assist those who are hard of hearing by identifying alarms and sirens, among other new health features.

[02:20:15] An artificial intelligence researcher for Anthropic has publicly quit the company, citing concerns over the development of A.I. Jacob Coxon said on social media that the people working on A.I. believe it could, "Kill us all by the end of the decade." CNN A.I. Correspondent Hadas Gold has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: This whole idea of A.I. causing the end of humanity is not a new sentiment within the A.I. industry, and it's something that's been widely expressed by many of the staffers and the top executives of some of the biggest A.I. companies that we have today.

But this particular resignation post by this researcher who works at Anthropic went viral in a way that we haven't seen some of these other resignations or posts about safety go viral in the past, and I think that there's two reasons for that. One is because Jacob Coxon, this Anthropic researcher who resigned, said that neither of the companies he's worked with, because he also worked at OpenAI, are acting responsibly. He says they are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. A pretty stark warning there, especially considering one of those companies that he works for, or that he worked for until now, Anthropic was known as the safety A.I. company. Its whole premise, its whole creation, was about creating a responsible A.I. company that would create A.I. that has guidelines and guardrails, and that would be a safer option compared to the other A.I. companies out there. And here you have one of their employees saying that they're not even doing enough to keep things safe.

And then his post was amplified by a more senior person on Anthropic staff who leads their alignment science team, which is making sure that the model does what you actually want it to do. Where he says that we really do earnestly believe A.I. could kill all humans, and he says that there is a greater than 10 percent chance that they could do so within the next decade.

Again, though, these, you know, warnings sound dire. They sound crazy, but they're not new for people in the A.I. industry. Take a listen to what Dario Amadei, who leads Anthropic said back in 2023.

DARIO AMODEI, CEO, ANTHROPIC: I think I've often said that my chance that something goes, you know, really quite catastrophically wrong on the scale of, you know, human civilization. You know, it might be somewhere between 10 and 25 percent when you put together the risk of something going wrong with the model itself, with you know, something going wrong with human, you know, people or organizations or nation states misusing the model, or it kind of inducing conflict among them, or just some way in which kind of society can't handle it.

That said, I mean you know what that means is that there's a 75 to 90 percent chance that this technology is developed and everything goes fine.

GOLD: Just a few months ago, in July, more than 1,300 staffers at the top A.I. company signed a letter asking the U.S. government to help create tools that would slow down the pace of A.I. development, so that the safety measures could catch up. Because right now, there's no industry standards when it comes to A.I. There's very few rules and regulations in Washington when it comes to model development, or even when it comes to testing these A.I. agents, and we've seen when those tests can go wrong when A.I. agents escape their test environments and hack into other companies' systems, like what happened with OpenAI and Hugging Face.

And one of the that's one of the reasons why you're seeing this increased concern is because we're seeing the advancements of A.I. What it's been able to do in the past few months, it's gone from, you know, science fiction to reality in a way, and so quickly in a way that I think people were not expecting, and so now you have the creators of this tool afraid of their creation.

Hadas Gold, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Still to come on this hour of CNN NEWSROOM, Israel's prime minister is responding to a bombshell report on the days leading up to the October 7th Hamas attack, raising new questions about his political future.

Plus, a CNN exclusive report, this small island off the coast of Yemen is now a strategic prize in the Middle East. Our Nick Robertson. There to find out how this island could influence the war with Iran. That's next.

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[02:29:11]

CHURCH: Moldova's ambassador to the U.S. says it's too early to say if Russia targeted Ukraine's president before his flight out of his country on Tuesday, two Russian drones entered Moldovan airspace just as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was about to take off for Norway. His flight was delayed as a result. The ambassador told CNN the timing was probably not a coincidence. Norway's prime minister claims a drone almost hit the Ukrainian presidential plane.

President Trump was delayed going to Dallas aboard Air Force One on Wednesday after sources say a military aide accidentally deployed its emergency slide while the plane was on the tarmac. Mr. Trump had just arrived at Joint Base Andrews on his way to the Republican convention and took the plane anyway to Dallas. Mr. Trump suggested the deployment was intentional because his staff was checking the slide.

[02:30:00]

The plane, a Qatari gifted jet, is estimated to be worth about $400 million.

Well, the U.S. president released more details Wednesday about his phone call with President Vladimir Putin a day earlier. The White House renewed its efforts to reach a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine last weekend, but Mr. Trump says there's one big obstacle left.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We had a great conversation. He is wanting to make a deal and if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a deal, that'd be very nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is the hold up?

TRUMP: The holdup is two people that hate each other.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: That is Yemen's military trading fire with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The two sides have renewed their clashes on the ground in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the Houthis also launched new strikes on Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen's internationally recognized government.

Saudi officials say more than 70 people were injured and oil facilities set on fire. The kingdom responded with about 30 airstrikes on Houthi targets. The rebels have also declared a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea.

Well, a tiny island off the coast of Yemen could play an outsized role in the U.S. war with Iran and the global economy. CNN's Nic Robertson has this exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): Yemen's Navy is taking us to Perim Island, the heart of a little-known local war that's getting pulled into America's war with Iran.

ROBERTSON: So what happens here next could affect us more than the Iran War already has. These islands, this vital waterway, the price of oil, it is all vulnerable right now. And what happens here could impact President Trump's political fortunes.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In recent weeks, Iran- backed Houthis have hit several Saudi oil tankers on these waters. They're a bypass to the Strait of Hormuz. As we find out, Houthis are a constant threat here.

ROBERTSON: Suddenly, we just have to turn around. We're told it's because drones have been reported in the air. This is a hot war and this is one of the epicenters of that war.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Our second attempt, getting closer.

ROBERTSON: This here that you're looking at out across the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrowest point on that Red Sea, those ships out there, that's what this is all about, commercial shipping, critical for the global economy.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Eventually, we make it, greeted by Yemeni government forces, keeping the vital waterway open. Not many outsiders make it here. We're the first international journalists they've seen in years. But we're not going to have long, the Houthi drone is still a threat.

ROBERTSON: And it looks for all the world like the place that time forgot. It is really stuck out here in the middle of the ocean. Looking out across the ocean, this way -- yeah, Bab al-Mandab. And looking across out there, you can see Africa across there, Djibouti literally just across the sea there.

ROBERTSON (voice-over) Perim is at the strait's narrowest point, just 12 miles from Africa. Since Iran blocked shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi diverted its oil exports through the Red Sea, helping keep global oil prices down. 10 percent of global oil used to flow through here.

ROBERTSON: It's down to about less than half of that, or about half of that now. And if the Houthis get control of the Red Sea, if the Iranian proxies, the Houthis get control of the Red Sea, they can shut the oil flows here down to almost nothing.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): What we don't see on our short visit is a military force that measures up to the scale of what's at stake for the rest of the world. For the commander in charge of this region, that's a worry.

ROBERTSON: Because the Houthis would try to kill you, right? The Iranians would love to have you dead.

TARIK SALEH, VICE PRESIDENT, YEMEN PRESIDENTIAL COUNCIL: So many times.

ROBERTSON: So many times, I know.

ROBERTSON: Vice President, Tarik Saleh is a rarity at the moment. A political leader, still in Yemen, and still fighting the Houthis.

SALEH (through translator): We told the world that this is an Iranian plan, but no one listened to Yemenis back then. That this is a battle that would not only affect Yemenis, but the region and international community.

ROBERTSON: This is Iran trying to put pressure on President Trump.

SALEH: Exactly.

ROBERTSON: Are you getting any support from the United States?

[02:35:00]

SALEH: Just talk. ROBERTSON: Just talk. How do you feel about that?

(LAUGH)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Disappointed, he says. Even so, Saleh is bullish about his troops, claiming gains on the battlefield with new equipment and new tactics, hitting Houthi hideouts with quadcopter drone attacks, similar to those used in Ukraine.

But it won't be easy. After years of fighting, the Houthis are well dug in. Control the capital, the northwest of Yemen, including much of the Red Sea coast.

The government has the east and the south, with the Houthi attacks pressing towards the last stretch of Red Sea coast under government control. What Saleh's troops organize for us next is a hard reality check about what they're up against.

ROBERTSON: So right now, we've just got into a big armored vehicle. Interestingly, it's all blacked out. The windows are blacked out, so we don't know where we're going.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): It's here, to a highly secret and secure stash of Iranian-made Houthi weapons, snatched, the Yemeni military says, from smugglers at sea. This sophisticated anti-ship missile capable of hitting tankers from hundreds of miles away, cutting-edge anti-aircraft missiles, ultra-high-spec optic radar. They readily admit more gets through to the Houthis than they can catch.

ROBERTSON: What's Iran's strategy with the Houthis?

ABDEL NASSER EL-MAMLOUH, DIRECTOR, NRF MEDIA (through translator): The U.S. siege on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz has made Iran look at its options and activate the strongest one, the Houthis, to close Bab al-Mandab. They're saying if our economy collapses in Iran, so will the world economy.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): In recent weeks, the Houthis have been stepping up attacks on Saleh's forces. In Mocha, it's a vital trade port, a regular Houthi target hit multiple times. So much so, the harbor walls are littered with sunk and sinking ships.

ROBERTSON: And here, this is a piece, the tail fin from one of those Houthi missiles. See it? Heavy, ripped into the ground, splattered across here in the port, all across this boat here. So many missiles landed, the port authorities had to shut the whole port down.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Sixteen people lost their lives, the port director tells me, and 1,500 employees are now without work. The Houthis, he says, are trying to kill their economy as well as the people.

More than 10 years of civil war have all but broken Yemen. Humanitarian groups say more than half the population need their help. But now, Iran's war with the U.S. threatens to push Yemen over the edge. Saleh has a salutary warning for Trump. Yemen's losses could be his economic pain.

SALEH (through translator): We see the high cost paid by international community to secure the passages of few ships through the Strait of Hormuz. If the Yemeni forces were supported right now, they will make more achievements with a much lower cost than the Strait of Hormuz.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Trump's Iran legacy is getting more complicated.

Nic Robertson, CNN, in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Israeli newspaper, Haaretz says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to sue the paper over a report about the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack. Haaretz reported that about a week and a half before October 7th, Netanyahu was warned by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was preparing a major attack against Israel.

The newspaper says Netanyahu did not share the warning with Israel's security leaders. Netanyahu's office calls the report an absolute lie. Haaretz says it stands by its reporting.

Joining me now is Yaakov Katz, Co-Founder of the Middle East America Dialogue and Senior Columnist at The Jerusalem Post. He's also the author of "While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East." Appreciate you joining us.

YAAKOV KATZ, SENIOR COLUMNIST, THE JERUSALEM POST: Thank you.

CHURCH: What's your response to this new report claiming that 10 days before the deadliest attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu was warned by the UAE president that Hamas was preparing a major attack on Israeli soil?

[02:40:00]

And how will this likely impact Netanyahu's political future in the upcoming elections on October 27th?

KATZ: Well, this report has definitely, Rosemary, been a bombshell and has definitely shaken the Israeli public. Again, another report of Netanyahu receiving a warning from a close ally, the president of the United Arab Emirates, telling him that there might be an attack by Hamas that could be imminent. And what we know is that Netanyahu, apparently, the facts speak for themselves, October 7th and the Hamas invasion took place.

3,000 plus Hamas men invaded Israel that day. It was the greatest massacre of Jews on a single day since the Holocaust. And if he had that type of warning, why did he not take action? And this joins other reports of the Egyptians giving warnings and other people. The Netanyahu circles in office, they have denied and said this report is not true and there's been a strong resistance to try to push back on it. But the facts are this.

There were enough warnings and there was a sense that something was happening. Let's remember where we were back then. Israel was in the middle of probably the greatest attempt at judicial overhaul and reform in its history. The people of Israel were divided. They were out on the streets. The country was vulnerable and Hamas took advantage of that vulnerability and launched its attack.

The question really is, like you said, Rosemary, how will this impact Netanyahu's election? And that's coming up in just about six, seven weeks on October 27th. And he has really made for himself a career as being what we call Mr. Security, the guy who can keep Israel safe. But can he keep Israel safe if he's actually ignoring warnings like the one that might have come from MBZ, the leader of the United Arab Emirates?

And that's going to be a question that some people who might be voting and thinking of where do they -- who do they vote for? Maybe this will be what will determine which direction they go with on October 27th, the day that the Israelis go to the polls.

CHURCH: Yeah, it is a critical question, isn't it? And according to the article in the Haaretz newspaper, Netanyahu did not share the warning with Israel's security leaders. The prime minister's office calls that report an absolute lie, as you referred to there. But why would Netanyahu fail to share such critical intel? What do you think?

KATZ: Look, if the report is accurate, then again, the prime minister's office has said it's not. But if it was accurate, without real, clear, concrete, specific intelligence, when, where, how such an attack is going to take place, one of the issues that I think Israel was facing at the time, and this is what we discovered in the research for our book, was that Israel was very much complacent and believed in, what I call, almost a fairytale, this belief that Hamas, this genocidal terrorist group that was just over the border, was deterred, could be bought off, could receive economic incentives, and as a result would not attack Israel.

And that kind of paradigm, that type of thinking, everything had to match it. So even if he got a warning, let's say, that might have been vague, a little obscure, not very specific, that Hamas might be planning some sort of attack. He trusted the IDF, he trusted the Israel Security Intelligence Services. He believed that if something was going to happen, Israel would find out.

But what we know is that despite the warnings, despite the intelligence that was coming in between October 6 and October 7, the Israeli security authorities failed to properly digest and analyze and understand what exactly was happening, and that led to this devastating attack that then really engulfed the region and almost the world, took us into this war that has still been going on for almost now three years.

And therefore, I can't say that he would have ignored a specific threat, but it would make sense that even if he received some sort of warning that, again, wasn't so specific, he would say to himself, look, we have warnings all the time. Israel is a country that's constantly under threat and attack. We'll be able to deal with it. It won't be, if it's going to be something, it definitely won't be something big.

And look how wrong he would have been, and definitely Israel was.

CHURCH: Yaakov Katz, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

KATZ: Thank you.

CHURCH: U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio says the Trump administration will ask Congress for $45 million in security funding for Ecuador. After meeting with the country's president on Wednesday, the top U.S. diplomat said Washington was working with Daniel Naboa's government to crack down on drug traffickers.

Rubio said the administration would also ask for a $10 million initiative. It would target illegal gold mining, gang recruitment and illicit finance.

[02:45:00]

The visit is part of a Trump administration push to strengthen ties with conservative leaders in Latin America.

We have much more coming up here on the show. Lindsay Clancy's murder trial ended in a mistrial, but it's not over yet. CNN spoke to Clancy's attorney about what he thinks should happen next.

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CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. The next hearing in the Lindsay Clancy triple-murder trial is scheduled for the end of this month. A judge declared a mistrial in the case last week after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict because of a lone holdout juror.

It's not clear whether the district attorney is planning to retry Clancy for fatally strangling her three young children in 2023, but Clancy's defense attorney says he plans to file a motion to stop a retrial, citing media comments from other jurors about the lone holdout.

Here's what her attorney told Anderson Cooper.

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KEVIN REDDINGTON, CLANCY'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: She is well aware of the loss of her children. She's well aware of the circumstances of the psychosis. And this is the thing that people have difficulty understanding is that when you're talking about postpartum psychosis, you can be in a psychotic state. You can communicate with people. You can talk on the telephone. You can drive a car. You can make a phone call. You can use Google, all of that. I would not ever agree that she do any time in jail. She's too fragile. She's too -- she's damaged goods and she does not deserve it. No, she needs to be treated for her mental health condition, has to have good physicians and she has to have good medication. That's it.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": Patrick Clancy, her husband, obviously, there's been a lot of conspiracy theories. You have spoken out about this a number of times.

REDDINGTON: Yes.

COOPER: What do you want people to know?

REDDINGTON: I want people to know that this is a young couple that was on top of the world. They had three beautiful children. They had a nice house in a beautiful town. They were respected, their jobs, and it just went sideways because of the horrible, horrible medical and psychiatric care that they had.

And he stood by her, went to the doctor's appointments with her, stood by her, testified for her in this trial and also forgave her, which is most important in her mind.

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CHURCH: The U.S. just experienced its hottest summer in 132 years of record keeping. Forecasters report that the average temperature across the lower 48 states this year topped the previous record set in the 1930s Dust Bowl era.

The summer of 1936 was long the benchmark for the hottest summer in American history. It was tied by the summer of 2021 for hottest on record before this year's readings.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: So this is not some small hundredth of a degree new record. This is leaping up on the charts and it does not include the El Nino that's just now starting to cook up in the Pacific, and you're seeing the dramatic effects of that along the California coastline, and it feels like Miami. It's more humid there and hotter than actually in Miami.

Globally, of course, this is happening as well in Europe and what we saw in Asia and the Himalayas. But yeah, it is here and it is as we've tasted it. It's like usually it's so localized that not everybody feels something. But you can think about the summer of '26 as varying between annoying and costly or deadly in some extremes.

CHURCH: Coming up here on "CNN Newsroom," honoring the best of under the sea photography. We will show you the picture that won top honors in the contest for 'Ocean Photographer of the Year.'

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CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. The NFL kicked off its new season Wednesday night with a Super Bowl rematch between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots. And it was a similar outcome too, with the reigning champs, the Seahawks defeating the Patriots 13-10.

Well next up, the L.A. Rams take on division rivals the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne. It's the first ever regular season game to be played in Australia. They will take to the field at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Thursday evening. For fans here in the U.S., that is Friday morning of course in Melbourne. It is the first of a record nine international games played in seven countries this season.

We are now down to the final four in the women's singles competition at the U.S. Open with both semifinals being played on Thursday. Elena Rybakina, the Australian Open champion, has advanced after her win on Wednesday. She topped China's Zheng Qinwen, two sets to one, and is now expected to move to the number one spot in the women's rankings when the new numbers are released on Monday.

Rybakina will next face off against American Coco Gauff for a chance to reach the finals. And number four Gauff reached the semifinals after beating Russian fifth seed Mirra Andreeva after rallying from behind and saving two match points. Gauff is hoping for a chance at a second U.S. Open title.

Oceanographic Magazine has crowned a new 'Ocean Photographer of the Year' for 2026. Here's a look at the photo that sealed the deal. Underwater photographer Julien Anton took this shot of seahorses in French Polynesia. He says he worked with local residents and searched for hours to find the subjects. Although it's impossible to know if the seahorses are related, the photo appears to show two babies looking back at their father before swimming away. Gorgeous.

Thank you so much for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. "CNN Newsroom" with Polo Sandoval is next, after a short break. Do stay with us.

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