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Trump's Done Dealing with Iran; Platner Considering Best Path Forward; Questions Over Mitch McConnell's Health. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 08, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: City building commissioner says crews at the time were trying to add 11 new floors to the building, which already had 22 floors.

President Trump's $3.8 billion defamation lawsuit against "The Washington Post," now thrown out by a judge. The president's media and technology group brought the suit in 2023 over a "Post" article alleging securities fraud. But a federal judge in Florida ruled that Trump media failed to present evidence of actual malice.

And the World Cup now down to eight teams after a pair of crazy finishes to the round of 16 Tuesday, led by Messi. Defending champion Argentina stunned Egypt, scoring three second half goals to come back from a two-goal deficit. In the meantime, Switzerland took down Colombia in a penalty kick shootout after the game ended in a tie. And it will be the first time the Swiss will have reached the World Cup quarter finals since 1954.

And today the nominations will be announced for the 78th Emmy Awards. "The Pitt" and "Hacks" expected to bring in a number of nods. Yesterday, the Emmy's announced "Law and Order SVU" star Mariska Hargitay will host the show, and she will be the first female host in 15 years. Who knew?

Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING ,we're going to continue to follow that breaking news out of the Middle East. That's where the president has just said that the ceasefire with Iran is over. We're going to try and figure out what that means.

Plus, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a very short window here to pull ourselves together and find somebody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The Platner problem. In Maine, his top backer now says he should drop out, but do Democrats have enough time to run a successful campaign to beat Senator Susan Collins?

And in the meantime, good morning to Chicago. This is a look at the sunrise over the city's skyline.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:36:26]

CORNISH: So, we continue to follow this breaking news out of the Middle East. President Trump saying that the memorandum of understanding with Iran is over. So that means this truce is uncertain right now.

It follows a flare-up overnight between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. hitting 80 targets. And Iran promising a crushing response. President Trump, however, says he is done talking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars.

Everyone's agreed, no nuclear weapon. We make a deal. They go outside, talk to the press. They say, we never even talked about it. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I'm going to bring in CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson, who is in Ankara.

And, Nic, leading up to this, we had the president talking about the funeral proceedings that had been happening in Iran. You had the technical talks that were supposed to keep going for 60 days. How did this break down? What is known right now?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the president did acknowledge that the negotiators do want to keep talking. And I think a lot of people will hold on to that and say, that's a positive right there. And what we've seen in the past is the Qatari and Pakistani mediators who are in the middle of this, working diligently, slowly behind the scenes, one step at a time, trying to talk both sides down, trying to de-escalate at times, getting the original ceasefire, eventually getting that MOU after almost two months of hard diplomatic lifting.

I don't think they're going to want to drop it. But it really does depend on what the president has to say and where he has committed his direction of travel on this. And we've seen that he does want to try to make a deal. But I think putting it in the context of the NATO summit here, you know, the secretary general, Mark Rutte, said he expected it to be a topic of conversation. The president sort of put it on the agenda yesterday before the strikes because he felt NATO nations should have stepped up more to help.

But the picture here is, they really want to focus on Ukraine. And President Zelenskyy is desperate to get more air defense missiles to stop the big, ballistic missiles that are killing people in Ukraine. And over the past few months there's a sense in Europe that the U.S.,

Iran, Israel war has been a distraction, consuming the very resources that Ukraine really needs, missile defense systems, and that this will be a deviation off the track of what NATO really wants to focus on today. There's no doubt it will get discussion. But, of course, here we are talking about it. And really the thrust here is to get on and support Ukraine.

CORNISH: Nic, one other thing, though. When it comes to Ukraine, they've become the leading kind of battlefield experts on asymmetrical warfare and drones. And this is the exact issue the U.S. is dealing with when it comes to Iran. Is there any card to be played, so to speak, by Zelenskyy?

ROBERTSON: Zelenskyy clearly believes that he does have cards to play with the drones, their manufacturer, the long distance drones that are reaching more than a thousand, certainly 2,000 miles inside of Russia, hitting sensitive Russian targets. And we saw President Zelenskyy pretty much when Iran began hitting the United States' friends and allies in the gulf, he went out to Saudi, he went out to others in the gulf and said, we've got these defensive capabilities against drones. Here's how they work. And he signed contracts.

So, I think Zelenskyy, and certainly his European supporters here would recognize that he is at the cutting edge, that drone technology changes quickly on the battlefield.

[06:40:09]

His country is a battlefield. He has the space, the technology, the people, the equipment to be at the cutting edge. So, he has something to offer. But he needs the money and he needs the resources against these ballistic missiles. And that's, you know, where he -- the card that he's short of. And he's made that very clear just yesterday in his comments here, saying that Europe needs an air defense missile system capability, needs to be able to do it at scale, and quickly.

CORNISH: OK, that's Nic Robertson, speaking to us about the news out of the NATO Summit. You heard him there talking about Ukraine. We're also following reporting about the president saying that his memorandum of understanding is off and his frustrations with Iran.

I want to turn to some domestic politics because the balance of the Senate is in question. Graham Platner's Senate candidacy hanging on by a thread this morning up in Maine. This is after a new sexual assault allegation against the democratic candidate. His original accuser now coming forward, telling CNN's Jake Tapper that Platner was a violent boyfriend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LYNDSEY FIFIELD, GRAHAM PLATNER ACCUSER: The things that he does in private, in his relationships with women, the things that he has done to women, coercive control, lying, deception, abuse, and really horrible things that we've -- that we've -- that we know about him -- sorry, we know that, that you can't be that way in private and not have it translate into how you would govern.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And Platner is facing widespread calls to drop out of the race from the Democratic Party. That includes one of his biggest supporters, Bernie Sanders. In a statement, Sanders writes, "I have spoken with Graham Platner about the best path forward for Maine. In light of these very serious allegations," Sanders says, "I have recommended that he step down."

The group chat is back.

I think this is one of those stories that is actually in political group chats as more and more information drips out. But let me let people understand what's happening here. I think according to my notes, he has to withdraw by the 13th. And the reason why that's important is the secretary of state cannot allow a new name on the ballot until there's a vacancy. So, this is why everyone is on Platner watch. But how is Platner spending his time?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, he's spending his time huddled in private trying to figure out what to do.

Look, there are two sets of things here.

CORNISH: Well, it sounded like he was busy pressuring the Democratic Party again (ph).

DOVERE: Well, right. I mean that's the thing. And so, thing number one is, a lot of Democrats who were very gung ho about him, until the revelations this week, do need to face their own questions of why everything else was allowed with Platner and they were for him. The Nazi tattoo, the Reddit post with all the political views saying black people don't tip, the previous allegations from women that were all waved off and said it's not enough to be an issue for him, but that this, all of a sudden, was.

The other thing is, when it comes to the -- replacing Platner on the ballot, perhaps, we have a situation here where Platner is holding -- he is saying that after being accused of sexual assault and abusing women, that he now has the right to have some control that he forces on the Democratic Party.

CORNISH: To name a successor.

DOVERE: To name a successor. And even though people keep saying to him, no, no, no, no, no, he is saying, yes, I can keep doing this, right.

CORNISH: And in the meantime you've got the former Maine state Senate president, Troy Jackson, the first person to officially explore a run. I think we have a couple of other faces and names that we're going to put up later. But in terms of this process, it feels pretty clear that everyone is saying withdraw.

DOVERE: Yes. CORNISH: Why do you think there's a delay here?

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Take everything off the table. He needs -- he needs to withdraw. Start there.

Number two, I always --

CORNISH: Well, like, the clock's a ticking, you know?

SEAWRIGHT: I always believe in the old southern carpenter's rule when it comes to candidates. And I've always believed this throughout my 20 years in this business. Measure three times, cut once. It seems as if that this whole style versus substance conversation that is wrecking our party right now is leading to candidates like this that are tapping into the angry wing of our party, who are frustrated, rightly so, because things are not happening at the pace they wanted to. But yet we're not taking the time to vet candidates.

I credit the Senate Democratic leadership for recruiting Roy Cooper and Janet Mills. They were two of our top recruits this cycle. I think Cooper is going to do well in North Carolina. I also think Janet Mills would have done Maine -- done well in Maine because she's connected to the community. But that is --

CORNISH: It --

DOVERE: She didn't do well in Maine, right? She didn't do well with the voters. Which is a separate conversation whether Platner --

SEAWRIGHT: Well, Isaac, I think she did not do well because there was this big push by those who were angry and not necessarily informed to push in. We need to be anti the establishment.

[06:45:03]

CORNISH: You mean the voter?

SEAWRIGHT: And that has always been led by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, inserting himself in these primaries. And as a result, when it comes to competitive seats, it does not play out well. Look at Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Look at Tulsi Gabbard and others.

CORNISH: Well, let me let others jump in here because we have a bunch of things to get to, specifically who's going to run next. And to your point, why that matters. If that person is going to be more moderate or not.

Before I come to you, Terry, I'm very sorry. I think we should hear from voters and hear some of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The stakes are so high. If we don't flip the Senate, the Epstein class wins. They win.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I definitely wouldn't vote for him. So, yes, get out of the race.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The best thing we can do is look at the Democratic socialist alternative. At this point, it is pretty apparent that everyone in the Republican and Democratic field does not have the interest in the American -- of the American people in mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Check out for me there, young man saying Republicans and Democrats don't have us in mind and looking to a populist answer. And the woman at the start mentioning the Epstein class, which I think that kind of voter is out there.

DOVERE: Yes.

CORNISH: What do you hear, especially that last person who is not necessarily going to just default to Collins because Platner has problems.

TERRY SCHILLING, PRESIDENT, American PRINCIPLES PROJECT: Well, look, I've said this before. I think that elections have to be future oriented because voters are future oriented.

CORNISH: Yes.

SCHILLING: They want to know what you're going to do to help them.

Look, what was in Graham Platner's past was all very well known to the people that recruited him. And the party activists that did recruit him said that none of those things that they found, the Reddit post, the Nazi tattoo, all that stuff, none of it should keep him from the nomination.

CORNISH: Yes. They were a Democratic Party but socialists.

DOVERE: But, importantly, no, the --

CORNISH: Well, I'm sorry, can we talk about recruitment for a second?

DOVERE: Yes.

CORNISH: That means something here. Who recruited him? And is this a lesson learned for the people who are out there saying the parties aren't doing it too well. It's time for other people to step in and do recruiting.

DOVERE: The people who recruited him were people from -- who were not from Maine, for the most part. And those are the same people who are now saying that they get to decide what happens here. One of the top consultants for Platner was in Europe over the last couple days. He is now flying to Maine to help the process that they think that they are going to dictate of who gets to be Platner's replacement.

And again, I do think it's an interesting choice to say that this man, who is accused of sexual assault, now gets to put his will onto the party. SCHILLING: Can I just -- my main point was, is that all that stuff was

already well known. But what changed here, I think, is what these people are seeing on camera, where the voters are saying, we can't support him anymore. And it's not so much with the allegations. I think that just the dynamics of the race have changed. And I think what's worrisome, if I was a Democrat, what I would be worried about right now is it seems that more and more these Democratic Party primaries are no longer primaries and elections, they're just suggestion boxes. And the elites really don't like suggestions.

CORNISH: Let me talk about the suggestion, because now we have to figure out who is next. What is the process? You've got some people jockeying for position. But in the meantime, you've got them just saying basically, beat Susan Collins. We've got a couple names there. Most of them are people who hold state office or have run for state office. But here's a sample of who's talking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TROY JACKSON, FORMER MAINE SENATE PRESIDENT: Short timeline. Obviously money and all that is going to be a challenge. But I definitely think it's doable because the message, the movement is right and that's what's important.

SHENNA BELLOWS, MAINE SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it's really important that as many Democratic voters have a voice in this process when Graham Platner withdraws.

DR. NIRAV SHAH (D), FORMER MAINE GOVERNOR CANDIDATE: The stakes are incredibly high. We have an obligation, as -- in service of not just Mainers, but in service of the entire country to defeat Senator Collins this upcoming November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And working backwards, that was Dr. Nirav Shah, former Maine governor candidate, Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state, and Troy Jackson, former Maine Senate president.

For people who might have some trauma around the Biden dropping out of the race and the air quotes process that followed, there are a lot of questions. Should the party have a pop-up convention on the weekend of the 25th, which is the deadline to choose a nominee, should they have a statewide caucus, basically redo the primary election?

Antjuan, what do you think they should do?

SEAWRIGHT: I think we should follow the process.

CORNISH: There is no process.

SEAWRIGHT: Well, that's not true. There is a process in place to put a nominee into place. And I think that's what happened in 2024, regardless of how you -- how you -- whether you agree with how Kamala Harris became my party's nominee. I think we have to follow process.

CORNISH: What is the process? I'm missing something.

SEAWRIGHT: Maine has a process in place to replace a person on their ballot. I think it's like a party pick kind of situation.

DOVERE: Yes.

CORNISH: OK.

SEAWRIGHT: It's a party pick because there is a process in place. There are process in place all across the country for these emergency situations that happen.

[06:50:01]

I think we need to follow that. That's number one.

Number two, I also don't want to give Republicans a slot here in this moment because they have just as corrupt candidates, from Paxton and others who are on the ballot, but they do not govern themselves the same way when it comes to their issues and Democratic issues. And I think there's a lesson for Democrats to learn in these moments.

Look at Ken Paxton on July 4th. And now we're looking at Ken Paxton. I mean we're looking at our candidate in Maine. There's a lesson about how these things are covered and how we talk about them within the party.

DOVERE: But the lesson for some Democrats was what was going on until Monday with Platner, which is to say all of those things that are supposed to be problems we're going to say aren't problems and we should go forward here. And that is part of how the Democrats got to this place.

And it's a difference in how Democrats and Republicans operate for sure, whether it's Ken Paxton or Max Miller or there are a lot of -- or Donald Trump, there are a lot of people --

SEAWRIGHT: That's right.

DOVERE: Who are Republicans who have had a lot of accusations made against them that are pretty serious.

SCHILLING: But again, the reason that Paxton's succeeding is because he has a compelling policy agenda. He won over the voters. He had 130 --

SEAWRIGHT: Terry.

SCHILLING: Antjuan, he had $130 million in party money spent against him, and he crushed it by -- won by double digits.

SEAWRIGHT: Terry, Terry, Terry. Terry --

SCHILLING: It's about -- it's about substance. It's about policy. It's about how you're going to protect people and make their lives better, period. SEAWRIGHT: Terry, Terry, respectfully, you're going to ignore the

moral --

SCHILLING: There's no -- there's no rape allegations. There's no Nazi tattoos. There's no reckless (ph) --

SEAWRIGHT: You -- no, no, you're going to -- you're going to ignore the moral conversation around Ken Paxton?

SCHILLING: No, no. No, here's the moral --

SEAWRIGHT: You're going to ignore the moral conversation around Max Miller beating his wife in front of his kids.

SCHILLING: Here's the moral conversation. Here's the -- here's the moral conversation in a democracy.

SEAWRIGHT: You can't -- you can't come to us and say that these things --

SCHILLING: In a democracy voters get to decide.

SEAWRIGHT: Somehow or another we should ignore those things because of somehow or another some right-wing policy issues --

SCHILLING: In a democracy, voters get to choose their party leader (ph).

CORNISH: All right, I'm going to bring it back to a female victim. I want to just repeat this before we go. This is Lyndsey Fifield, who is the accuser against Graham Platner, talking about violence and abuse. And she says something that I think we should remember going forward as we're trying to decide politically, as a political class, what matters in a man's history. And she says, "the things that he does in private, in his relationships with women, the things that he has done to women, coercive, control, lying, deception, abuse, and really horrible things that we know about him," she says, "we know that you cannot be that way in private and not have it translate into how you would govern."

You guys, stay with us. We're going to come back.

Right now I want to show you live images from New York because they are actually trying to stabilize a high rise. Crews are working overnight to shore up the weakest parts of a building.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:56:45]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We talk for about 17 minutes. You know, he talked a lot about the situation with Iran. He talked a little bit about Ukraine and what's going on in Europe. I'd gotten a few text messages from him, but I hadn't spoken to him.

So, it was good to hear his voice. His voice sounded strong and sounded like he was keeping up with the news to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, Senator Mitch McConnell has been hospitalized for three weeks. Still unclear why or when he'll be released. And yet some MAGA voices demanding, quote, "proof of life." Here's an example. Laura Loomer posting, "high level source close to the White House tells me, quote, 'Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead and he's not coming back'."

Again, that is Laura Loomer on X saying that.

And then this is a former senior adviser for Kamala Harris' campaign, Mike Nellis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE NELLIS, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER FOR KAMALA HARRIS' CAMPAIGN: If Scott Jennings and Thune and everybody else could have a 20 minute phone call with Mitch McConnell, he should be able to shoot a 60 second proof of life video to show us that he's OK.

I think they know the deadline for a special election is August 3rd. If he's dead or if he's on a ventilator, if he's not able to do his job, he should resign right now. They should have a special election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, you have a lot of Senate Republicans coming out. We're going to just show some on screen, Isaac, all saying, I talked to him, I talked to him, I talked to him for 20 minutes, I talked to him for 45 minutes.

We heard -- we're hearing these pundits talk not just about his potential health, but what they think the issue is, a special election deadline.

DOVERE: Yes. Look, Audie, if you were -- hadn't been on air for three weeks and there was no answers where you had gone, probably CNN would be interested to know what was going on with you.

CORNISH: Yes, although Reddit would say thank you.

DOVERE: Same thing with -- sure. Maybe.

CORNISH: Yes.

DOVERE: I think the same would be true of me probably for you guys, too.

CORNISH: It's fine.

DOVERE: Mitch McConnell is entitled to private information about his health, but he is a public official. He is the taxpayers of Kentucky and of the federal government -- and of the country, because he's a federal employee, are entitled to know what's going on.

SEAWRIGHT: Isaac, this is the second Republican who we've had these medical mishaps, if you will, missing in action. And I just think that from the party who claims transparency and accountability, we should just know more when these situations pop up. We had a member of Congress who was missing in action for months.

DOVERE: Yes.

SEAWRIGHT: And we didn't hear anything. And we later learned depression. Now we have Senator McConnell. If this were Democrats, Republicans would be wetting their diapers about accountability and responsibility.

DOVERE: If these are -- if these are important jobs, as they are --

CORNISH: Let me --

SCHILLING: Well, it's just interesting because I am old enough to remember the Biden years where we had our secretary of defense absolutely AWOL, went out for a surgery for, I think, three weeks. We had the president of the United States obviously suffering from some type of a mental affliction and suffering, dementia (ph).

SEAWRIGHT: OK, do you have medical proof of that?

SCHILLING: Well, I saw it on TV. I saw it would my own eyes.

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: Well, hold on. Let me get -- let me bring you one other thing.

SCHILLING: But we were gaslit and told that he was at the top of his game.

CORNISH: We're going to give the last word to Lloyd Austin, who you just mentioned.

SCHILLING: Here we go.

CORNISH: Because back in 2024, he answered questions about this. And this is a great way to end the show. Here is the lesson he took away from being private about your health and not telling the public.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LLOYD AUSTIN, FORMER BIDEN SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I don't think it's news that I'm a pretty private guy. I never liked burdening others with my problems. It's just not my way.

But I've learned from this experience. Taking this kind of job means losing some of the privacy that most of us expect. The American people have a right to know if their leaders are facing health challenges that might affect their ability to perform their duties, even temporarily.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:00:08]

CORNISH: And later on, testified before Congress that there would be changes made to notify the chain of command, as well as the public. There is a way for Congress and lawmakers to deal with this. They have not chosen to.

I want to thank you guys for being here. I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and the headlines are next.