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Top Commander Visits USS Lincoln Amid Concerns Criminal Defense Attorney Jeremy Saland is Interviewed about the Duane Davis Trial; Kushner and Netanyahu Meet on Peace Plan; RNC Plans Midterm Convention. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 17, 2026 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:40]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Now, Pete Hegseth has called reports about mental health struggles on the USS Abraham Lincoln a misrepresentation. And President Trump has said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, no that ship is moving. No, they're not.

REPORTER: Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried that the mental health concerns.

TRUMP: No, no, no, not nearly long enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: And now, is the U.S. military once again brushing off concerns from military families? U.S. Central Command Chief Admiral Brad Cooper actually visited the Lincoln this weekend amid those reports about poor living conditions and bad food and mental health concerns. Now, in a statement on Sunday, Cooper wrote this, "the Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of cases related to mental health. This doesn't mean that all is perfect. Service at sea for long periods isn't for everyone. It is uniquely challenging and tough."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): I mean, not only are these conditions and the reports of the conditions heartbreaking, the response of the president, the president of United States, pisses me off. And it should piss all of us off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, group chat is back. It is starting to upset people. I won't use his language.

Sara, do you think this is reaching kind of broader saturation conversation?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: When you take a look at -- Gallup does great polling about the most trusted and prioritized institutions in the country.

[06:35:05]

The military is always the top. And then followed by, I think, small business. And so, all Americans ever hear is, are we supporting them enough? And if we're not, red flag. Everybody, I think, uniquely bipartisan issue, wants to make sure people are taken care of. So, any effort to communicate that this isn't a big deal is this just not the right communication framing. The right framing should always be -- and the first statement got it a little bit. These are issues we take super seriously. We're doing everything that we can. And then you can support it by, you know, we think that this is a business characterization, but we really want to make sure we're doing it all. I think coming out swinging, saying this isn't a problem, just is never the right message that lands with anyone.

CORNISH: Here's Bill Maher on "Real Time with Bill Maher."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL MAHER, HOST, "REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER": I've used this phrase before, but you know, Republicans, they have this patriotic immunity. Like, they can do things that are so unpatriotic and they don't seem to pay a price for it the way a Democrat would. When I hear about troops being on a ship where the toilets aren't working and there's not enough food, and they're so morose about this that at least one of them jumped off the ship, it just makes my blood boil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Tiana, what's your response to him framing it specifically as this is -- Republicans have a way of talking about these things, and this goes against that?

TIANA LOWE DOESCHER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": I mean, I -- for one thing, this is where I think Maher's issue is less with Republicans and more with Democrats who do not wrap themselves up with -- in the flag, which I think is a bad thing. I think you should wrap yourself up with the flag. This is the greatest country on earth.

Look, the official position of the administration is that, as the acting secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, said, that these war fighters have been pushed to their limit, right? They haven't broken, but this is why they're trying to relieve the ship, right? I don't think anyone's saying --

CORNISH: So, should they have just said that first? DOESCHER: I -- sure. Yes. OK. So, there's the messaging issue. But then there's the actual practical issue of the major reason why the ship is in such dire straits, why they can't get supplies is because you have Iran and their terror proxies still closing off the waterways.

CORNISH: Here is --

DOESCHER: So, in essence, it is proof of why this war needed to happen.

CORNISH: Here's what a service member, the wife of a service member who's aboard the Lincoln, has to say. Talked to Jake Tapper on Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WIFE OF SERVICE MEMBER ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It's infuriating that they're not taking accountability and not having any sort of sympathy for our service members, that they claim to scream and shout that they support when it's politically, you know, sound for them to use, support our troops, support our troops, until our troops need support. And now suddenly everyone's lying. And it's a fabrication. And it's a misrepresentation. It's infuriating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SABRINA SINGH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, you can hear the anguish in her voice. I mean, these sailors, these marines are putting their lives on the line every single day, living in close quarters, living in stacked bunk beds, you know, sharing personal space, sharing bathrooms. And I think this administration should have acknowledged that we are putting a strain on these personnel who have not had a port call in over 200 days.

CORNISH: But also, what happens when you infuriate the military spouse community?

SINGH: Correct.

JOEL RUBIN, AUTHOR, "SAVING DEMOCRATIC FOREIGN POLICY" AND "THE BRIEFING BOOK" SUBSTACK AND FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: So --

CORNISH: And she's saying straight up, don't gaslight us on this thing and don't tell us we're liars.

SINGH: Correct.

RUBIN: Don't gaslight them. Don't tell the military family community that what they are hearing from their family members on the ship is not true. And the last I checked, the secretary of defense, the president, he's been commander in chief for over a year and a half. This is on his plate. It's his planning that is now leading to this outcome. And he's not taking responsibility for it.

SINGH: I also just don't think people have a good grasp of how much these -- like, when you continue to extend an aircraft carrier, how much that sets back maintenance timelines and how much stress that actually puts on the force. I mean there are --

CORNISH: Meaning there's a domino effect for other aspects.

SINGH: There's a complete domino effect. Absolutely.

CORNISH: All right, Sabrina, thank you so much.

SINGH: Yes.

CORNISH: I know you'll be back as we're following this story.

Next on CNN, we're talking about this, the Republican National Committee planning its first midterm convention. They're calling it Trump a palooza. We're going to talk about why Republicans are going all in on President Trump in this way.

Plus, this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you have anything to do with the murder of Tupac Shakur?

DUANE "KEFFE D" DAVIS: No, ma'am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, Duane "Keffe D" Davis still speaking, this time from behind bars, ahead of his trial. Talking about allegations of his role in the killing of Tupac Shakur.

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[06:43:44]

CORNISH: All right, so in just a few hours, you're going to hear opening statements in a trial 30 years in the making. It's the first time anybody's faced charges for the murder of Tupac Shakur. Duane "Keffe D" Davis is accused of orchestrating the shooting, which killed the rap icon in Las Vegas. This was all the way back in 1996. Shakur, of course, was killed in a drive-by shooting after a Mike Tyson fight. A car pulled up beside Tupac's and opened fire, killing him and injuring record executive Suge Knight.

Now, Davis admitted to being part of it in a book in 2019, and he added this, quote, "Tupac made an erratic move and began to reach down beneath his seat." He went on to write, "one of my guys from the back seat grabbed the Glock and started bustin' back."

In a jailhouse interview just days before the trial, Davis says he made that all up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you have anything to do with the murder of Tupac Shakur?

DUANE "KEFFE D" DAVIS: No, ma'am. No, ma'am. I wasn't even in Nevada. I wasn't in Nevada, period.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you regret the book and the interview?

DAVIS: Yes. I was just after the money, and they said I was covered. I did it for the money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now is Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor.

Thank you so much for being here.

[06:45:02]

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR AND CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Thank you.

CORNISH: You were saying, I was looking at our notes here, that this is a case where they have a body but they don't have a shooter, they don't have a gun, they don't have a cooperative informant. What they do have is a defendant and his own words. Is there any reason for him to take the stand?

SALAND: Yes, it's a great question because the jury is going to be instructed that they can't draw a conclusion in adverse one if he doesn't. But at the same time, they're going to hear his words. He's testifying without actually testifying. And how are you going to assess the credibility of what he said and whether now it's not truthful or then it wasn't truthful? You know, you got to have to hear from somebody. And if there's no witness who can corroborate one way or another, where's that evidence going to come from? It's going to be a difficult tightrope to walk, but he's got to be the guy, in all likelihood, to walk it back.

CORNISH: Other people that we are keeping an eye out for was Suge Knight. There's -- among the list of potential witnesses. Of course he was in the car with Tupac the night he was killed, and yet he told ABC News, "this trial has nothing to do with me and if somebody brings me there, it's gonna hurt whoever brings me there. I promise you that."

SALAND: Yes, it's going to be very interesting because how do you get a non-compliant witness to come in and testify? You can subpoena that person. All right. How much is that going to work on him? You can do a witness order that demands or requires a material witness to come in and testify. And if you don't, maybe you get incarcerated, you get sent (ph) in. But that's not going to impact him. He's already in trouble with the law. He's already behind bars. So, it's going to be very difficult. And he's a loose cannon. You don't know what he's going to say. So, it's not as if you can prep him the way you would a normal witness, even if he's willing to say something. And so there are a lot of red flags for both the defense and the prosecution. CORNISH: All right, we've talked legal stuff, legal code. Can I ask

you street code? So, this is a very strange thing to me where this guy is in this book saying all kinds of stuff, OK, running his mouth, because he also thought he could, right? He had already been in a situation with law enforcement where he thought he had some kind of immunity.

SALAND: Right.

CORNISH: But it feels weird that now, can you go on the stand and tell the streets, I was lying, that was all B.S.? Like, I don't actually understand what the defense plan is here.

SALAND: Yes. I mean, you know, there's a guy who says he's a gang leader. I mean he's built his life on being this bad, tough character and this bad guy, and now he's going to walk it back. I mean that causes some issues for him personally in terms of the code of the street. But it also causes interesting issues for him in that courtroom.

I, you know, I think he's going to find himself in a very precarious situation. And it's a little bit stacked against him. You know, you made this money off of this book, you made these statements, and now you're saying it's not true? Are these admissions lies? Where is your credibility? He's got problems in the streets. He's got problems in that courtroom. It's not a place that anyone wants to find himself in. He sees that writing on the wall, no doubt.

CORNISH: OK, Jeremy Saland, I hope we have you back as this case goes on. Really appreciate it.

SALAND: My pleasure.

CORNISH: And CNN is going to take you inside that Las Vegas courtroom for every moment of the trial once opening statements begin. And we've got Laura Coates anchoring "The Tupac Murder Trial." That starts at noon Eastern today on CNN. I hope you will watch.

And a crucial meeting is happening right now in Israel. President Trump's son-in-law and top negotiator is hoping to salvage the peace plan over Gaza. So, Jared Kushner sat down with Hamas leaders on Sunday. It was a rare face-to-face meeting. The goal, assurances that Hamas will disarm. And sources telling "Axios" that, quote, "Kushner told them there is no room for negotiations on the disarmament, but if they show real steps the U.S. will do its best to make sure Israel takes steps of its own."

Kushner is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Getting them to agree will be difficult. This was Netanyahu just last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator): Israel rejects the 15-point plan. I heard that there were those who said, you didn't say it. But we did say it. And here I am saying it again. Israel rejects the 15-point plan. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until the dismantling of Hamas and its weapons. And when I say dismantling Hamas and its weapons, that means heavy weaponry, less heavy weaponry and smaller arms. All weaponry. We're talking about a true dismantling, not a fictitious dismantling.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, group chat is back.

I wanted to talk about this for a couple reasons. First, Kushner is not a formal government employee. And Hamas is a group we did not use to deal with directly as they were deemed a terrorist group. What do you think is remarkable about this face-to-face meeting?

RUBIN: I got to tell you, Audie, it is a real stunner. It is shuttle diplomacy of a -- of a nature. But it's also a political move by the president. Basically, Bibi Netanyahu is walking in between Itamar Ben- Gvir on his far right, and Donald Trump, the person he needs an endorsement from to stay in office in the elections on October 27th.

[06:50:08]

And so, for Kushner, this is a new Hamas leader. He's been around for a few weeks. He was deputy before. Who knows how long he'll be around going forward. But this --

CORNISH: Right. And you mentioned Ben-Gvir, like someone who has talked about taking --

RUBIN: And Ben-Gvir said, let's --

CORNISH: Yes.

RUBIN: Let's kill dozens of people every day, right? So, a very hard right position for Netanyahu. He needs Ben-Gvir, however, to win prime minister next time. So, Kushner is going to really lean in to try -- to Bibi here.

CORNISH: I also don't understand what the leverage is.

RUBIN: Yes.

CORNISH: Meaning, I don't understand the leverage the U.S. has to make Hamas disarm, one. And I don't know the leverage they have to make Israel back off. Right now Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu said that we're 60 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip. He -- they are also in the middle of building a berm, like a multi-length kind of earthen wall in between. I don't know what Kushner is supposed to be doing here.

FISCHER: So, I think a huge challenge is that Bibi has, in the past, caught Trump off guard, frustrated Donald Trump with military actions that he's taken. And so, this is a very clear example of the fact that Kushner is not going in with the U.S. and Israel in lockstep, trying to convince Hamas on this 15-point plan. He's actually going into both right now, trying to convince both on the 15-point plan that's within the best interest of the United States. And I don't think he has, quite frankly, Audie, to your point, leverage on either side.

CORNISH: Right.

FISCHER: That is unusual. Typically, you know, I'd look at the conflict over the past few years at this point, it's more so been the U.S. and Israel in lockstep trying to go to Hamas and figure something out. That's not necessarily where we're at here.

CORNISH: Yes. And we should say the president has his Board of Peace, right? He is -- and he has Kushner. He has a whole other way, diplomatically, of approaching these things.

RUBIN: Yes.

CORNISH: I'm just thinking about what's at stake. You know, there is roughly two million Palestinians in Gaza. I think the last detail we had from the Gaza Ministry of Health, they reported 73,000 killed since the war started. And now that we're supposed to be in a ceasefire, the question is not what happened on October 7th, it's, how is this administration trying to close it off? And what do you think about how they're doing?

DOESCHER: I mean it's sort of a poor way to repay an ally that's been flying Sorties with us in Iran, right? The fact that these are very strategic leaks. The fact that Kushner has chosen --

CORNISH: Oh, you said leaks.

DOESCHER: These are incredibly strategic leaks.

ROGIN: Yes, they are.

CORNISH: Ah, OK.

DOESCHER: You know, these are -- this is messaging from the White House that Hamas quite literally is coming first before, you know, Kushner's meeting with Netanyahu. I think one of the issues here is that that Peace Board, the Israelis don't want to have to cower to what the Egyptians, the Qataris and the Turks want, right? They --

CORNISH: So, why did he make the Peace Board? There were other ways to do this.

DOESCHER: Were there, though? I mean, this is the issue.

ROGIN: Well --

DOESCHER: If you want to end this diplomatically, and it's not just the total, you know, military extermination of Hamas, this is -- you know, I understand the White House's attempt, right? Joe Biden tried and failed for over a year to get this over (ph).

CORNISH: Every president has tried and failed. Yes.

ROGIN: Well, I do think, and to add on to this, I think the Peace Board is a mechanism, like many other mechanisms, and it's only as good as the leader's willingness to invest in it.

Right now it's just a forum for discussion. To your question about leverage, it's going to require these countries to actually lean in on Hamas. That would be nice if the Qataris and the Egyptians and the Turks told Hamas to disarm, and really gave Kushner that package. Right now they're just complaining. It's a lot of words. If they were to put pressure on Hamas to disarm, that's why it was created nine months ago. That's what ended the fighting.

CORNISH: Yes, but you also have Saudi Arabia and UAE saying on Sunday --

ROGIN: Yes.

CORNISH: That Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza. I bring that on, not because we're surprised that they'd say that --

ROGIN: Yes.

CORNISH: But because we're literally in the minute of -- in the moment of saying, hey, Saudi Arabia, maybe you should be able to have a nuclear program. Like, there are points of leverage. And I don't really understand how I'm seeing it play out in regional allies commentary.

FISCHER: Well, I think one key distinction here is that the regional allies have never wanted to come out in defense of Gaza, in defense of Hamas. Like they've never actually really cared about supporting Hamas. So, that's actually not a really great leverage point for them. I think Saudi is a great leverage point on Israel, because, remember, we're trying to create sort of a three-way peace --

CORNISH: Abraham Accords. Yes.

DOESCHER: Yes.

FISCHER: You know, agreement between the three countries.

But Saudi Arabia also knows that getting very heavily involved in this is not within their incentive structure either, right? They have no reason to want to do that.

I think one of the weakest parties right now actually is the United States because Donald Trump clearly wants to be acting like he is the peace broker in this deal. But if you take a look at the position that Jared Kushner is in again, he doesn't really have leverage over either party on either side. It's not the best position to be in.

CORNISH: OK, I want to talk about this more in this way because we've just talked about the president and having to deal with this peace plan, right? He wanted to end wars. We talked about the USS Lincoln and what's going on with the Iran War. And now Republicans, they have to go out and campaign on all of this, right?

[06:55:03] So, the Republican National Committee has decided that they are going to have a first ever midterm convention. It's going to take place next month in Dallas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE GRUTERS, CHAIR, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: We're going to put Trump front and center of this convention. It's going to be a Trump-a- Palooza. It's going to be an amazing opportunity for us to basically go out there and tell the American people all the great things what -- that this president has done and all the great things that we're going to continue to do over the final two years of this administration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, as a reporter, conventions are both irritating and necessary because what they do is they bring all the attention, all the voices in one place so that they can come out with a unified message. What message do they have right now when it comes to Trump?

DOESCHER: I mean, the main message should be, we inherited a disaster, we inherited an administration that let Russia invade Ukraine, that let Hamas perpetrate October 7th. We -- that had a almost double digit inflation rate. And we're making progress on fixing it. Not job finished, right?

CORNISH: Right. Right.

DOESCHER: We all know inflation is not back to that two percent target. You know, we're -- Russia-Ukraine is still going on. We are still, as we were discussing, trying to wrap up, you know, ending the threat of Hamas. But --

CORNISH: Yes. And here's his approval ratings right now, just to show what the uphill is for them.

ROGIN: Oh, it's up hill.

CORNISH: Right now his disapproval rating is at 63 percent. That's a poll of polls, all right. So, there are going to be some polls that say he's better or worse. But once it clears 60, there's no massaging you can do.

FISCHER: Well, and think in their mind, the whole thing for midterms is always about turnout. And so, what Donald Trump did successfully was he brought in some of his Trump MAGA voter base into the Republican block. I think the purpose of having this convention is to rally the Trump focused voter and try to get them into the midterms. It's a numbers game.

CORNISH: Yes, but isn't that CPAC?

DOESCHER: Of course, specifically low propensity.

CORNISH: Isn't that TPUSA? Isn't that --

FISCHER: Well, CPAC --

CORNISH: I mean there's conventions and conventions already.

FISCHER: Yes, but you know what, they're not branded as Trump-a- Paloozzas. They're not branded, even though they kind of are, they're not branded that way. They were branded, you know, for TPUSA, that was a Charlie Kirk thing. CPAC predates Trump by so many years. So, this is Trump coming in and saying to his supporters, this is your convention specifically.

RUBIN: I mean remember the last midterm in 2018, it was the wipeout. Democrats picked up 40 seats. And so, for Republicans, they need to have their big ticket on the ticket, even though these are smaller House races. And that's where I think Trump is trying to make it the focus now (ph).

(CROSS TALK)

CORNISH: Is having it in Texas a red flag for that Senate race?

FISCHER: Well --

RUBIN: Well, yes, I mean, Ken Paxton is within one point within the margin of error. I mean this -- maybe it's a Ken Paxton rally.

FISCHER: Yes. I mean -- yes, exactly. And it wasn't like a, you know, the whole situation with John Cornyn and Trump coming in and endorsing Paxton. It's a unique place to be doing this. The one thing I want to say about 2018, overwhelmingly that was a health care issue. Like, that's why Republicans lost it. And so --

RUBIN: Yes. And this is the economy this time.

FISCHER: This is -- yes, but it's not a health care issue, by the way. Remember, we thought a few --

RUBIN: It's true.

FISCHER: A year ago that this was going to be the health care midterms.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: So, they successfully turned that around, which was, you know, a blessing for them. But what is the issue going to be here? It is going to be the economy.

CORNISH: Or it's going to be Democratic socialism is bad.

OK, I want to talk about what's in your group chat because we -- mine is going to be Tupac trial, I know that for sure.

Joel, what about you?

RUBIN: Oh, God. Jewish politics every day. There are now five Democrats who are Jewish who may be considering running for president. Who's it going to be, Shapiro or Pritzker or Ossoff or Slotkin? I think I'm forgetting one more. I apologize, Rahm. So, that -- everybody's debating it.

CORNISH: The man went to Israel and you have him last.

RUBIN: Well, I mean, look, we're in a real fight inside the Democratic Party on Jewish issues, without a doubt.

CORNISH: Yes.

RUBIN: And so there's an interesting counter, which is that there are a lot of Jewish Democrats running for president.

CORNISH: Yes, that's a good thing. It means they're going to come in and try and lead the discussion in some ways, at least.

RUBIN: Hopefully.

CORNISH: Yes. OK.

DOESCHER: Sort of two issues. One, we're about to hit the $40 trillion threshold for the national debt, right? And it looks like the bond market might finally force the hand of the bipartisan consensus in Washington, which is, we don't touch entitlements. Which, if you study the numbers and you're, you know, a spoil sport like I am, you know, that you have to touch entitlements otherwise they're going to break the debt market.

CORNISH: Yes.

DOESCHER: That's one thing.

The other thing, you know, this Lindsay Clancy trial, I don't know if this is a heterodox take, but --

CORNISH: This is the woman in Massachusetts who's on trial for killing her children.

DOESCHER: Yes. You know, I -- it bothers me, as a brand-new mom, I have a three-month-old, how much people are trying to make this Andrea Yates. People are trying to blame men, husbands, the patriarchy, the health care system, when this is not the Andrea Yates case.

CORNISH: And to be clear, her trial, and what they're saying in court, they're actually raising questions about postpartum psychosis.

DOESCHER: Yes. And clearly -- and, look, I think she could have been a legitimate victim of postpartum psychosis. The prosecution probably overcharged based in Massachusetts law. But is that the same thing as saying this happened because she wasn't getting enough support because its' the doctors fault? Don't love that. Don't love that.

FISCHER: Yes. That's a really interesting one. Huge blowing up in my group chats as well, that trial.

CORNISH: Yes. FISCHER: My group chat is talking a lot about the whole influencer cliff that is coming for the online set.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: I think a lot about Alex Cooper dropping her Unwell branded drink.

[07:00:03]

A lot of my friends are really frustrated about that. Influencers are going through a reckoning right now as platforms prioritize engagement over mass reach.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: So, you know, ours is a little bit lighter, but relevant nonetheless.

CORNISH: No, no, but influencers are big in driving a conversation like this. And if they are, a, replaced by A.I., or, b, disrupted by algorithmic shifts by the distribution of these platforms, I can see how that could be scary for a lot of people.

You guys, thank you for being here. Headlines are next.