Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Harris And Trump Campaign In Battleground Pennsylvania Tonight, Trump Campaign Seizes On Bill Clinton's Laken Riley Comments As Indictment Of Harris' Handling Of Immigration; Visiting A Georgia County Where 90 percent Of Votes Go Republican; Visiting A Georgia County Where 90 Percent Of Votes Go Republican; U.S. To Deploy About 100 Troops To Operate Advanced Anti-Missile System In Israel; Parents Of Murdered Israeli-American Hostage Speak With 360 For The First Time Since His Death. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired October 14, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Iran's foreign minister warning the U.S. against deploying missile interceptor systems to Israel and the threat of a major regional war.
(ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER speaking in foreign language.)
PLEITGEN: "We're prepared for any kind of circumstances." He said, "We're ready for war, but we're also ready for peace. This is the definitive stance of the Islamic Republic."
A stance they want to show that also involves mobilizing resources from Iran's population.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Incredible reporting there from Fred. And thanks so much to all of you for joining us. AC360 starts now.
[20:00:36]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, with the election just three weeks from tomorrow, Vice President Harris is speaking right now, expected shortly to call out the former president's focus on what he calls "the enemy within" meaning Americans and his promise to use troops to deal with them.
Also tonight, Bill Clinton weighs in on a notorious murder for during the undocumented immigrant accused of it putting the Harris campaign on the defensive.
And later, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old Israeli-American hostage, murdered a month-and-a-half ago by Hamas, speak out.
Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with breaking news. Both candidates campaigning the evening in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump near Philadelphia, Vice President Harris across the Commonwealth in Erie speaking right now and expected any moment to speak out against what Donald Trump has been saying louder and louder as election day gets closer about Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's the enemy from within, all those scum that we have to deal with that hate our country, that's a bigger enemy than China and Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's the former president talking on Friday to be perfectly clear about Americans. And, over the weekend, he spoke openly about how he might deal with such people. This was how he answered when asked about outside threats to 2024 election, he quickly changed the subject to Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics and I think -- it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or if really necessary by the military.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Again, he was asked about foreign threats to the election. His answer was about potentially turning active duty troops on Americans, something his running mate was asked about today and here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JD VANCE (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Is it justifiable use of those assets if they're rioting and looting and burning cities down to the ground? Of course it is, right? I think the question is, is it a justifiable use of assets depends on what's actually happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So for perspective, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, the last time active duty troops were deployed on US soil was during the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. What the former president seems to be talking about is using troops against people protesting his election. He also used military shtick language about non-existent gang invasions of Colorado.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered. These counties have been conquered. Explain that to your governor, he doesn't have a clue. They've been conquered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Both Colorado's Democratic governor and Aurora's Republican mayor called the invasion talk nonsense. Perhaps his comments will be dismissed by some as hyperbole, but they come on the eve of the publication of Bob Woodward's new book, in which the former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who served during the Trump administration, described Trump as "a fascist to the core" to which Woodward writes, "I will never forget the intensity of his worry."
Joining us now CNN political commentators Van Jones and David Urban; also, POLITICO's Meridith McGraw. So, Van do you think it's an effective strategy for Harris to be focusing on these remarks from the former president?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's an important strategy because I do think that the stakes are getting higher and higher. You're seeing Donald Trump be increasingly disinhibited, I mean, he's always been kind of out there a little bit rough, but increasingly he is talking about using violence against Americans in pursuit of his agenda and defense of his agenda.
It's not hard to say that you don't want Russia and China messing up our elections. Somebody asked you that question. That's an opportunity to stick up for America on the world stage and instead, he says he wants to hurt Americans.
This is troubling. This is not, I don't think -- I think Harris would be wrong if she didn't point out that for the first time we have a candidate running for office who seems to be more interested in using America's military against Americans, than he gets foreign threats.
COOPER: David, I mean, do you really believe that the "threat from within" of radical the leftists is much greater than the threat of China and Russia?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, so, Anderson, , let's just be fair, and Van to be fair, the president, what I believe, he was responding to a question posed by the host saying, if there was violence after the election, what would you do? And Trump responded the National Guard can take care of it and in extreme cases, the military could.
So to put it in context, let's just be fair. That was -- there's context to these questions. So, it's not like he's out there saying that, I'm going to unleash the military on Van Jones, we're going to come knock on your door and lock you up. It's not just what he said and then --
[20:05:11]
JONES: Not yet.
URBAN:-- ...you take that even to -- take it one step further, do you remember in 2016 the chants of "lock her up" and Trump from the podiums says he's going to put Hillary Clinton in jail. And, Anderson, to your point hyperbole? Yes. Hillary Clinton was not persecuted, prosecuted. There was no trial, unlike the trial and the persecution that took place of Donald Trump in the fake Russia collusion hoax that was perpetrated by the DNC after that election.
COOPER: All right, by the way, I think Harris is now talking about this. Let's just play this.
KAMALA HARRIS (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So you heard his words, you heard his words coming from him. He's talking about the enemy within Pennsylvania. He's talking about the enemy within our country, Pennsylvania. He's talking about that he considers anyone who doesn't support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country.
(BOOING)
HARRIS: It's a serious issue he is saying -- he is saying that he would use the military to go after them. Think about this and we know who he would target. And we know who he would target because he has attacked them before -- journalists whose stories he doesn't like, election officials who refuse to cheat by filling extra votes and finding extra votes for him, judges who insist on following the law instead of bending to his will.
This is among the reasons I believe so strongly that a second Trump term would be a huge risk for America and dangerous.
COOPER: So, that's Harris speaking live about this very topic. Meridith, what do you make of her -- the way she is talking about.
MERIDITH MCGRAW, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Well, here we are just weeks away from November 5th and the election and Donald Trump has given the Harris campaign fresh fodder to talk about in the closing weeks at a moment when he has continued to have an edge on the economy and polling, he has repeated now this "enemies from within" phrase at Aurora and California in his interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox. You know, he's even talked about how one of those enemies from within is California Congressman Adam Schiff.
And at a time when the campaigns are making closing arguments, he gave them sort of a political gift here with bringing up this phrase repeatedly and allowing the Harris campaign to plow ahead. I heard that the campaign is planning to cut that into a new ad that's featuring former Trump administration officials talking about the threat that Donald Trump poses. And so, him bringing this up is giving them a political gift right now.
COOPER: Van, I mean, David is saying, look, this is about what he's saying is if there's violence after an election, the National Guard can be called in that that's, you know, that's not unusual.
JONES: Well --
URBAN: That was the context.
JONES: First of all, though, only violence after election that we saw was the January insurrection that he egged on.
Look, people can kind of keep whistling past the graveyard, that sort of stuff. You're having military officials who have worked with this president coming out in a way I've never seen.
Usually, America's military stays out of this stuff. You have generals and former military people saying, this guy is dangerous, it's not just Kamala Harris, who's running for office and maybe we say, well, maybe she's just trying to make political hay. You have people who have no reason to say anything, who get nothing out of this, waving their arms, jumping up and down, saying I worked with this guy and I think that he's dangerous.
When you have General Milley saying he is a fascist to the core, he's not a Democrat, he's not at the Kamala Harris campaign. He's not from the ACLU. This is one of the toughest, roughest generals we've ever had who's terrified at Donald Trump and Donald Trump is throwing fuel on the fire.
COOPER: David, do you put much credence in a General Milley and General Kelly? I mean, I know you're a West Pointer.
URBAN: Yes, look, I have a great deal of admiration for -- Mark Milley's a good friend of mine. General Kelly -- I have a great deal of admiration for all of these men and for different reasons, they have their opinions and they are entitled to their opinions. I don't share those opinions and I know there are lots of other people in uniform who served with the president, other general for officers who served with him and served closely with him that don't share that opinion and are standing with him right now.
So, the amazing about America is everyone's entitled to their opinion and everyone's entitled to their vote on Election Day. So, you know, Mark Milley and I see each other, we have this debate in real life and real time, Van, and we don't agree about it and we're still friends just like you and I are, amazing.
[20:10:26]
COOPER: Meridith, the former president's rhetoric, I mean, it doesn't seem to be hurting him in the polls, certainly, in this election remains obviously is essentially tied. That's got to concern the Harris campaign.
MCGRAW: Well, we know that this election is going to be won on the margins here. The polling could not be tighter and we've seen in recent days how the Harris campaign is deploying former President Clinton, former President Barack Obama to try to gin up some support among the Black male voters, that they've seen some of the polling has eroded.
But look, it's going to be incredibly close, really tight, and both campaigns are really trying to chip away at really narrow margins of support here.
COOPER: Van, why do you think that support has chipped away? JONES: Well, look, I think that African-American men are hurting and uncertain like a lot of folks in the country and I think have a particular set of concerns that haven't been addressed.
Now, I always try to point out that the vast, overwhelming majority of Black men and above 80 percent are going to vote for Kamala Harris, these are like almost like North Korea level numbers now. So, she has massive support from African-Americans just less than before.
And I'm actually pretty proud of African-American men from saying we want to hear more specifics. We don't want to just vote for her because she's Black. We don't want to vote for it because she's a woman. We want to vote for her because she's going help us feed our families. She's going to make America strong in a way that makes our community strong and she responded to that, and I think that's great, that she actually responded to those concerns. And I think you're going to see people begin to move back in the Democratic Party direction.
But African-American men have real problems. And just like everybody else, we should be able to save those problems that have both parties contend and compete for our support. And I think that it's healthy and I'm glad it's happening. I'm glad she responded properly.
Van Jones, David Urban, Meridith McGraw, appreciate it.
Coming up next, former President Bill Clinton hitting the trail for Harris campaign. Question is, did he just score points for the Trump campaign?
Later, CNN's Elle Reeve talking to voters on what could be one of the most pro-Trump counties in all of the battleground states.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:16:56]
COOPER: Former President Clinton campaigned for Vice President Harris over the weekend. He also weighed in on a murder case that the Trump side has made a large issue of which here's what he said about Laken Riley's murder allegedly by an undocumented man from Venezuela.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON (D) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He had a case of Georgia not pretty long ago, killed by -- yes, well if they know them probably that probably wouldn't have happened. But if they are all properly vetted, then that doesn't happen. And America is not having enough babies to keep our population. So we need immigrants that have been vetted to do work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The Trump campaign was quick to cast the comments as an indictment of vice president's handling the border issues. The Harris campaign pointing to the Bipartisan Border Bill, the former president blocked, former President Trump, that is, but that was after Laken Riley's alleged killer entered the United States.
Joining us now is former California Republican Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado; also, Republicans strategist and Harris supporter, Ana Navarro.
Ana, I mean, is Bill Clinton, rusty out there on the campaign trail? Was this an error?
ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, I kind of think you can take anything anybody says, even people as eloquent as Barack Obama, as eloquent as Bill Clinton, take it out of context and make it into a gotcha moment.
I had seen the entire clip of what he had said and he spent the time before this talking about the border bill that did not pass and the point he was making is, if we don't want Laken Rileys to happen again, we need to pass comprehensive border bill. We need to have an immigration bill that provides more agents, that provides more jurisdiction, that provides patrols --
COOPER: --more judges for actually vetting people.
NAVARRO: -- more judges for vetting people.
COOPER: That's the point he was making.
NAVARRO: But listen, anytime you have the big dog, Bill Clinton out in rural areas, he is great at that. One of the things he said was, I asked the Harris campaign to send me he to the country. I know where I belong. I know where my people are. He is great for voter turnout.
COOPER: Abel, do you think he is?
ABEL MALDONADO, FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR FOR CALIFORNIA: I think he's a little rusty to be very sincere with you. I think -- we did have vetting at the border. President Trump's last year in office, border crossings were way down --
COOPER: But in terms of vetting, I mean, you know, I mean, everybody agrees there are not enough judges doing these asylum claims and what it's like a seven-year wait under the Trump administration, it's like a seven-year wait. That's ridiculous.
MALDONADO: No, but we need to remember too, Anderson, that when President Biden came in and Kamala Harris came in the very first hundred days, they signed a lot of executive orders, a lot of them on immigration which caused catch-and-release, eliminated remain-in- Mexico policy.
So, what happened was people started crushing the border, Anderson and they just sit on the ground. They'd wait for a Border Patrol agent to pick them up and then they'd go to the processing 72-hour processing fee in our time and then they go back. They were sent somewhere in our country, waiting for a court date. So, there was zero vetting.
COOPER: You're right, which won't occur for years because the system is so backlogged which again, I mean, the Harris campaign is pointing out is, you need an actual border bill that gets more judges, that actually narrows the window of vetting from seven years to just hours a day.
[20:20:19]
MALDONADO: Anderson, though the border was secure, Anderson. So, when they say they need a border --
NAVARRO: No, it wasn't, Abel. I mean, the border numbers were not --
MALDONADO: -- Ana, when they say they need --
NAVARRO: -- you know, a panacea under Trump, listen, if we want to talk real facts --
MALDONADO: Let's talk real.
NAVARRO: We've had issues under, practically every president in our lifetime.
MALDONADO: No doubt.
NAVARRO: And we need comprehensive immigration reform. If we're going to address this in a way, we need bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform which was what this bill was.
And let me tell you about, okay Bill Clinton may not be the Bill Clinton of 20 years ago, but you know what Kamala Harris has every able Democratic former president out there for her, Donald Trump doesn't even have his wife next to him.
Donald Trump has no former president because they all don't like him, not even the former nominee, Mitt Romney, not George W. Bush, not you know, any of the Republican leaders that you supported and I supported are out there with Donald Trump.
MALDONADO: Ana, the party has --
NAVARRO: So, I'll take rusty over nothing any day of the week.
MALDONADO: The party completely changed. This is Donald J. Trump's party. There's no doubt about it.
NAVARRO: I absolutely agree with you.
MALDONADO: And the people are supporting him in huge numbers, Latinos, I mean, did you ever think that 44 percent of Latinos are supporting Donald J. Trump? That was going on today. African-American community supporting Donald J., why? Because his policies worked and they lived under his policies, Ana. They lived under his policies. And now, today, --
NAVARRO: Oh, Abel, Abel, okay, Abel --
MALDONADO: Today, the Latino community is being choked by inflation. COOPER: Let's look at the poll that the numbers you're talking about the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, likely Latino voters, Harris at 56 percent, Trump at 37 percent, which is a much lower margin for a Democratic nominee that they've had over the past three elections.
NAVARRO: Look, I think there's a lot of things going on. One of the things that I found really interesting about that poll also, was that the majority of Latinos think that when Donald Trump is making anti- immigrant remarks and when he's making, you know, talking with racial slurs and the things he says that we all have heard him say, they think it doesn't apply to them.
And I -- I have a really hard time understanding that because I, you know, when the shooter showed up at a Walmart in El Paso and shot 22 people and then there were another 22 victims. He didn't stop to ask the people if they were legal or if they were undocumented. He just shot people because they look like Latinos and he went to El Paso because it was where Latinos went and he was hunting down Latinos inspired by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
And so, to me, it boggles the mind that somebody who looks like you, who looks like me, who sounds like you, who sounds like me think that when he is making anti-immigrant racial offenses, it doesn't apply.
COOPER: Abel, I want to give you the last thought.
MALDONADO: I think, Anderson, when President Trump is talking, he's talking about criminal folks that are being sent to our country were not -- he's not talking about Latinos that are coming here to work hard. There's a process to come here to work hard.
NAVARRO: Do you think that a racist is going to ask you for your immigration papers? Do you think a racist is going to ask you for your immigration papers?
MALDONADO: Ana, it is not a -- Latinos believe and they know that President Trump is not a racist, he's a business owner. He is a businessman.
NAVARRO: Oh really that's why he got investigated by DOJ for not renting --
MALDONADO: I'm on a Trump 47 bus. I'm a Latino. He has me on that bus.
NAVARRO: That means you're okay with racism, it doesn't mean he's not racist.
MALDONADO: Ana, Absolutely not.
COOPER: We're going to leave it there, Ana Navarro, thank you. Abel Maldonado, appreciate it as well.
Coming up next, talking politics in what may be the most pro-Trump county in all the 2024 swing states, we'll take you there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:28:14]
COOPER: Welcome back. CNN's Elle Reeve travels all over the country and is known for engaging people in conversations about their politics and beliefs and how they see our world.
Tonight, she takes us to rural Southeast Georgia to what may be the most pro-Trump county in all of this year's battleground states.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHY HENDRIX, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: Miss Barbara, I promise you this not a trick question. Where are you at? Gosh, all right. I have the CNN reporters here and they want to talk to a Democrat. I'm serious as a heart attack, who's here in town that would talk to them? That's sad when you have to hunt a Democrat.
ELLE REEVE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It's hard to find an open Democrat in Brantley County, Georgia, where Trump won more than 90 percent of votes in 2020. Of all the counties in all the 2024 swing states, it is the most pro-Trump and we wanted to know why.
RONALD HAM, BRANTLEY COUNTY GOP CHAIR: We vote 92 percent Republican not because there is anything wrong with what the man does. Okay, let's get that on the board. This ain't about me.
We're a small rural county. Lot of folks here live paycheck to paycheck and when there is too much month at the end of the money, people vote with their wallet.
At one point in time, the Democratic Party was for the working man and the Republican Party was for all the elites and somewhere that got switched around.
HENDRIX: This is some of that stuff --
Everybody here calls him President Trump. As far as the people around here is concerned, he's still the president.
REEVE (voice over): Democrats didn't used to be rare here. Almost everyone we spoke to said their grandfather had been one, but those days are gone.
HENDRIX: Numbers do not lie. Watching people five and six years ago, they had successful businesses. They were thriving, they were doing well. Every time somebody comes, it is like, okay, then we'll have to close. It honestly hurts.
REEVE (voice over): Hendrix got a heat press to make custom t-shirts and it turned out that one kind of design really helps pay the bills.
HENDRIX: I've learned how to put it on my computer and kind of change things. As long as it can still sell Donald Trump stuff, we're doing good. They're just $5. REEVE (voice-over): One of her customers was Sherri Rowell. We met her while she was buying a Trump sign, and she said we could come see her put it up. Her grandson Talan died in an accident this summer, before he could vote in his first election.
[20:30:23]
SHERRI ROWELL, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: He did loving some Trump. Couldn't wait to get 18 so he could vote. Yes. He wouldn't vote for Trump.
MICHAEL TANNER, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: He had just got his first job and he was like, I make, you know, $9 an hour and I work this many hours. Why do I only make this much money? And I told him, I said, son, it's politics. You got to pay taxes.
Talan became really intrigued with it and started doing some more research and he said, you know, dad, looking at what me and you talked about, we need Donald Trump in office. And he just became a huge Trump supporter.
REEVE (voice-over): His parents said he would want people to know he was for Trump, and so they put the sign up because he's not here to say it himself.
ROWELL: Things changed pretty fast when we went from, you know, Trump to Biden. Even they could see the difference.
REEVE: Even the kids?
ROWELL: Yes. I could take you to the Piggly Wiggly (ph) and they, hon, you just look at the prices. I don't know where you all come from, but compared to what we've had four years ago, it's triple.
REEVE: There's some statistics that show that younger women are more likely to be for Harris. Do you see any evidence of that here in this county?
ROWELL: I don't really in this county, but I do know some younger females that are very much a Harris person. And I'm, I mean, I'm not against her. If I thought she was going to do different than what was already in there, you know what I'm saying? Like, she should have come out and run an independent that I might have listened to her a little more.
REEVE (voice-over): Ron Ham invited us to breakfast the next day at a diner where regulars talk politics.
BUTTON LEE, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: When Biden claims that he had more jobs and created more jobs, that's only because of corona, because everything shut down. That was not Trump's fault.
REEVE: Now the jobs report numbers weren't really good for September. That just came out this week.
DAVID HERRIN, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: The American people -- LEE: Right, right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the whole government issued numbers.
HERRIN: But I don't know. You can't take that and give credit to Washington, D.C. You give credit to that, to the American people that go to work every day, even when they're down, even when it's against them, even when it's been -- when it's going uphill.
We get up and we continue to work, we continue to fight, and we've made this country better. Ain't -- nobody in Washington got a right to take credit for what the American people have done.
REEVE (voice-over): But we didn't want to leave town without hearing a different point of view. So they called some old friends to come by.
HERRIN: And showing them breakfast.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
HERRIN: Some folks up here we want to talk to you.
LEE: Tell him to hurry up, I want to go fishing.
HERRIN: Yes. He made me do it. This is a real live CNN reporter and she wants to meet a Democrat in Brantley County.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were a few of our retweets where they're looking at us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We called you and Donald both. (INAUDIBLE).
CORBERT WILSON, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: Hey, I ain't a Democrat when I'm an independent.
REEVE: OK. What are your views on the election?
WILSON: Well, I ain't going to vote for a criminal. Well, what he did in January the 6th, you know. And the way he could have did something, man, you know, they were beating on them cops down there.
HERRIN: Where's the other -- there are other Democrat.
REEVE: Hi, come join us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's a CNN reporter and she wants some Democrats in Brantley County. She can't find one. I told her I knew a couple. She said, please call, please. And she wouldn't quit until I said.
REEVE: Thank you.
WILSON: I have voted Republican, you know?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
WILSON: I vote for the man. I don't vote for the party. REEVE: So what are your thoughts on the election?
DONALD LEWIS, BRANTLEY COUNTY RESIDENT: What are my thoughts on the what?
REEVE: On the election.
LEWIS: Ain't much to think about it.
REEVE: Well, who are you going to vote for?
LEWIS: The right person.
REEVE: Well, who do you think the right person is?
LEWIS: It won't be Donald Trump.
REEVE: OK, tell me why.
LEWIS: Last time you saw him talking, did you watch his lips? Were they moving? He's lying.
REEVE: All right. Well, so Mr. Wilson here was telling us that January 6th was a big disqualifier for him.
LEWIS: It should have been.
REEVE: How do you feel about that?
LEWIS: I feel about it like he's anti-American. He's trying to overthrow our government.
REEVE: And, so are you thinking about voting for Harris?
LEWIS: Yes, I have to, or not vote.
WILSON: He's the only John Wheeler (ph) other than Trump.
REEVE: Yes.
LEWIS: It's quarterly run, I vote for him.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: And Elle Reeve joins us now. You know, what's nice is that they're all friendly and, you know, they were -- they called them, asked them to come over.
REEVE (on-camera): Oh yes, this was one of the nicest places we've ever reported from. Places where -- that have been more closely divided, have gotten yelled at, have been scolded, but everybody here was really, really nice to us.
COOPER: So what else stood out? I mean, in terms of their economic concerns, what are they?
[20:35:00]
REEVE (on-camera): Well I, of course I wanted to ask them, what did they think of the Democrats ideas for addressing the economic problems in the area? What did they think about raising taxes on rich people, something like that?
They were not impressed. They are older people. They're concerned about their kids not doing so well. They want to pass stuff down to their kids. And David Herrin, the man with the big beard, he said, he ran a trucking company. On paper, he's worth $10 million, so he didn't want his kids to have to pay high estate taxes for his assets.
COOPER: Elle Reeve, thanks so much. It's fascinating. I really appreciate it.
Up next, it's been more than a month since the Israeli military confirmed that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli American held hostage in Gaza, was murdered by Hamas. And for the first time since his murder, I'll speak to his parents, who have fought tirelessly for his release.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:11]
COOPER: At least five people were killed and 65 injured in an Israeli strike overnight on a hospital courtyard in Gaza. According to the Medical Group Doctors Without Borders, this was the seventh time this year that this hospital compound was bombed.
Over the weekend also, at least four Israeli soldiers were killed and more than 60 others injured in a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli military base. Around the same time as that attack, the U.S. military announced it is sending an advanced anti-missile system and about 100 U.S. troops to Israel to operate it.
The Pentagon says the U.S. troops will, quote, "help bolster Israel's air defenses" following Iran's unprecedented attacks. Meanwhile, it's believed that more than 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped on October 7th. I first learned about him a few days afterward, when an IDF soldier showed me this video of a young man being loaded into a pickup truck. His head had been blown off.
I didn't know it was Hersh, who's Israeli-American, until a few days later when I happened to interview his parents. At the time, they were unaware the video existed, and they didn't even know if he was alive. I called them after the interview to tell them what I'd seen and I sent them the video. Since then, I've spoken to Hersh's parents a number of times.
In April, a propaganda video was released by Hamas showing Hersh. He was -- he urged his family to stay strong and gave proof that he was alive. But at the beginning of September, the Israeli military said they recovered the bodies of six hostages who were murdered by Hamas, including Hersh's.
Earlier today, for the first time since his death, I spoke with his parents, Rachel and Jon.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Jon and Rachel, thank you so much for talking with me. It's been a month and a half since you learned the news that Hersh had been killed along with other hostages. What are the last -- what's the last month and a half been like for you?
JON POLIN, FATHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: Well, I mean, I think anybody who suffers a trauma, a loss, has some sense of kind of what we're reeling, what we're going through. I'm not trying to compare us to anybody else in trauma, but what is different here is, as you know, well, Anderson, for 330 days, we were on a global campaign to save the life of Hersh and other hostages.
We knew that they were suffering. We knew that they were being held in terrible conditions. We could talk more about that, but we were on a mission all day, every day. And we believed our own optimism. We really thought we are bringing him home. We looked forward, Anderson, to you meeting Hersh.
And to get the news on August 31st that they found six bodies, including Hersh's was just such a crushing blow. And we are still grappling with it. We are oddly blessed because there are hostage families who know that their loved ones were killed and their bodies are still being held, and they were not able to give them, at least yet, a proper respectful burial.
So we're grateful that we got Hersh's body and that we were able to give him that respect. But it's crushing to spend those days so optimistic, so hopeful, so focused to have it end like this.
COOPER: I imagine meeting him as well. And I imagine him getting on a plane on December 27th of this year, which he was supposed to do December 27th last year for a trip to India. And I imagined all of that. I'm stunned. I guess not surprised, but stunned and just so saddened for your loss and the loss of so many.
Rachel, for you, what has this been like?
RACHEL GOLDBERG, OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: Well, I think that in order to get through the 11 months before day 330, I was using so much psychological suppression in order to function. You know, there was so much trauma and terror that we were experiencing as parents of someone there, that I was shoving all of this emotion and fear and terror in, I like to think of it as, you know, suitcases and shoving those suitcases into a room and not dealing with that because we were in battle.
We were on a mission. And in order to function, I had to suppress so much.
[20:45:04] So, I don't want to look back at those 11 months. I don't want to unpack those suitcases. I also don't want to look ahead at what does life look like without Hersh in it. So I'm kind of trapped in this very immediate present. And I'm just trying to get through each day. I think we are in the first centimeter of 1 million mile journey of how do we get through the rest of our lives, yearning and missing our son.
COOPER: I was looking at the calendar. It's been -- it was October 16th last year that you and I spoke for the first time. Today's October 14th. And I really meant what I said. I really, really expected him to come home.
GOLDBERG: Yes, I do too. We did too.
POLIN: We spent so much time beyond our public campaign in our apartment with our two daughters, literally planning what it was going to be when we brought him home. What would the family look like? What would the celebration look like? What kind of tone would it have? Like, we were getting into those details.
And, you know, we've said this elsewhere, but maybe our optimism was something that drove influencers to lack urgency, you know, to feel like he's going to come home at some point, somehow. And maybe --
GOLDBERG: It was too infectious.
POLIN: -- and maybe it was too infectious. And it just -- it made them the urgency that they needed. I don't know.
GOLDBERG: I really feel blessed that I was Hersh's mom for as long as I was. And although obviously this is the first, you know, moments in this lifetime of how do you live with something that's really big and painful and not let it sort of drown you. I really -- we've really made the choice that we really would like to not just exist, but we want to live.
We want to live for our girl. And the truth is, I want to live for Hersh. I want to live the life that Hersh should have lived. And that's a life filled with, you know, love and happiness and light. And we will always have this deep, you know, sort of void. But I think that it's still possible to have that void and to be happy and choose life.
I do think that. I was talking to my daughters about it today. And we spoke to Leebie about that the other day. We said -- I said on her unholy podcast that people walked out of Auschwitz and they went on to have good lives. And some people walked out of Auschwitz and they never left Auschwitz.
POLIN: You know, we had a weird thing, Anderson, where last year, Saturday night, October 7th at midnight, I walked in from the police station where I had been dropping off DNA samples. And remember, that Saturday night, we assumed Hersh was dead. And we had the chance to sit in our room and cry and talk and say then, if he's dead, we're going to mourn, we're going to grieve. But we have to live life eventually for ourselves, for our girls, and for Hersh. And then in an eerie way, we had the exact same conversation on Sunday, September 1st, 331 days later. 330 days in between of optimism and hope.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Next, more of my conversation with the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, what they've learned about his time in captivity coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:54:08]
COOPER: Just before the break, we shared part of my conversation with Hersh Goldberg-Polin's parents about the grief they've been experiencing since learning that Hersh was murdered in a tunnel in Gaza. Here's more of our interview.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Jon, have you learned more about Hersh's time as a hostage?
POLIN: We have. So what we've learned is, at least towards the end of his captivity, and we don't know for exactly how long, Hersh and five others, Alex, Ori, Almog, Carmel, and Eden, were held in a tunnel 65 feet underground, a tunnel that was just over 2 feet wide and 5.5 feet tall.
Hersh is 6 feet tall. So he and most of the others could not stand in this tunnel. There was hardly any air, no light, no plumbing, no real floor. I mean, it was a dirt tunnel.
[20:55:07]
The six bodies were found in the tunnel that had six narrow mattresses that we can only assume that when they were able to get any sleep, they would line them up, head to toe because that's the only way they could possibly fit. And we know the conditions in which these bodies were found. The bodies were found on Saturday, August 31st.
The belief is that they were killed roughly two days earlier on Thursday, August 29th. All of them had multiple gunshot wounds and all had suffered severe weight loss. Hersh, as I said, was just about 6 feet tall, came out at 115 pounds. Eden, a 5'5 woman, 24 years old, came out at 79 pounds. And on and on and on. Similar stories across all of them.
GOLDBERG: We also know that the -- in the tunnel, they were surrounded by bottles of urine that when they had to go to the bathroom, they would go in these bottles. And so there were many, many bottles of very dark urine showing how dehydrated they were. We know that they were starving because they were all completely emaciated.
At the -- toward one end of the tunnel, they had put a plastic bucket for, you know, some sort of privacy when they had to use the bathroom, not for urine. The conditions are horrifying. And that is so much of, you know, Jon was describing some of the -- what we know about what happened to Hersh.
But we have spoken extensively to forensic experts who've sort of dissected for us the report of what happened specifically to Hersh. And it looks that, you know, his left hand had been missing since he was abducted on October 7th last year. But it seems that when he was being shot, that he had sort of put up as a defense, his both arms. So a bullet went through his right hand, through his shoulder, actually, then into his neck and then out of the side of his head.
It looks that then he would -- and supposedly he was standing crouched over because of course he couldn't stand up straight because he was too tall to stand in the 5'5 tunnel. They think that then he dropped to his knees and then he was shot with the gun on his head, the back of his head, which exited the top of his head. And he was found on his knees two days later.
And Eden Yerushalmi was resting, her head was resting kind of on his side or on his lap. And she had also been shot multiple times as had all four others.
COOPER: Rachel and Jon, is there anything else you want to say or you want people to know?
GOLDBERG: I mean, I think we just finished, we're in the part of the Jewish calendar where we just finished very somber, serious. Rosh Hashanah is judgment day. And then we have a 10-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement, which was just on Saturday.
And, you know, we have a very big idea of how does one repent when someone feels that they have done something not hitting the mark correctly. And the way that you do that in Judaism is when you find yourself in that same situation next time, do you choose to do differently?
And we've had so many people say to us that they are so sorry and they feel so bad about what happened to Hersh and these other five beautiful young people. And we have said to everyone, don't be sorry, go save the 101.
And so as people from all over the world, people of power and influence from all different countries, people in the negotiating room, people adjacent to the negotiating room, I would just beseech you, go and get these people.
COOPER: Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, thank you.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
POLIN: Thank you, Anderson.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, that's it for us. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.
