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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

The Trump Factor, Boost of Bust? Trump's Handpicked FED Chair Defies Him by Hiking Interest Rates; Interview with Rep. Lori Trahan(D-MA); Pentagon Wants Only the Fittest Troops to Attend Hegseth Speech; Speaker Johnson Sends House Home Early, Staving Off Hegseth Impeachment Vote Over Iran War; Fencing Goes Up at Kennedy Center After Board Votes to Close It; NYT Reports Contractor Blames Human Oversight for Pool Errors; Los Angeles News Chopper Crashes, Killing Three People. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired September 16, 2026 - 20:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAMARA QIBLAWI, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER (voice over): According to experts like Dr. Nawaf Obaid, one of the reasons Russia has been helping Iran, Moscow calls this fake news is because the U.S. is working with Ukraine in a similar way through intelligence sharing, to support strikes similar to these.

DR. NAWAF OBAID, SAUDI POLITICAL SCIENTIST AND SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW SPECIALIZING IN INTELLIGENCE, DEFENSE, AND MIDDLE EASTERN SECURITY AT KING'S COLLEGE LONDON: You have to see it in this way. This is Russian payback with interest. It's monumental in terms of the consequences of what this has done to not just to the U.S. standing in the region but to the security architecture of the region going forward.

QIBLAWI (voice over): Tamara Qiblawi, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Thanks so much to all of you for joining U.S. AC360 begins now.

[20:00:40]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Good evening, from the Newsroom. Tonight, just a short time ago, the President made the federal reserve board's decision to raise interest rates and make life more expensive for a lot of people. All about him, because in his mind, apparently it is.

Here he is on a campaign trip today to North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They're raising the rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: He's talking about himself in the third person there. The

"they" he is talking about is the FED and the Fed's decision was unanimous, and it was led by a Fed Chairman that the President himself picked in hopes despite rising inflation of keeping interest rates low.

Here he is explaining his thinking today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN WARSH, U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long. This summer's inflation readings do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved. We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective clearly and at sufficient speed.

Today, the FOMC decided that this standard has not been satisfied. The committees unanimous vote shows our resolve to achieve price stability on a timely basis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So again, that's his hand-picked chairman talking, telling him that inflation, which you may recall, peaked at nine percent during the Biden administration but then fell off by the end of it, is still not under control despite campaign promises from President Trump like these.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again. And your prices are going to come tumbling down. Your gasoline is going to come tumbling down, and your heating bills and cooling bills are going to be coming down.

When I win, I will immediately bring prices down. We will defeat inflation quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, he has not. The war, which some in the administration no longer call a war, but sure still seems like one isn't helping the problem.

Several hours after the fed decision, the President went online with this. Interest rates in the United States should be one percent or less because we are the best credit in the world by far. Our country is booming with new investment. Lower the interest rates for the United States of America and fast.

And as we mentioned, when he landed in North Carolina, he explicitly said the unanimous decision to raise rates to control inflation, which affects every American, was part of an orchestrated campaign to get him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: They're raising the rates to -- they're raising the rates to make Trump do as bad as they can possibly do. The problem they have is that we have the greatest economy in history. We have over $21 trillion being invested in this country, which is five times more than we've ever had before. So, they're raising that only for political reasons and that's a raise against Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, no matter how the President wants to frame it, whether it even makes any sense or not, this is not what any President wants to be explaining to voters ahead of the midterms. And it's not just interest rates going up. It's gas prices, it's the war that's making them rise, driving diesel fuel to record highs, making fertilizer and food more expensive.

None of that is obviously a good campaign pitch. And even some Republicans are saying so.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I mean, this was Donald Trump's election to lose. And he's doing everything he can to lose it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Certainly not every Republican is as open about his Congressman Massie, whom the President helped defeat in the primaries. Others have been lower key. Some, as you know, shied away from last week's Trump-centric midterm convention in Dallas. Others are openly signaling bipartisanship even in red states like Iowa. Listen to this new Senate ad from Congresswoman Ashley Hinson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ASHLEY HINSON (R-IA): It used to be that reaching across the aisle wasn't just okay. It was expected. Some people in Washington forgot that, I never have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, it's certainly easier to embrace when the party leader has near record low job approval numbers and seems to be focused on anything but what voters say they care about.

Case in point putting his name on the Kennedy Center, then being forced to take it down, then closing the building entirely and threatening not to reopen it if he doesn't get his way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I'm the one capable of fixing it and then have to subsidize it for years to come, because you will lose with the Kennedy Center. They were losing hundreds of millions of dollars and sometimes hundreds of millions. This is before I got involved. So, for the Trump administration, for me, to get involved and to take that on long-term and to carry it, or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition, because, frankly, if we don't do that it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape.

[20:05:26]

COOPER: Well, be joined later by the congresswoman, the lone board member who's challenging him in court. As you may know, he has packed the board with cronies like Maria Bartiromo and Pam Bondi, both of whom have recently been removed from their jobs.

There's also his obsession with the notion that vandals damaged his repainting of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, which continued to not only be unproven but contradicted by facts.

There's in fact, new reporting that the contractor he chose for the job is now admitting that it was their mistake that made the paint and undercoating come apart. And we'll hear from the correspondent who broke that story as well tonight.

We'll also get into how Republican candidates are working around all of this ahead of election day, and what appears to be a major or, excuse me, a measure of damage control from the Vice President who was asked for his message to voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do. Don't give power to the people who caused the problems that were fixing. Give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: A lot to get to. First, CNN chief White House correspondent and anchor of "The Source", Kaitlan Collins.

So, this is not the President's only setback in recent days. There was also the Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots. His frustrations, obviously, with the Kennedy Center. What are you hearing about the President, how he's viewing this string of losses this week?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN'S CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND THE ANCHOR OF "THE SOURCE": Yes, Anderson, it was remarkable in the 24 hours of yesterday and today, because yesterday, pretty much everything that happened to the President, he was responding to in real time on social media, he was lashing out at the Supreme Court justices, including the ones that he put on the court saying that they were a shell of their former selves. They weren't the people he interviewed.

He was going after the judge who had sided with the congresswoman in terms of getting his name put back on the Kennedy Center. Essentially, he was lashing out all over social media yesterday. Today, he was very quiet. He actually did not post until late this afternoon. That is a rarity for this President. No repost, nothing until later this afternoon.

And then he responded in real time to what his hand-picked federal reserve chairman did today by voting and moving unanimously with the rest of the board to raise interest rates for the first time in three years.

And surprisingly, the President did not blame Kevin Warsh and his post. And when he was later asked by reporters about this specifically. He did not single him out, he actually stood by him and said that he is instead going along with what the rest of the board is voting.

Of course, that's a board that is also voted to lower interest rates in recent years. And he's framing it as a political move, Anderson. But he's not really defending how his own policies are playing a role in what we saw play out today from his tariffs and his trade wars to the war in Iran, and the fact that there is no end in sight for that right now, that is going to bring any of these prices that have these federal reserve board members so concerned down.

And so, I think that's a real question in terms of what that looks like and precisely what he's doing in North Carolina right now as we speak, is trying to stave off what they are worried about in the White House is going to be a democratic upset come November and potentially a huge upset at that.

And so, I just think in the broader terms of this, the President is facing losses when it comes to that attempt to change mail-in voting. No one really thought that that was possible, though, this close to the midterm elections, given the fact that ballots have gone out in places like North Carolina.

But we are seeing where he's suffering losses on other fronts that have taken up almost just as much time as major issues like trade, like Iran. That is the Kennedy Center itself. You saw the President saying why he feels his name deserves to be on there.

And so, I think at the end of the day, the question is, when it comes to that moment there from the Vice-President, if that is an argument that voters are willing to buy, that they just need more time than they've had so far, some 600 days to implement their policies.

COOPER: We'll see you at the next hour, the top of the hour for "The Source".

Joining us now is Republican strategist, former Trump campaign adviser David Urban, democratic strategist, former Biden White House official Meghan Hayes and CNN chief political analyst and former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod.

So, Axelrod, David, does it surprise you that multiple priorities of the President seem to be unraveling all at once, and that institutions are actually pushing back?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, it doesn't surprise me. And look, I would wager a big bet that Kevin Warsh, the last thing he wanted to do was have, to make the President unhappy. I mean, he was appointed by the President. I don't think he wanted to clash with the President. President's explanation was absurd. That board has not just Warsh, but two other members that he appointed to it, and he's accusing them of passing this rate increase in order to make him look bad.

He is the architect of his own problem. The reason that we are dealing with this inflation issue in many ways has to do with his war, with the war he initiated, with the tariffs and so he's the architect of his own problem.

And Warsh was responding to what almost all the economists agreed. He probably was going to do and needed to do, because inflation is, as he said, not being subdued sufficiently. So, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised that the Supreme Court did what they did on the ballot case.

It was absurd to think that they were going to allow this to move forward. You know, five weeks before an election when these ballots were already out and there were big constitutional issues.

[20:10:54]

And the Kennedy Center thing was completely absurd. He reacted like a child. He if he if I don't get my name on this building, I am going to shut it down.

Listen, in 1971, the U.S. Congress designated that as the living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. It would be as if you wanted to put your name on the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial, or the Washington Monument, and he doesn't seem to understand that Congress is the only body that can authorize that. So, he is the architect of his problems here.

COOPER: David Urban, I mean, obviously, I mean, this is not the economy that Republicans like Senate candidate Michael Whatley campaigning with the President tonight, want to be running on higher interest rates, rising gas prices. How do you see these coming midterms?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, Anderson, look, given the President's numbers, he's pretty far underwater at this point. You know, he is a weight on a lot of these members who are running, Michael Whatley included.

North Carolina is going to be a very tough state for Republicans to kind of hold on to there. You've got a very popular governor running. Michael Whatley is a really good guy, but he's pushing a big rock up a hill and, you know, to Axe's point, you know, inflation was starting to come down prior to the, you know, engagement with Iran.

The energy prices, the shock of higher gas and energy prices and fertilizer and the disruption of the global supply through the Straits of Hormuz was a real blow. And so, what I think the President needs to be doing is going out and kind of dusting off some of the things that were popular that he passed early in the administration early on, and the tax cuts and, you know, no tax on tips and some of the things that were much more popular and talk about those and pivot hard away from the current things.

You know, I was out with you last night, Anderson, right. There's no way to defend the Kennedy Center piece or some of these other moves. The President needs to pivot from what he's doing and get back to talking about what people around the kitchen table care about.

I guarantee you, nobody in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, gives one hoot about the Kennedy Center either way. They care about gas prices, they care about what that $20.00 bill in their pocket does for them when they go to the grocery store, or when they go to the pump. And the President needs to tell them what he's going to do to make their life better and make that 20 bucks go a little bit further.

COOPER: Yes, Meghan, I mean, it is remarkable that in the midst of a war, which is obviously a very serious thing, that the President has focused so much and taken up air time talking about the Kennedy Center and wanting to put his name on it.

You heard the President say that the Trump administration doesn't get recognition for the Kennedy Center is going to end up being ripped down. Does it make, I mean, given all the other problems he's facing, does it make any sense to you that he is still fighting this?

MEGHAN HAYES, FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING: No, his priorities are completely misaligned, but I think it's because he knows that he's made some really dumb mistakes when it comes to the economy with the Iran war and tariffs. And he doesn't know how to pivot out of it. So, he's being focused on all these vanity projects and those might be what he wants to do and build his legacy through these other projects, to put his name on everything.

But what David said, the American people don't care about that. They care about their gas prices and their cost of groceries and how much they're paying for health care and child care. They could care less if they're reflecting pool has water in it, or if there's a ballroom at the White House, or if the Kennedy Center has his name on it.

They literally just want some relief and denying people that and denying their -- even understanding where they're coming from is a huge misstep, and it's going to impact Republicans come the midterms.

COOPER: David Axelrod, one of the things he talked about a lot when he was running for President was bringing energy prices down. It was going to happen right away. Gas prices, all sorts of energy prices, obviously, that's not happening. Diesel is going up so much and diesel is what all trucks use to drive, you know, deliver food, supplies and it's pretty incredible.

[20:15:03]

AXELROD: Yes, you know, he wants to put his name on things. He can legitimately put his name on the highest diesel prices in history. He does own that and I think that's meaningful to people.

You're right, he didn't just promise to lower energy costs, but he did promise that. He also promised to lower costs generally and do it very quickly. And now, it seems like he's focused on many other things that, as David said, aren't relevant to people's lives. I disagree with Meghan a little. I don't think he's talking about those things, to pivot away from the economy. He's interested in vanity projects; it may be because of vanity. I think that's probably the reason why he's interested in those.

But whatever it is, you look at the poll in the Siena Poll yesterday, and one of the most telling numbers in there was by two to one people said the President was focused on the wrong priorities. And he continues to focus on the wrong priorities. And by the way, he continues to insist that the economy is great.

Well, that's not true, if you're living the economy through the eyes of most Americans who have to deal with this inflation. So, every time he says that he looks more and more out of touch, and it really damages Republican candidates.

Midterm elections are hard for the party in the White House. He has added a degree of difficulty for all of these Republican candidates that is going to make it harder for them in November.

COOPER: David Urban, I just want to play you something that the President just said at this campaign event in North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: But in this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot just one more time. I said that the other night. I said that at the end of the night, because when I'm on the ticket, I'm not bragging but when I'm on the ticket, Republicans have always done really well. They go out, they vote, everybody gets elected. Everybody gets elected when I'm on it but I just want you to go out and pretend I'm on the ticket because essentially, I am.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Do you think that's a good pitch?

URBAN: Well, listen, I mean, he is on the ticket. You know, David Axelrod, Meghan to make sure he's on the ticket and everyone knows he's on the ticket. So, listen, midterm elections are about turnout a lot. The base needs to turn out if Republicans are apathetic and stay home, they'll get buried. So, Trump is very wise to try to turn the base out. He's still very popular amongst Republican-base voters in the in the high 80's.

He's down some from, you know, like godlike numbers, like the 90's, like he was at one point. But he's wise to do that and listen, you know, Axe's point about the economy, the equities market is it's this weird K-shaped economy where people in the equities market are doing very well. Trump could talk about that.

He could talk about his Trump accounts and all these things that he's doing to try to get people into the stock market and young people and investment compound interest. There are lots of good stories from to tell if he would just tell them. COOPER: Yes, David Urban, Meghan Hayes, David Axelrod, thanks very much.

Coming up next, in the middle of new and urgent calls to consider legislation on A.I. safety, the legislators, they've all been sent home. I'll be joined by one lawmaker by the bipartisan A.I. Bill she is co-sponsoring.

And later, new reporting on the secretary of defense's long-standing fixation on what the troops at his speeches look like, more on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:22:23]

COOPER: In the middle of the week, dominated by warnings about the potential dangers of Frontier A.I. and the need that some of its biggest names see for, at minimum, discussions about regulating it 435 voices will be missing from that debate for the next seven weeks. Those, of course, the 435 members of Congress.

Today, House Speaker Johnson sent them all home until after the midterms, even though, according to one member, there are dozens of pieces of proposed legislation now pending right now. Not to mention huge concerns about A.I. eliminating the human race.

Joining us now is Massachusetts Democratic Congresswoman Lori Trahan, who is cosponsoring a bipartisan measure on A.I. safety.

Congresswoman, thanks for being here. So, why do you believe the legislation you're co-sponsoring is the best path forward to regulate ai?

REP. LORI TRAHAN (D-MA): Well, because first of all, right now, we're only working on the honor system. The only reason why we know there was a model that broke out of OpenAI's testing environment is because they told us, and that does not make anyone feel safe.

So, we put pen to paper months ago on just basic guidelines and provisions on Frontier AI's safety. Frontier, these are the largest companies whose models are capable of catastrophic risk, mandatory transparency, incident reporting. So, if a model does break out of the lab, they have to tell the government.

Independent evaluators that are embedded in the labs and checking their work. And then finally --

COOPER: Which is something that Dario Amodei now says he is going to start doing and wants the others to do as well.

TRAHAN: Absolutely, I mean, the ground is completely shifted on AI's safety. In the last few weeks, we've seen safety researchers resign. We've seen models escape their labs and now were seeing the three CEOs of these major Frontier labs try to slow down. That should, that's a calling for Congress to get off the sidelines. We don't have any legislation on these Frontier labs. We have nothing in place right now to even have a kill switch if there is a model that is capable of a catastrophe. And so, the fact that Speaker Johnson sent us home today is completely irresponsible.

There are so many members who want to act on this issue.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, it's incredible, given just the last week, you know, you have people coming out saying entire or all of human race is threatened and Amodei comes out with this proposal on Saturday that, you know, members of Congress coming back until after the after the elections.

[20:25:00]

TRAHAN: That's right and people are extremely uncomfortable. You know, there have been letters that have been sent to the speaker to keep us in session, restore the two weeks of session that were canceled, you know, have a special session, or even have members who have put pen to paper on legislation, stay and work out a deal. You know, the Frontier Act is a perfect starting point because it is a perfect starting point because it is bipartisan. It is something that could get the votes in both the House and the Senate.

COOPER: Well, let me ask you, what do you say to those who say, look, you know, we're in competition with China, this is an arms race you can't trust, you know, the communist party in China to self-regulate? What do you say to that argument?

TRAHAN: I've been listening to that argument all week that if we slow down, China is going to race past us. History tells a very different story. The United States has always set the tough standards, the high standards on the most powerful technologies, nuclear weapons, biological and chemical weapons, aviation safety and frankly, safety and innovation are not in competition with each other. That is exactly how we lead the world and we set the standards.

And I'm worried about entering into negotiations with China and others without having done the hard work back home. I mean, what kind of leverage do we have in those conversations if were not bringing that to the table?

COOPER: Congressman, I really appreciate it. Thanks' so much for your time.

TRAHAN: Thank you, Anderson.

COOPER: Lori Trahan, thank you.

Joining us now is CNN contributor and tech journalist Kara Swisher.

Kara, a lot has happened in just the last week with regards to A.I., where do you think things stand right now in terms of where this is heading?

KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Anything's headed, well, it's called hurry up and wait. You know, you sort of have to figure out what to do everyone sort of pushed the panic button. And why now, even though, as you know, you and I have talked about these problems for a long time. You know, but these people are speaking up and you have to wonder why they're doing it and why at this moment. I have a lot of theories.

But you know, there has to, it has to result in real legislation, real global cooperation, especially, you know, there's this upcoming visit by Xi, but I don't expect Donald Trump to do much of cooperation here, given what he said publicly.

So, I mean, we have to, it has to translate into real guardrails and that's not going to happen until after the election.

COOPER: I want to play you something that Yuval Noah Harari said in late July about A.I., which I think he's really fascinating. I just want to play this.

Yuval Noah Harari, Author, "Nexus": You listen to the to the narrative coming out of places like Silicon Valley and there is an inherent contradiction in the in the narrative. They tell us we will create a god and it will be our slave.

And this doesn't make sense. If it is a god, it cannot remain a slave. And if it is a slave, it means it has no godlike abilities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: This idea that these companies are creating kind of A.I. superhuman super beings or gods and expecting them to kowtow to us, seems, I mean, he makes a good point.

SWISHER: Crazy, yes, I think Yuval is amazing. You know, he was very much like a craze in Silicon Valley over sapiens. And then he wrote a second book where he sort of decried a lot of what was happening very early. I think he's amazing historian and he understands history. And anyone who understands history knows what they're saying is nonsense. This has happened before.

The question is, how much do we put in the hands of these companies? And how much do we put in the hands of the people and their elected officials? And I think the second is where it needs to go. A lot of the rhetoric around right now is we'll work on it. And now we know, and I don't trust them at all, and neither does anyone else after the social media debacle that's happened over the last decade.

And so, the question is, who's involved? Who gets to decide? And do they get to decide something that's so important? If it's as important as they say, it's too important for them to run very much like a nuclear bomb or nuclear fission and as you know, as Scott and I have pointed out, Oppenheimer didn't sell his bombs to companies or companies, didn't make the bombs, and then decide whether where and when to deploy them.

You don't want to nationalize this stuff, but if it's as important as they say it is, there has to be significant government involvement in how this stuff is rolled out. COOPER: Kara Swisher, thanks so much, appreciate it.

SWISHER: Thanks, Anderson.

COOPER: Well, just ahead tonight, the latest in the legal battle over the Kennedy Center from the congresswoman and board member who is opposing the administration's moves in court.

Also, all we are learning about that investigation into the deadly crash of a Los Angeles news chopper yesterday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:33:42]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF "ANDERSON COOPER 360": The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth is scheduled to deliver his second State of the Force address later this month and according to the Wall Street Journal, the, quote, "Pentagon wants only the fittest troops to attend that speech," And Service members must meet waist-to-height requirements and exhibit impeccable grooming standards. Some service members will also get the opportunity to work out with the defense secretary and will be selected based on, quote, "demonstrated leadership quality and professional character."

Hegseth's address comes one year after gathering the U.S. top generals and admirals at Marine Corps Base, Quantico, declaring that he was sick of seeing overweight and bearded troops.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It's tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.

The era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining us now is Adam Kinzinger. He's a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air National Guard, former Republican Congressman, and I guess occasional beardo maybe, not tonight.

(LAUGH)

COOPER: Congressman Kinzinger, what do you think of these requirements of how service members who attend Hegseth's speech look?

[20:35:00]

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen Anderson, when you feel out of control, you retreat to the things you can control and I've seen this in military leaders all over the place, which is your worst commanders are the ones that obsess about things like uniform standards, beards, stuff like that.

Look, I mean, I don't think there's any problem with saying we have, you know, fitness standards, we have grooming standards, whatever with the military. There's nothing wrong with that. But when that becomes the obsession, I think it shows that your priorities are very low. The Secretary of Defense should be focused on things like, I don't know, winning the Iran War or how to deal with the Houthis or what's going on in Ukraine.

And it seems like a good significant part of his day is spent doing jumping jacks as you're showing or whatever he's doing at that point, burpees, and paying attention to what people are wearing. It's like -- it really is like MAGA -- some of the MAGA leaders here like Hegseth, it feels like they're going through like some collective midlife crisis where they keep trying to prove that they're 20 some years old.

COOPER: He was facing an impeachment vote in the House. Speaker Johnson abruptly announced he was sending members home early for their midterm election recess today, postponing any vote on impeachment of Hegseth until after the election. As a former Republican member of Congress, I'm wondering what he made of that move.

KINZINGER: Yeah, I mean, look, I know exactly what that move is because it's happened a number of times. It's happened a lot under Speaker Johnson because he has such a slim majority. It's because that vote would have passed. Tom Massie created these articles of impeachment. I think there were eight of them against Hegseth and actually didn't tell leadership. So there's a privilege resolution, which means any member can bring it. And he kind of snuck it in, was ready to drop it.

Leadership found out about it. And then that is the oldest thing in the playbook, is send everybody home early. And I mean, if you actually look at how many days Congress has been in session this year, it's egregiously low.

COOPER: It's incredible.

KINZINGER: They're now -- yeah, they're now going home until after the election despite being here just a week after just coming off of the significant break. So it's a really good job if you can get it because you really don't have to go to work much.

COOPER: But do you think that impeachment resolution would have passed?

KINZINGER: It really seems like it. I think if they knew they had the votes to shoot it down, they would have shot it down, because clearly, by going home when that thing is introduced, it appears to all of us like it actually would pass. So you've got Tom Massie --

COOPER: Does it (ph) mean there's enough Republicans who think he's doing a terrible job?

KINZINGER: I think so. There doesn't need to be even that many Republicans that are willing to vote for an impeachment because they're such a slim majority. But yeah, I think Republicans, if you put them on the polygraph that Hegseth seems so keen on giving, I think they would all fail if they tell you he's doing a good job. But I think there's a few that were willing to put their money where their mouth was and vote for it.

And I think Speaker Johnson had to go home. Otherwise, that would be a crazy story to go on for, you know, up until Election Day.

COOPER: Yeah. Adam Kinzinger, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

KINZINGER: You bet.

COOPER: Coming up more on the Kennedy Center from the Congresswoman and board member who is taking on the president in court. Also new reporting on the Reflecting Pool, which totally contradicts the president's claims that it was vandalized, contradicted by the actual contractor who was hired to do all this work.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:42:28]

COOPER: Barriers going up today at the now-closed Kennedy Center. We've been talking tonight about the president's new threat, if he's not memorialized in some way with his name on the building, something the court has repeatedly said he cannot do, most recently yesterday.

There's another court deadline set for tomorrow morning and more action from the Justice Department expected on Friday. Again, the latest is what the president said tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: For the Trump administration, for me, to get involved and to take that on long term and to carry it, or to raise money to carry it, I think that the Trump administration should certainly have recognition.

Because, frankly, if we don't do that, it's going to close. It'll end up being ripped down. It's in very, very bad shape, very dangerous shape. You see steel falling down. You see plaster falling off ceilings. You see a lot of dangers. It's been very badly maintained for 25 years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining us now is Ohio Democratic Congresswoman, Joyce Beatty, who's fighting the rest of the board in court on all of this. Thank you so much for being with us.

The president sounds like he is threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center if his renovation plans cannot go forward. I mean, is that what you understand his intentions to be?

REP. JOYCE BEATTY, (D-OH): Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. Yes, I think we heard it directly from him. And what we heard Donald Trump say, if I don't get my way, if the board does not do something that's unlawful, because we've been to court twice and the federal court ruled in our favor because it's written in statute that no one or no other name can be placed on the Kennedy Center without the approval of the Congress.

This is the only living memorial we have to an assassinated president. So now, he is saying that he will shut it down or even tear it down if he is not recognized for raising money. $257 million was allocated by the Congress. It doesn't matter who advocated for it. The Congress voted on it and it's taxpayers' money.

So this has been our battle in court because it's unlawful, and he has now shut the Kennedy Center down. We just heard that from him. We did file a motion, and that motion was filed today, and tomorrow, we will be back in court.

And I mean, what's so crazy about this is he is saying -- what he just said in that clip is, you know, for the Trump administration, meaning for him, to put time and effort into this and raise money or care about it, I mean, that's -- I mean every administration has taken care of the Kennedy Center.

[20:45:00]

It's part of the job. I mean, it's not like --

BEATTY: Yes.

COOPER: -- it's something he's taken on. It's part of what he's supposed to be doing.

BEATTY: And he voted himself to be the chairman of the board. That is his fiduciary responsibility. That is what he is supposed to do as the chairman. I have never heard of a board president saying, I'm going to give you X amount of dollars, but I'm only going to give it to you if you put my name on something knowingly that is unlawful, and then to throw a tantrum and say, and if you don't, I will shut it down and I may even tear it down. The community, the country should be in an uproar.

COOPER: He's packed the board with, I mean, Maria Bartiromo, I believe, is on it. Pam Bondi, I believe, Laura Ingraham --

BEATTY: Yes.

COOPER: Lee Greenwood, I believe, is on it. I mean, I don't want to get you in trouble in any way, but like, how awkward are these board meetings? I mean, are they all -- is pretty much everybody else just a supporter of the president and voting as he wants?

BEATTY: Well, you just said it. It's a handpicked board of people who are his friends, his associates. There are people there who do business or their relationships. So it is at sometimes, I wouldn't call it awkward for me. I may make it awkward for them --

(LAUGH) BEATTY: -- because I'm there because of my love for the Kennedy Center. I'm there because I was appointed by then Speaker Nancy Pelosi and went on the board with Joe Kennedy. I have become a friend to the family.

So it's all about upholding the law and trying to keep and make the Kennedy Center healthy. We know it needs repairs. I want to be very clear on that. We had that plan well before Donald Trump became the chairman. And I need to remind people, if it's in such bad array for -- we have to look at it, for four years, he too was the president and the Kennedy Center was under him.

COOPER: You requested an emergency hearing regarding the Kennedy Center. The DOJ has said until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. to answer questions about the status of the building. We know fences went up around it today. Is it clear to you what is happening with it?

BEATTY: Yeah. Well, it's clear to me that the president has thrown a tantrum. He didn't get his way in the court and he was challenged in the board meeting. And so now, he's doing what people do when they throw a tantrum and they don't get their way. I'm going to tear it down. I'm going to put a fence around it.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And was that call very unhinged? The call yesterday?

BEATTY: It was -- it was unique and very different for a board meeting. Yes.

COOPER: I believe someone, a source told, I believe, CNN, that it was effing crazy.

BEATTY: Well, I think it was a little chaotic. There were a lot of raised voices and I just decided, because he was the board chair, he could not call me names and try to berate me. And I even asked, are we going to do this? And when it wasn't stopped, he became unhinged. And I just had to set the record straight because he was right on one thing. He didn't know me.

And so I'm sure he knows a lot more about Congresswoman Beatty now because it just wasn't fair and I wasn't going to allow him to do what he did.

COOPER: Congresswoman Beatty, I really appreciate talking to you. Thank you.

BEATTY: Thank you.

COOPER: You take care.

BEATTY: Thank you so much.

COOPER: Now, an update on another pet project of the president, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. According to the New York Times, government documents reveal that the contractor who renovated the pool, the person who did the work, told the Trump administration that faults in its own work caused the pool's liner to peel. That is despite the president's repeated claims.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We have vandalism, you know, we have 100 -- we have a, I think, 290, 300 foot slit right through it, probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.

Somebody went in with a knife and cut it, they cut it up good, and then they cut a 200, 350 foot slip in the form of lots of little slips, a real horrible stuff.

They took razors and they started cutting this, you know, very expensive stuff.

We caught some people vandalizing our beautiful Reflecting Pool.

They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it. According to the contractor, they did shoddy work. The Justice Department has charged several people who had claimed vandalized the pool only to later dismiss those charges.

[20:50:00]

In all, renovations have cost more than $14 million. It's still ongoing. Just a few weeks ago, the government hired another contractor for about $2.7 million to clean the algae in the pool that was causing it to turn from an American flag blue to a murky green.

New York Times investigative reporter, David Farenthold has been following this saga, breaking the news on it. He joins me now. So, what do these documents show about the damage to the Reflecting Pool? Any box cutters, a 300-and-something foot long slit, anything?

DAVID FARENTHOLD, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: No, when we're talking about the blue liner that everybody saw peel up and break over the summer, President Trump said that was, as you pointed out, the result of vandals with knives. What we have here is the people who put that coating down, the contractor who applied that to the pool saying, no vandalism, this was flaws in the repair job, both flaws in their own work.

They say in some cases, they didn't spray enough of a primer so it wouldn't stick down, but also flaws in the basic design. They said basically, they spent all this time applying one chemical on top of another chemical without realizing that the chemical on top was so hot that it would melt the chemical underneath and cause it to fall apart. So basically, from the very start, the project was flawed in a way that was going to make it peel up. COOPER: Does this have anything to do with the fact that it was a, I mean, based on the like no-bid contract that it was done quickly because they wanted to get it done before July 4th? I mean, what does the contractor say as they explain this kind of work?

FARENTHOLD: Not only was it a no-bid contract, so they chose a contractor who had never done this kind of work before, never had a government contract before. But more than that, you remember we talked about this earlier, the whole design of the project, the idea that you could put this blue coating down and that was a good idea, came in part from the manager of Trump's golf course at Bedminster, New Jersey, someone who has no experience with anything like this.

COOPER: Which makes total sense.

FARENTHOLD: So the golf course manager gets put in charge of it, designs a plan, carried out by a first-time contractor. They were performing this sort of open-air experiment on a national landmark. So it's not exactly surprising that something went wrong.

COOPER: And the contractor did say there were cuts in the caulking. How important was that?

FARENTHOLD: Right. So what we're talking about there is there is an allegation, it's still not proven, that there was vandalism in a strip of gray caulking around the outside of the pool, the very edge of the pool, unrelated to the blue stuff, the blue liner that we saw peeling up, and that President Trump has blamed on vandalism.

COOPER: All right. David Farenthold, appreciate it, as always. Thanks so much.

Coming up, three people are dead after a news helicopter crash while covering a bus accident in Los Angeles. The latest on the investigation on what happened.

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[20:56:45]

COOPER: Tonight, the NTSB and FAA are investigating news helicopter crash in Los Angeles left three people dead. Anyone who has spent time, of course, in Southern California or seen news from the area knows what a big part of news coverage helicopters are in such a large city as Los Angeles, just to get the kind of coverage.

This time, the crew was covering a bus crash when it went down. One person on the ground was killed along with the pilot and the reporter on board. Some of the last moments were caught on camera inside the chopper may offer investigators important clues to what caused the crash. CNN's Pete Muntean has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIANA MORENO, REPORTER, KNBC: Can we plan our spot, George? PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the moments before the crash, helicopter reporter and photographer, Eliana Moreno, was in her office of monitors in the back of KNBC's helicopter. At the controls upfront, veteran pilot George Marciniw.

Tuesday evening, the pair was above a fatal Los Angeles City bus crash when they became the news. The video from on board the helicopter is hard to watch. As the aircraft drops, a horn sound warning of low main rotor speed and the sound of the engine dramatically changes.

MORENO: Can you -- you can't pull up?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That video is probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): The Eurocopter AStar helicopter so badly damaged that firefighters could not initially make out the craft's tail number. Another news chopper confirmed the crash to air traffic controllers at nearby Van Nuys Airport.

CONTROLLER: Can you go by the smoke and just verify what that is exactly?

PILOT: Tower, TV 9.

CONTROLLER: TV 9, tower.

PILOT: So, it's a helicopter. And right now, we are thinking it's TV 4.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Anchor Colleen Williams broke the news on KNBC.

COLLEEN WILLIAMS, ANCHOR, KNBC: We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we'd lost contact with our people out there and we've just received the confirmation that, in fact, News Chopper 4 went down just before seven o'clock tonight in Chatsworth and we're going to take a couple of minutes to think about that to process and to regroup.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Moreno and Marciniw had been working together since 2023. Marciniw had 30 years flying experience and had reportedly told friends he was considering retirement. Moreno was planning to get married.

Los Angeles news helicopters are synonymous with everything from car chases to wildfires, but did not come without their risks. In 1977, Francis Gary Powers, who survived being shot down in a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, died when he was piloting a news helicopter, also for KNBC.

More recently the crew of a news helicopter in Charlotte was killed during a 2022 training flight. And in 2023, a Philadelphia news chopper went down in New Jersey killing two.

DESMOND SHAW, REPORTER, KCAL: We're always saying, out of safety, you know, cover the news, don't be the news.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Desmond Shaw is the aerial reporter for competing station, KCAL, and covered the crash.

SHAW: I am looking at the rotor blades and the fireball and then like, OK, well, this is your job. Now, you've got to talk about this.

[21:00:00]

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Our thoughts are with everybody involved. That's it for us. The news continues. "The Source with Kaitlan Collins" starts now.