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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Judge Delays Trump's Hush Money Sentencing Until After Election; 14-Year-Old Suspect And His Father Appear In Court; Confronting Candidates About The High Cost Of Childcare; American Activist Killed After Israeli Forces Fire At Protest; Soon: Boeing Starliner Attempts High-Stakes Return To Earth. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired September 06, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Or the Swedish player, who broke his jaw biting into a carrot.
[16:00:04]
No word yet on when Viktor will return, but we are wishing him a speedy recovery and he needs to be careful with his coughs, with his sneezes.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I've had some violent sneezes. I'm sure you've had some as well.
KEILAR: Has it injured you?
SANCHEZ: Can't say that. Maybe just hurt my feelings. Yeah.
And also hurt people around me with flying stuff.
KEILAR: Yeah. That's true. I pulled my back out ones getting like a coffee mug from the covered it was like there was an underlying cause.
SANCHEZ: You got to be careful with that stuff.
KEILAR: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: You know who's careful.
THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.
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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Donald Trump will not be sentenced until after the election.
THE LEAD starts right now.
A major win in court for the former president. His sentencing delayed in that New York hush money cover up case. The stunner from Judge Juan Merchan is Trump continues to fight back his conviction on those 34 felony counts.
Plus, today's striking scene in Georgia, the 14-year-old suspect in court after this week's high school killings, followed by his father also now charged in this case. Why prosecutors say even more charges are coming?
Plus, a 26-year-old American woman shot and killed in the West Bank by the Israeli defense forces, according the witnesses. This after she was protesting against Israeli settlement expansion. A CNN team is on the ground.
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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
The 2024 lead and the law and justice lead, they're intersecting in a huge way today. Donald Trump, a 34-time convicted felon, well, now, not to be sentenced for those crimes in his New York hush money cover up case until after the election.
Judge Juan Merchan pushing back that sentencing day today from September 18 to November 26. You may recall back in May, a jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying business records in order to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actress and director Stormy Daniels in order to keep this from the American people before the election of 2016.
But this, of course, is not the only legal case. Top of mind for Mr. Trump today. The former president appeared in a different New York court this morning. He's trying to throw out the verdict in one of the cases involving E. Jean Carroll. This, of course, is the one in which a jury found he sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll.
After today's hearing, Mr. Trumps spent nearly 50 minutes 5-0 minutes not talking about his campaign, not talking about the upcoming presidential debate against terrorist, not talking about what he wants to do for the American people. Instead he spent his time ranting about the myriad women who have accused him of sexual abuse. Here is just a little snippet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She said in 1979, I was in an airplane with her commercial flight, and we became very intimate and she said, I was making out with her. And then after 15 minutes and then she changed her story of a couple of times, maybe it was quicker, than I grabbed her, a certain part, and that was when she had enough.
Now, so think of the impracticality of this. I'm famous. I'm in a plane, and people are coming into the plane and I'm looking at a woman and I grabbed her and I start kissing her and making out with her.
What are the chances of that happening? What are the chances?
And, frankly, I know you're going to say it's a terrible thing to say. But it couldn't have happened, it didn't happen and she would not have been the chosen one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Let's start with CNN, chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid. We also have with us CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.
Paula, focusing -- let's go back to Judge Merchan's decision to push Trump's sentencing date in the hush money cover up case until after the election. Why?
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, here the judge really for the first time acknowledging that this sentencing occupies a unique place in American history. You're talking about a former president who is a presidential candidate. Just a few weeks away from the election, the judge describes this situation as, quote, fraught with complexities. That's an understatement Jake. And look, he says he does not want to have any appearance that this sentencing is meant to influence the election or that it was influenced by the fact that there's an upcoming election.
He writes: The members of this jury serve diligently on this case and their verdict must be respected and addressed in a manner that is not diluted by the enormity of the upcoming presidential election.
But it's interesting because Judge Merchan has rarely conceded to the Trump team's legal arguments in and around politics. But there is also this issue, the Supreme Court decision, their recent decision on presidential immunity, and the open question of how that applies in this case.
[16:05:06]
The judge said, look, we routinely grant delays in sentencing, given all the factors here, we're going to push this back.
TAPPER: And, Elie, of course, we should note this decision by Judge Merchan is completely different from what Judge Chutkan said yesterday in the January 6 insurrection case?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Jake, it's quite a contrast and it's a nice illustration of the fact that there is no hard and fast law here as to whether judges should or should not consider an election. And if you look at Judge Merchan's opinion, what he says basically is let's live in reality here. If I were to sentence Donald Trump before the election, whether I sentenced him to probation or prison, that absolutely could impact the election. Let's put it off a couple of months and avoid those complexities altogether.
Two quick notes. First of all, sentencings get adjourned all the time. I've seen hundreds of sentencings adjourned for reasons less consequential than concern about impacting an election.
The other thing to keep in mind is the D.A. took a pass on this. The D.A.'s position is we don't care either way, judge, whether you sentence him before or after and the judge cited that today.
And, Jake, I will tell you when you defendant who says, please put up the sentencing, a prosecutor who says, we're fine either way, 99 times out of 100 that the sentencing is going to get postponed.
TAPPER: And, Paula, what happens to this case if Mr. Trump wins the election as many projections have him currently favored to do.
REID: Well, if he wins, I would expect that his lawyers would fight the idea that you can and even sentence a president-elect. The federal cases, of course, would be dismissed by his attorney general. The Georgia case would be in limbo.
Look, if he loses all of these proceedings are expected to continue. His lawyers have done a pretty good job of delaying most, not all, of course, he was convicted at a trial that most of these significant legal consequences until after the election. And now, it's up to him to get, to get reelected if he wants to avoid potentially heading to prison all right.
TAPPER: All right. Paula Reid and Elie Honig, thanks to both of you.
My panel joins me now.
And, Kristen, you cover the Trump campaign for us so ably. What's the response from the Trump campaign to this delay?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, privately, they've all been very excited by it. They were happy to see this delayed as Paula said, this makes things much more complicated and in particularly if he does win the election. Obviously, there's been some talk among Republicans that this could have given him a boost if he was sentenced before the election, but that's just so uncertain right now. Obviously, the legal cases had given him a boost during the primary, but whether or not this would actually help him instead of just seeing him be sentenced before general election could actually hurt him with some independent voters. They're happy that it's been pushed.
Now, we did get a statement from Stephen Chung, which is a very Trump statement. It says that there should be no sentencing and the Manhattan D.A.'s election interference, witch hunt as mandated by the United States Supreme Court. This case, along with all of the other Harris-Biden hoaxes, should be dismissed.
Obviously, that's not what the Supreme Court said, but he is citing the immunity ruling there.
TAPPER: Interesting. And, Nayyera, what are you hearing from Democrats? I assume many of them would have liked some sort of jail sentence for the Republican nominee.
NAYYERA HAQ, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF CABINET AFFAIRS, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Well, it certainly leans into the idea that justice delayed is justice denied and that when you commit a white-collar crime, you have fancy lawyers who know how to do appeals and can delay accountability. So, on the left, certainly that sense of Trump has yet to truly be held accountable for his crimes against democracy. That's the message on the left, and that there needs to be some type of judicial reform that not only makes cases work faster, but also, again, this goes back to Supreme Court, their ruling over the summer about immunity, and that idea that expanding the court may be part of the Democratic message going forward.
TAPPER: And, Ashlee, we'll never know the answer to this question, but just what's your guess as to how different it would be, the sentencing, if he wins, Mr. Trump, or if he loses?
ASHLEE RICH STEPHENSON, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: We'll never know the answer to that, Jake.
TAPPER: Right.
STEPHENSON: And I look at this through the lens of politics. And I think at the end of the day and we saw it in the CNN polls this week, voters and all of the seven swing states -- swing states care about the economy and we also saw for over a year now how the indictments and the verdict ultimately affected solidifying the Trump base, and maybe even bringing more into the fold.
So I would argue that there's a really big debate next week, a chance to turn the page on all of this messaging and get back to the focus on the economy, immigration, crime, the things that voters actually care about.
HAQ: That's the balance, right, if Trump actually being able to stay on a message that resonates with the voters that he needs to win --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: We heard a snippet of him rolling through every woman who's ever accused him some of sexual harassment. And it's not really positive campaign message, whether or not --
HAQ: He's the only one who keeps re-litigating his own negatives. He could have used that opportunity to not talk about his negatives and maybe talk about the other candidates. But he just -- something about him make some things that if he just keeps relitigating the past, that will feel better than help him and all the polls are proving the opposite.
TAPPER: And what do you think?
STEPHENSON: We've seen this from president Trump before. This is no surprise. We've lived through this for third election cycle with him.
And I think at the end of the day, he's got a great opportunity next week to draw contrast with Vice President Harris and hold her accountable for some of the decisions made in the Biden administration that she hasn't really had to answer to yet.
[16:10:10]
TAPPER: So what's your take on all this? Because, obviously, I'm sure his campaign advisors don't want him to spend 40 to 50 minutes rolling through every woman who's ever accused him of sexual impropriety. HOLMES: Well, not just that. I mean, look at what they've done for the
last several for weeks, they have tried to control a man who was uncontrollable by putting him in front of these smaller venues with smaller crowds, with very specific topics that are on the agenda. For example, giving a speech in North Carolina on the economy, or talking about immigration or crime. They are trying to get him out there talking about the three things that they think could win him this election, particularly when voters are showing in the polls, that is what they care about.
This is not what they expected him to do. And I'll tell you, when I was asking questions about what this was going to look like, nobody said he's going to go up there and ramble about all the women who have accused him, his various sexual improprieties over the last several years, they said he's probably going to attack the justice system, but then move on and take questions.
He obviously did not take questions at all, which isn't surprising because this is the environment where he generally doesn't. He goes off, but he's clearly angry today, even said he was disappointed in his legal team when he was standing there with them, standing behind him, forward facing in front of all of the cameras, said he was disappointed in what he saw during the hearing earlier in the day.
It's very difficult to be Donald Trump's lawyer, but that's obviously not what his campaign advisers had hoped for coming out of this.
TAPPER: We've heard a lot of credit. We in the media have heard a lot of criticism from Democrats that we're not covering Mr. Trumps age and acuity as we did President Biden's. Do you agree with that?
HAQ: I think there's an interesting contrast now that both candidates are no longer heading into their 80s, right? That there is a significant generational difference and you can see that in the way the campaigns are expressing different concepts.
I mean, the idea of joy being a campaign message was not something you would have anticipated six months ago, and Trump is now in that difficult position of not only having to defend the previous record of being in office, which is, you know, Kamala Harris is still her own person, and was vice president, not the president. So, not only does Trump have to defend his record, he also now has to get passed the age element.
TAPPER: Do you -- what do you think?
STEPHENSON: I don't think it's a surprise to any voter who supports President Trump or those who are considering supporting him what his age is? We know, he's been with us for a long time and it's a jump ball race. Look at Real Clear Politics. The markets today still have President Trump up two. And in the battleground states, it's a tie.
So we can litigate age about President Trump all we want. This isn't news to the American public and I don't think it changes the thing.
TAPPER: Do you think he is demonstrably different than he was four years ago, six years ago?
HOLMES: No.
TAPPER: Yeah, I don't either.
HOLMES: He has always talked like this and from everything that I've seen from covering him, it is the same kind of exact -- even if you watch the person who plays him on "Saturday Night Live" now, that same person is the same person that Donald Trump is. He has mastered this idea of how Donald Trump grabs ideas from different places.
The reason he was talking today about all of those women was because that was their argument in court earlier today, was that none of those arguments should have been let into the actual court. He clearly took that information, then rambled it out and not a constructive way for his campaign or for his legal team. But that is why he was saying and that's what he often does talking.
TAPPER: Yeah, and that is how he -- whether people like it or not, that is kind of how he's been since he burst on the scene in 2015, 2016, I think.
HAQ: Just let's not pretend that it's normal and okay. That's somebody --
TAPPER: No.
HAQ: -- who has this type of --
TAPPER: But no one is saying that and we're just, you know, I don't think --
HOLMES: We're saying there's not a change.
TAPPER: It's not a change is all I'm saying.
Nayyera, Ashlee, and Kristen, thanks to all of you.
And other rant from Donald Trump is also making moves that would be his answer when he was asked how he would make child care in the U.S. more affordable. The woman who asked him that question will join us ahead.
But, first, the major developments in Georgia. A 14-year-old suspect who was in court today along with his father both have been charged in this week's tragic killings at Apalachee High School. The troubled family history that adds a new layer to this case.
Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our law and justice lead, today in Georgia, devastated families of the victims in the Apalachee High School mass shooting watch both the suspected teen shooter and his father appear in separate court hearings. This is just the second time in the United States that a parent has been held responsible for their child's actions or alleged actions in a school shooting.
CNN's Ryan Young is back in Winder, Georgia, about an hour east of Atlanta, with more on the charges against both father and son.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JUDGE CURRIE MINGLEDORFF, JACKSON COUNTY: Good morning, sir. Are you Mr. Colt Gray?
RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a green t-shirt, handcuffed with unkept hair, the teenager suspected in the Georgia school shooting on Wednesday, made his first court appearance today.
MINGLEDORFF: The penalty for the crimes for which you are charged does not include death. It includes life without the possibility of parole or life with the possibility of parole.
YOUNG: The 14-year-old is charged with four counts of felony murder and will be tried as an adult but he's not eligible for the death penalty in Georgia because he is under 18.
Colt Gray did not enter a plea in court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this time, Your Honor, there is not a request for ban.
YOUNG: The teen is accused of opening fire with an AR-15 style rifle at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I thought I was going to die.
YOUNG: -- killing math teachers Christina Irimie and Richard Aspinwall, along with 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
Angulo's mother said the emotional pain feels like she and her family were killed.
EMMA ANGULO, MOTHER OF CHRISTIAN ANGULO (through translator): He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve to die like this. And I miss him. I miss him.
For me, I wish this was just a dream.
YOUNG: Back in court today, devastated families of the victims embraced and cried. The suspect's father Colin Gray, also made his first court appearance, arrest warrant says the 54-year-old allegedly gave his son a gun, quote, with knowledge he was a threat to himself and others.
Colin Gray was arraigned on multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree murder, and child cruelty. [16:20:05]
He did not enter a plea and could face up to 180 years in prison if convicted on all counts.
BRAD SMITH, DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF THE PIEDMONT JUDICIAL CIRCUIT: You don't have to have been physically injured in this to be a victim. Everyone in this community is the victim. Every child in that school was a victim.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
YOUNG (on camera): Jake, we've been watching all day long as the memorial continues to grow here. There'll be another memorial service later on today as some kids trying to get together at where our football game was supposed to be played. Something that strikes us is just the size of some of these kids are just so small, so innocent, and obviously so devastated by this.
The district attorney actually says there are more charges could be coming in this case once they talked to some of the people who are still in the hospital. We know people are starting to get released from the hospital. Their stories are ones that just grip at your heart.
Also coming into focus is Gray's background and obviously this child has been apparently been through a lot. His mom and dad have separated. There's one point. She was charged with drug possession.
So there's going to be a conversation about the alleged shooter's background as well, but that still doesn't add up to all the facts that we've learned in the last 24 hours or so about when this gun was purchased, especially after the FBI and local authorities talked to him. So many questions, of course, more charges could be coming -- Jake.
TAPPER: Yeah. Ryan Young in Winder, Georgia, thank you so much.
Coming up, the condescending alpha male post floated by Elon Musk. Are there parallels between that and another consequential moment in American history?
Plus, I'm going to speak with the woman who got that, shall we call it rambling answer out of Mr. Trump when asked to describe his plan to make child care in America more affordable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:26:05]
TAPPER: We're turning to our politics lead and an issue of vital concern to parents, whether Republicans or Democrats, the high cost of child care in the United States.
President Trump was asked about it yesterday during his visit to the Economic Club of New York. His answer rambled on for two minutes. We'll give you the gist of it here. We're just going to play the very beginning. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RESHMA SAUJANI, ECONOMIC CLUB OF NEW YORK BOARD OF TRUSTEES: If you win in November, can you commit to prioritizing legislation to make child care affordable? And if so, what specific piece of legislation will you advance?
TRUMP: Well, I would do that and we're sitting down. You know, I was -- somebody -- we had Senator Marco Rubio and my daughter, Ivanka, was so impactful on that issue. It's a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I'm talking about, that because childcare is childcare. Couldn't -- you know, there's something, you have to have it. In this country, you have to have it.
But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I'm talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they're not used to, but they'll get used to it very quickly. And it's not going to stop them from doing business with us, but they'll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Well, with us now is Reshma Saujani. She asked the question yesterday. She's a member of the Economic Club of New York's board of trustees. I don't know if you watched the debate in June but I tried three times to get him to answer that question. You tried the fourth, did you get anything out of that?
SAUJANI: Kind of. I made that a little bit more than you did because he did answer the question and what he told us is that childcare and expenses are no big deal. The fact that you're drowning in debt because of them, sorry, but not sorry.
And he also told us that no, I don't have any ideas or proposal or legislation, and it's insulting. It is insulting to parents who are constantly having to choose between funding their daycare and feeding their kids.
And the thing is, is like if you don't have a plan to solve childcare, you are not fit to be president.
TAPPER: So during your question, you talked about how much impact the cost of childcare has had on American families. Give us just a little primer on that explain for people out there who aren't aware of this, whether for whatever reason how significant an issue this is.
SAUJANI: Yeah, it's a huge economic issue. We're losing over $122 billion a year because of our broken childcare system. Forty percent of parents are in debt because of the cost of childcare. The cost of childcare as you know, is outpacing the cost of inflation and one in five families are saying like, I can't have another kid because I cant afford it, which is why we have a declining birth rate.
And the fact that President Trump basically said that you know, it's not an expense, that's noteworthy. I mean, that's a peak gaslighting. TAPPER: Yeah. It is pretty noteworthy.
Senator J.D. Vance, his running mate, also was asked about the childcare issue this week. Let's run a little bit of his answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Like grandma, grandpa wants to help out a little bit more, or maybe there's an aunt or uncle the wants to help out a little bit more. If that happens, you relieve some of the pressure on all the resources that were spent in a daycare. Now, you talk about just daycare, let's say you don't have somebody who can provide that extra set of hands, empower people to get the skills they need, don't force every early childcare specialist to go and get a six-year college degree where they've got a whole lot of debt and Americans are much poorer because they're paying out the wazoo for daycare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So the grandparents part of the answer, get your aunt and uncle to help out, that got most of the attention. That's what Democrats focused on. But Vance did talk about some policy in there, reducing requirements and regulations for childcare workers. What did you make of his answer?
SAUJANI: Well, I mean, I think that the just ask grandma part is absolutely a fantasy, not accessible to, you know, most Americans. For me, like my parents lived ten states away. They're 80 years old. They're struggling with diabetes, like it's not an option.
[16:30:08]
The fact is, is we do -- you know, we do need to pay childcare workers fairly. So it's less than about regulation and more but the fact that like we don't have people want to go into this industry because we're not paying them a fair wage and that's why we have both, you know, demand and supply-side problem. We have a market failure in childcare because we refused to fix it.
And so, it's too expensive for parents and we don't have enough childcare workers, 50 percent of Americans live in childcare desert. So I want to hear both Vance and Trump talk about what's really happening with childcare in America and offer real policies and solutions beyond just ask grandma or frankly talking about tariffs that have nothing to do with this.
TAPPER: Have you heard anything useful coming from Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?
SAUJANI: I mean, look, here's the thing: we've also invited Kamala Harris to come speak at the Economic Club of New York. And I hope she takes that (ph).
But, you know, she has had a pretty strong record on both paid leave and affordable childcare, and quite frankly fighting for working families. And she had one of the strongest records which she was vying for president and during her presidency, numerous executive orders that were going to alleviate the cost on childcare. I'm excited to hear though, about what her plan is going to be if she becomes president to fix the child care problem in America.
TAPPER: It's a huge crisis. Reshma Saujani, thank you so much for your advocacy in for joining us today.
SAUJANI: Thank you for having me.
Continuing our 2024 lead, billionaire Elon Musk took to his X platform, formerly known as Twitter, to comment on the nonsensical old 4Chan repost that argues that only alpha males can be trusted to think freely and make good decisions and therefore, only alpha male should be the ones to participate in democracy.
Musk reposted the theory and wrote: Interesting observation. We do have voting rights in this country to protect against discrimination based on such nonsense, but similar crazy ideas have slipped through the guardrails in this its country in history with lasting consequences at least when it comes to civil rights, the 15th Amendment ratified in 1870, gave Black men the right to vote. The idea that they were not deserving of that same democracy persisted nonetheless. The result was decades of disenfranchisement via Jim Crow laws, all set into motion during Louisiana's 1872 gubernatorial election, which was, quote, America's deadliest election which happens to be the title of a brand-new book by CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, who joins us now.
Dana, congratulations on the book. It's a great read.
Explain plane why that theory reposted by Mr. Musk is a good example of why Americans should pay attention to this seemingly fairly obscure election from 1872.
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I love that you picked up on this. Kara Swisher and a part of we did an event last night here in Washington. She picked up on the exact same thing, a longtime observer of Elon Musk.
And as it relates to the disenfranchisement of voters, historically, in this country and specifically as it pertains to what happened in 1872, because it was one of the first elections where Black men, laymen (ph) back then, could vote. And what the segregationists, who are Democrats back then --
TAPPER: Right.
BASH: -- it was flipped, what they realized after the first election in Louisiana in 1868 were a lot of Blacks were elected by people who wanted representation that the only way to keep Black Americans down in society was to do it at the ballot box and to prevent them from voting. So there was widespread fraud, real fraud, not the allegations around that was never proven last cycle, real fraud, corruption, intimidation, and violence.
You mentioned, Jake, Jim Crow. I didn't know this. Maybe you did. You are definitely more of a history than I.
TAPPER: I think I heard is what you're saying, but yes.
BASH: The 1872 election, the violence that came out of that included something called the Colfax massacre, which happened in Grant Parish in Louisiana, 150 Black men were slaughtered in cold blood. In order to try to find justice, they did in federal court trying to test those very new amendments that you were just talking about what all the way up to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court said in a monumental decision, Cruikshank, that the federal government has no role in civil rights in the states. And the states said, in the South said, great, we agree with you. We're going to enact Jim Crow and they stayed in place for a century.
TAPPER: And you note that many incidents in quotes from politicians during the 1872 election sound as though there could be spoken by some of today's politician.
BASH: Okay, so let me just give you one quote. This is a man named Henry Warmoth who was a carpetbagger, like a real carpetbagger when they actually started came from the North.
TAPPER: They actually brought a carpet.
BASH: They actually brought a carpet -- went to Louisiana, was really young and his in his mid-twenties, and ran for governor, won.
[16:35:09]
And he did it as somebody who was incredibly charismatic, very, very loved the press. He said he didn't care about anything other than getting quoted. He didn't care if reporter said something negative or praised him. He just wanted to make sure they wrote about him.
He also complained very whole wholeheartedly about the investigations into him. He was quite corrupt. And people loved to love him and they loved to hate him.
TAPPER: So when reading the book, I thought about the time, about is in 2018, six years ago, I guess it was, when you stood with John Lewis and civil rights icon on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he'd been beaten almost to death 50 years earlier.
Let's revisit what he told you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: This is secret. This is hallowed. This where people gave some blood. I gave a little blood on this bridge.
BASH: You gave a lot of blood on this bridge.
LEWIS: And that's fine. I think this bridge must be saved and preserved because it have opened up the democratic process for all of our citizens. Now, I feel like when I come here and walk across the bridge, it's almost like holy ground.
BASH: It is holy ground.
Mr. Lewis, thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So -- I mean, the connection here, of course, you're writing about what happened in 1872 that enabled the Jim Crow laws to take a fact and then he spent his life, he devoted his life to getting rid of those laws.
BASH: That's right. And it took 100 years to do it. And just going back to your initial question about Elon Musk, this has been one of the questions that has been grappled with since they were trying to write the constitution in the first place, who should vote, who should have the right to vote?
Ben Franklin's famous question about or quote, about a jackass. If you own a jackass because the question was whether or not people should only be able to vote if they owned something, if you own a jackass now, and then you can vote. But later, if you don't own the jackass, you're the jackass because you can't vote.
And back then, of course, it was just white men.
TAPPER: White male property owners.
BASH: White male property owners. But this is such a fundamental right that was suppressed violently. So, for so long, even after the civil war and this period of reconstruction, when it really was solidified, that Blacks would have so many problems not just at the voting box, but in society, the back of the bus and everything that was done to them, it could have gone such a different way after the civil war and during reconstruction.
And being able to learn about that with my amazing coauthor, David Fisher, is really privilege.
TAPPER: "America's Deadliest Election" by Dana Bash and David Fisher --
BASH: Thank you.
TAPPER: -- thanks so much for being here. Congratulations on the book.
BASH: Thanks, Jake.
TAPPER: We also need to get to a major story in Israel. An American woman who was protesting the expansion of Israeli settlements was killed in the West Bank. She was shot by the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, according to witnesses. What our CNN team is learning on the ground next.
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[16:42:49]
TAPPER: Back with our world lead, the U.S. State Department is, quote, urgently gathering more information, unquote, after an American citizen was shot and killed while protesting Israeli policies in the West Bank today.
According to U.S. and Palestinian officials, Israel's military has admitted to shooting at the crowd which has been described as peaceful by an eyewitness, 26-year-old Aysenur Eygi recently graduated from the University of Washington, and she went to high school here in the United States.
She was part of the activist group known as the International Solidarity Movement. She and others were protesting an Israeli settlement near a Palestinian village in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. The Israeli settlement known as Evyatar, was legalized by the Israeli government in June, a move pushed by far- right extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is part of the Netanyahu coalition.
And now, anger is building back in the United States. Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, releasing a statement slamming the Biden administration this afternoon, pointing to the deaths of two other Americans in the West Bank since October 7th saying, quote, the United States cannot turn a blind eye to these actions.
CNN's Nic Robertson was in the West Bank today.
Nic, this is a horrible tragedy. What are the Israelis saying?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, the Israelis are saying, yes, they did fire those live rounds towards the protesters. They're saying they fired the live rounds because of some activity that was being instigated by one person that group, violent activity. They said this person was throwing rocks at them.
Now, this group of activists, those that were there and witness her killing and saw her shot dead, said that they will lower down the hill from where the IDF was. That the protests had been a peaceful protest, they say, and then it was just sort of beginning to wind down when they say that the IDF fired tear gas down towards them or smoke grenades, but something that sort of got them all moving and run running away. This is how they describe it.
And as they were running away, that's when this 26-year-old Turkish American former student now activist were shot in the head. Medics from the scene really fast, got her into an ambulance, got her to a hospital in the nearby city of Nablus. Unfortunately, she was pronounced dead at the time she got there.
This is a weekly protest. It comes as no surprise to anyone. I think the surprise here for most people is going to be that the IDF say they shot live rounds because someone was throwing rocks at them.
TAPPER: And you were in Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier just after for this drawn-out Israeli military operation, tell us more about the point of that operation that you were reporting on and what you saw.
ROBERTSON: Yeah. The IDF said they went in there to kill terrorists, and they claim to have killed 14. Now, Palestinian health officials say 39 people total were killed across the operation. Eight of them children, two of them old people. So, when we arrived in Jenin, this was the first opportunity people were having to bury the dead.
The first funeral we went to was for three of them and the IDF calls terrorists. I spoke to them that commander of the Palestinian Islamic jihad, they see themselves as militants he said, the IDF had not defeated them, wouldn't defeat them in the future. He said, yes, we've had losses, but they should admit to theirs too.
I talked to the mayor in the town where they were literally clearing up the rubble in the center of the city where the roads had been wrecked by diggers and he was counting the cost. He says more than 10 million to put right, the 15 miles road that had been dug up.
TAPPER: All right. Nic Robertson in Tel Aviv, thanks so much.
Next hour, we are expecting to see a critical mission in space. Boeing will try to break its Starliner capsule away from the International Space Station without two astronauts on board. Why this mission such a big deal. That's next.
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[16:51:20]
TAPPER: In our out of this world lead, we're about an hour away from watching Boeing Starliner spacecraft undock from the International Space Station as it begins to come home alone.
As CNN's Kristin Fisher reports, NASA decided its better to be safe than sorry when it comes to trusting Starliner, which has suffered from thruster problems and more to bring that pair of stranded astronauts back to earth.
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ANNOUNCER: Here they come, our CFT crew.
KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams finally left Earth on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner, the spacecraft was already more than $1 billion over budget, years behind schedule, and four years behind the first crewed launch of SpaceX's crew Dragon, Boeing's only competitor in NASA's commercial crew program.
ANNOUNCER: Godspeed, bottom dog.
FISHER: It was a moment NASA had been waiting for, for a decade, two different commercial spacecrafts flying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
BILL NELSON, NASA ADMINISTRATOR: We always like to have backup, that makes it safer for our astronauts. And that's why we started the commercial crew program in the first place.
FISHER: NASA administrator Bill Nelson couldn't have known at the post-launch press conference, just how soon of backup would be needed? Only a few hours into the mission, Starliner ran into its first issue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like we picked up a couple more helium leaks.
FISHER: Boeing had first detected a helium leak on the ground, but it was deemed acceptable for flight. Now, there were three new ones.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. We're ready to copy. Find out exactly what you mean by picked up another helium leaks. So give it to us.
FISHER: Then as Starliner was attempting to dock to the International Space Station, more problems.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thrusters that are currently down.
FISHER: Five of the spacecraft's thrusters, which are used for steering, failed.
But Butch and Suni got four of them firing again and they successfully docked on their second attempt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice to be attached to the big city in the sky.
FISHER: Starliner had delivered them safely to the station, but concerns were growing that it was simply too risky to use Starliner to get them back to Earth.
SUNI WILLIAMS, NASA ASTRONAUT: I'm not complaining. Butch isn't complaining that we're here for a couple of weeks, extra weeks.
BUTCH WILMORE, NASA ASTRONAUT: Failure is not an option, that's why we are staying here now. We did have some degradation and our thrusters and we know that and that's why we're staying.
FISHER: After seven weeks of testing those faulty thrusters in space and replicas back on Earth, Boeing believed that Starliner was safe.
MARK NAPPI, COMMERCIAL CREW PROGRAM MANAGER, BOEING: I'm very confident we have a good vehicle to bring the two back with.
FISHER: But after another month of digging through data, intense deliberations, NASA disagreed with Boeing and announced that Starliner would return to Earth without its crew. Butch and Suni would hitch a ride home in February on that backup, SpaceX's crew Dragon.
NELSON: The decision is result of a commitment to safety. We have had mistakes done in the past. We lost two space shuttles as a result of there not being a culture in which information could come forward.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FISHER: And we are now about 30 minutes away from that final go, no-go pull when NASA will decide if Boeing Starliner will indeed undock from the International Space Station tonight.
That final call, the go-no go, that will take place in mission control here at the Johnson Space Center, which is just a few buildings over from where I am now.
Jake, this is actually a full scale mockup of the International Space Station.
[16:55:03]
The same mock-up where Butch and Suni spent all those days training from what they thought was going to be just a roughly eight-day long mission to the International Space Station. Now, they're going to be spending about eight months up there -- Jake.
TAPPER: All alright. Kristin Fisher, we're going to check back with you in about an hour. So, don't go anywhere.
We're going to start getting those live images from NASA soon. So keep it here on THE LEAD and on CNN for coverage.
Also ahead, a big headline late today, from former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, after saying this week, she would be voting for Kamala Harris. Now the former congresswoman says her father, two-term Vice President Dick Cheney, a stalwart Republican is also going to be voting for Kamala Harris. And she's making another announcement. We're going to get reaction ahead.
Stay with us.
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