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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump DOJ Says It Will Abide By Court Ruling Pausing Anti- Weaponization Fund; Trump And Iran Give Conflicting Messages On Peace Talks; U.S. Strikes Alleged Drug Boat; The Free Press: Extremists Targeting "Isolated" Male Teens Online; CNN Visits Hospital Grappling With Deadly Ebola Outbreak; Platner Scandal Clouds Presumptive Dem Nominee's Senate Race. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired June 01, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

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KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: All right, thanks so much to my panel. Really appreciate all of you joining us today. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. Really appreciate you. Don't go anywhere. "The Lead with Jake Tapper" starts right now.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): This is "CNN Breaking News."

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to "The Lead." I'm Jake Tapper. We begin with breaking news in our "Law and Justice Lead." The Trump administration now says it will abide by a court ruling to pause the administration's creation of this 1.776 billion-dollar fund meant to compensate those who the Trump administration says were wrongly targeted by the government, which could possibly have included even January 6 rioters who beat up police officers.

This pause was ordered by a federal judge in Virginia last week. It bars the Justice Department from allocating money to create this fund or considering any claims or distributing any money to applicants. The fund was created to settle an unprecedented lawsuit that Trump brought against his own government or more specifically the IRS over the unauthorized disclosure of his tax returns years ago. By the way, that was during his first term it happened. So -- but this was so controversial, the settlement that even many Republicans in Congress were refusing to get behind it.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. With me in studio is CNN's Paula Reid and our bureau chief, David Chalian. Kristen, what are you hearing from your sources about what led to this action?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Well, Jake, we've seen it. We've seen it in real time. We've seen it from senators, Republicans on the Hill, from even some House Republicans condemning this fund, saying they don't support it.

And that was a lot of political pushback for a president that doesn't often get that from his own party. We heard from Senator Thune, the head of the Senate majority, who said that he spoke to Trump over the weekend and reiterated that he believed the fund should be dropped entirely. Speaker Johnson was at the White House today, and we were told he was going to have the same conversation or at least talk about this weaponization fund. There was just an enormous amount of pushback. I was told from multiple sources that President Trump acknowledged this level of pushback. He saw what was happening in terms of his own political allies.

And the reason why this is so notable, when you look at this Justice Department statement where they say the department will abide by the court ruling, they would never put out this statement without full support of President Trump and the White House because the thing to keep in mind here, Jake, is that President Trump believes in this fund. He still believes in this fund. It's something that he wanted out there. But it is clear from talking to sources that he understands this amount of blowback that he was getting from the creation of this fund.

TAPPER: All right. Paula, remind us of the judge's reason for opposing the fund, at least right now, and what exactly did the Justice Department say in response to this ruling?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: So, last week, this judge said that the Justice Department had to cease working on the creation of this fund. Remember, it's very early days. The acting attorney general still needs to select the members who will set the rules. But this judge said, stop all of that, we need to consider this lawsuit that was brought, saying the fund is unconstitutional and a violation of federal law.

Now, most legal experts say it is possible that this fund is actually legal and only Congress would really have the power to block it. But the judge said, I need to look at this. There's a separate case where they were also facing roadblocks in a suit that alleges this whole thing is part of an effort by the president to defraud the government. So, they got a lot of bad news in court last week.

And today, they released this statement. The Department of Justice disagrees strongly with the decision on the anti-weaponization fund. They're saying, where in the court stated that under no circumstances may the Department of Justice proceed with the anti-weaponization fund recently established in order to make up for the tremendous abuse, harm, and hate unfairly shown to many people. This fund was open to anybody who was so weaponized, targeted or persecuted, whether they were a Democrat, Republican, conservative, independent or otherwise. The department will abide by the court's ruling.

Well, yes, it's a court ruling. You have to abide by the court's ruling. But what this does is this allows the Department of Justice to sort of put a pause on the fund. The next hearing in this case is about two weeks from now. So, that gives them just enough time potentially to convince Republican lawmakers to proceed with their funding bill, get their funding priorities, and then they can circle back. So, it's still an open question. Is this dead or is it just a pause? My lawyerly reading, I think it's just on ice.

TAPPER: Just on ice. I would agree, just knowing this administration --

(LAUGHTER)

-- it's not legalese. But David, first of all, so much about the second term for Trump has been about vengeance against his perceived political opponents. He even said to his supporters, I am your retribution.

[17:05:01]

So, he can't be taking this happily, this news.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No doubt about it, which is why it may just be this pause, like we have not heard from the president yet on this. But it is intriguing and really noteworthy, as Kristen was saying, too. Donald Trump is responding to this differently.

Instead of right now, maybe this will change tonight, Jake, but instead of tweeting out or putting out to Truth Social, like calling out Republican legislators by name that they won't pass the immigration funding and promising to take them down and end their careers, instead, his Justice Department is putting out just a statement of fact that they're going to abide by the court ruling as potential political cover to ease the way to allow Republicans to move forward the president's agenda.

He's not usually known to ease the way. That's not his approach. And I think the moment of political pressure he finds himself in speaks to his overall political standing right now, which is in a terrible place.

TAPPER: Yes. While you were saying that, I went on Truth Social.

CHALIAN: Oh, yes.

TAPPER: Just to make sure --

(LAUGHTER)

-- that in the intervening minutes, he had and he had not. Well, you never know, right?

CHALIAN: Yes.

TAPPER: It's minute by minute. Kristen, congressional Republicans, all of the House, by the way, and a third of the Senate are up for reelection. They're very mad about this fund. Some allies encouraging the president to scrap it entirely. How much of this is them ideologically, philosophically opposed to the notion of creating this fund that can be, you know, tapped by cop beaters and how much it is just like, oh, this is a stinker of an issue with the midterms coming or both?

HOLMES: I think from -- I think there's both, right? I think that they understand what a losing political issue this is to get behind. But from the lawmakers that I have talked to about this, they really personally didn't think that it was rolled out appropriately, this idea of President Trump settling with the IRS, with the Trump Department of Justice, this fund that had no real answers on how the money would be allocated, what the process would look like, who would sit on this board or be part of a panel that went through and decided who would get paid.

There were so many unknowns. And they look entirely -- they felt, these lawmakers that I spoke to, and these were Republicans by the way, that it just smelled. It didn't seem as though something that had been really thought out on every single level. And that was part of the reason that these congressional Republicans across the board were really opposed to it.

Now, of course, everything is going to play a role in people trying to get re-elected in November. They're going to be taking every single thing that comes at them with a different scope or looking at it through a different scope given the fact that they are up or many of them are up for re-election. But I also had heard just kind of an earnest, what is this and how did this come to be? We need more answers from these Republican lawmakers.

And one thing I want to note, you know, when we talk, I know David was just mentioning this, President Trump, not only does he not get a ton of pushback from the Republican Party, he also -- one thing he seems to have learned from his first time around is when he just doesn't want to expend political capital on something. We saw that with Matt Gaetz during the transition when he just dropped it, saying it's just going to not be worth it, though he was willing to go all in on Pete Hegseth, thought that would be an easier lift.

This itself appears to be something that, at least for the time being, the White House doesn't want to put all their political capital behind and, particularly, this is because of what we're seeing, as you noted, this deep unpopularity across the country right now.

TAPPER: It's interesting, David. The president seems very set on doing a lot of things that are not popular right now. If this had gone through and it still might, as Paula --

REID: Oh, it's coming back.

TAPPER: Yes. I mean, I agree with you. And then January 6 rioters apply for it, which many have said they were going to, and they got a payout. You know, you have one of the Proud Boys driving down the street in a brand-new Lamborghini. How do think that would play with the public?

CHALIAN: Well, I think it's a political loser of an issue. I think it's why you see some Democratic governors and state legislators saying they're proposing a hundred percent tax on such payouts that may occur because they see it as a politically winning issue for them to keep it alive that way.

Listen. You say Donald Trump is doing a lot of things that aren't popular. There's no doubt that this would be popular with a segment of his base and rev that up to the very people when he said the line, I am your retribution, who applauded. I think there would be. But the problem is that is not enough to win elections. And so, if this were to go through and those kinds of payouts would go out, trust me, it wouldn't even just be Republicans in the most vulnerable seats, you would see a larger spot that Republicans realized what a political stinker this is.

TAPPER: All right, thanks, one and all. Next, the conflicting messages today revealing he said, Iran said on the status of peace talks. Plus, the operation in Pacific waters taking out suspected drug boats or so we're told. My next guest says the mission actually is not stopping the flow of narcotics into the United States.

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TAPPER: In our "World Lead," the state of talks between the United States and Iran may have just taken a turn for the worse or maybe not. We have another case of dueling narrative today where Iran or Iranian state media say one thing and President Trump says another, sometimes the complete opposite. This morning, Iranian state media reported that Tehran had suspended talks with the U.S. in protest of Israel striking what that country says are Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Tehran said that that violated the ceasefire.

So, when President Trump first weighed in on this today, he told NBC that Iran had not informed the U.S. it was cutting off talks. He said -- quote -- I think we've been talking too much, if you want to know

the truth. I think going silent would be very good," whatever that means.

Later, the president suggested perhaps he did not think Iran going silent would be such a good thing because he apparently quickly staged an intervention between Israel and Hezbollah, writing on Truth Social -- quote -- "I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no troops going to Beirut. Likewise, through highly placed representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop" -- unquote.

Just a short time after that, President Trump then posted, "Talks are continuing at a rapid pace, with the Islamic Republic of Iran" -- unquote.

[17:15:02]

So far, at least Iran has not weighed in to either confirm or deny whether talks are continuing. Now, before Iran said talks were suspended, U.S. officials late last week had projected some optimism of a deal within reach.

On Saturday, President Trump sent back changes to a proposed deal to extend the existing ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But even in the midst of that, the U.S. and Iran had both traded strikes, military strikes, late last week against each other. The U.S. saying it had carried out defensive strikes, including on Iranian mine-laying boats in the Strait of Hormuz, while Iran fired missiles towards a U.S. base in Kuwait. Today, U.S. Military said that at 11 p.m. Eastern time last night, it successfully intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait. So, stand by.

Also, in our "World Lead," the U.S. Military said it carried out another strike Saturday on a boat that they accused of smuggling drugs. This one was in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The military says it killed three men, and this is the fourth attack in the last week. In total, since this all began in September, there have been at least 61 attacks by the U.S., resulting in at least 201 deaths.

Now, beyond the lack of due process and beyond the questionable Trump administration assertions that these boats are terrorists in nature and beyond the claims that some of those killed were simple fishermen, beyond all that, many experts and researchers also say that targeting these boats has not slowed cocaine traffic into the United States.

Here to discuss is Adam Isacson. He's director for defense oversight at the Washington office on Latin America. Adam, thanks for joining us. So, you told "The New York Times" these attacks are not moving the needle on curbing the flow of drugs into the U.S. Why isn't it working, in your view?

ADAM ISACSON, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE OVERSIGHT PROGRAM, WASHINGTON OFFICE ON LATIN AMERICA: Well, you know, they've been doing this in September, beginning of September. And cocaine, it is made in South America, it goes toward the United States. In the United States, eight months later, we have seen no change in the price of cocaine. Just like gasoline, ff there was less, it would get to be more expensive. Hasn't increased. No change in purity. The dealers are not cutting it with new substance. They have just as much as they did before.

And if you look at what our border security forces, Customs and Border Protection are seizing at the Mexico border, at our coasts, what makes it through this gauntlet of the Caribbean and the Pacific. They've actually found more in the last eight months, cocaine, than the eight months before the boat strikes started. So, no change there either on the supplies of cocaine making their way, despite having killed more than 200 people.

TAPPER: On that point, according to CBP, the agency seized more than 47,000 pounds of cocaine in the eight months since the strikes began. And that's more than the 43,000 pounds -- 47,000, more than 43,000, the agency seized in the eight-month period before this campaign began. All of these during the Trump administration. More seizures sound like a good thing. And I'm sure Trump administration officials would say, hey, we're just doing our job better now. How would you respond to that?

ISACSON: If you look at the map, you've got two levels here. You've got what is going where the boat strikes are happening, which is closer to South America, closer to Central America. If they are actually killing everybody who's carrying cocaine on the high seas, you would think, you know, eventually, they'd stop doing that. People would say, let's stop doing that. Let's just bring the cocaine some other way. That's probably what's happening.

But what has made it through there to where the stuff that we're measuring is happening? If they're seizing more, that means they're finding more. That means more has made it through despite the boat strikes. They apparently are not deterring people from trying to move cocaine through the high seas. And, of course, there are other ways to bring cocaine to the United States, too, that they haven't even thought about. So, so far, it's just not clear what they're trying to achieve here.

TAPPER: Do you think these strikes are illegal? I mean, there are -- you do. Why?

ISACSON: You look at it, you can look at it three ways. Under international law, it's something called an extrajudicial execution. You have done premeditated killing of somebody who didn't even -- they weren't even in self-defense. Under domestic law, premeditated killing of somebody not in self-defense. If you're a cop who shoots someone running away on the street, that's homicide under domestic law. And then, finally, our own law of war, that Congress has to declare a war for these people to be considered enemy combatants. And, of course, they haven't done that. So, you're 0 for 3 on the legal.

TAPPER: So, what would be the most effective way to combat drug trafficking, in your view? Obviously, you want to get rid of the demand side, but beyond but.

ISACSON: Yes. I mean, if you're focusing just on supply, you know, Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy sometimes have been doing this for more than 40 years without killing people. They patrol. They monitor. If they see a boat, they try to get it to stop peacefully. If it doesn't stop peacefully, they fire a warning shot. If then they don't stop, then they try to get a sharpshooter to take out the engine without killing people. And then you've got the people themselves who are a source of intelligence.

[17:20:01]

You've got the evidence, which is the cocaine. That would work far better. You know, in addition to that, I mean, so much of what gets trafficked. Organized crime thrives because of their relationship with corrupt officials all the way up and down. Somebody is waving everything through the checkpoints and arranging this, getting things on to container boats. Every other way, that stuff makes its way north. There's very little in the way of prosecutions of that corruption. So, organized crime has a lot of oxygen to breathe.

So, if I had to start, Southern Command has always complained that they only have about 15 percent of the resources they need to actually do that non-lethal interdiction. Give them more money. And then, of course, all the efforts to fight corruption to help investigators and prosecutors and witnesses, et cetera, in the region, beef that up as well and make clear when -- rather than work with corrupt leaders, actually name and shame them. TAPPER: Yes. Maybe don't pardon corrupt drug dealing leaders also.

ISACSON: We're seeing way too much of that as well.

TAPPER: Yes. Interesting. Adam Isacson, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Ahead, the makings of a teenage terrorist suspect. My next guest is examining common threads and what seems to be driving too many young people towards extreme violence. Stay with us.

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[17:25:00]

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TAPPER: In our "National Lead," the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego last month is one of the latest cases of teen violence tied to radicalization on the internet and dark web. A new article in "The Free Press" examines the making of a teenage terror suspect and goes into what can drive a teen to plot a violent terrorist attack, who's to blame, what if anything a family can do to de-radicalize their child.

Joining us now to discuss her reporting is Maya Sulkin. Maya, thanks for joining us. So, much of your reporting focuses on one specific Ohio family. They led a fairly ordinary life, were religious Christians, three boys. And then they say they describe it as terrorists breaking into their home through the computer screen and targeting their most vulnerable family member, their middle son, a 14- year-old boy who's autistic. Tell us more.

MAYA SULKIN, REPORTER AND HOST, THE FREE PRESS: Yes. Thank you so much for having me. So, like you said, this was a lovely family, they have three boys, and they did everything right. They did regular screenings of their son's phone, they went to church, they had family game nights, and yet it really was not enough to protect from the fact that their son was leading what I can only describe as a sort of double life. In this case, on a platform called Discord, which is quite popular for gamers and teenage boys.

And what I would say that has been the most shocking in reporting this story are that the conditions that led to this 14-year-old's radicalization are actually not that unique. I think they're shared amongst a generation of young boys who are isolated, who are lonely and are looking for meaning on the internet, and they are being met with bad actors who are keen on radicalizing them.

TAPPER: In your report, you found that the teens who are targeted and recruited by these violent extremists are often male, often isolated, usually searching for meaning and purpose. You also found that teens on the autism spectrum are particularly vulnerable to radicalization. Why is that?

SULKIN: Yes. So, in my reporting, I talked to a de-radicalization expert who now works with this boy. And before he was a de- radicalization expert, he was actually an Islamic recruiter for Jihadist terror himself. And what he told me is that these recruiters look for young boys who are vulnerable, but who are also predisposed to some level of binary thinking, who are susceptible to looking for a form of authority.

And like you said, this is not uncommon. Like you mentioned, the San Diego shooting at the mosque that killed three people, the family in the days after that event came out and said that their son was on the autism spectrum and that he was radicalized on the internet.

TAPPER: So, it's interesting. In this case that you report on in Ohio, it's jihadist terrorists. But this really is a phenomenon that could be for any kind of radical ideas, right wing, left wing, whatever.

SULKIN: Yes. I would say this is an epidemic of violent extremism, of radicalism. You have violent nihilism, like you said, on the left and the right. And what's happening is that these platforms have become a breeding ground for these levels of extremist thinking that parents, even with all of the safeguards in place, really cannot protect against in this moment.

TAPPER: What are the signs parents should look for? What, if anything, can they do to keep this radicalization from happening and then, if it starts happening, to bring them back to reality?

SULKIN: You know, one thing that these parents told me is they said we went through the checklist that every parent does when you have a teenager who is inevitably going to be on the internet. They were looking for cyber bullies, for sexual predators, and they just never thought this was something they had to think about.

And what I would say is that this is just another thing to add to the checklist for every parent of a teenager who is on the internet. Regardless of any, you know, new policies these big tech platforms put out, it is your job to do routine sweeps to check in with your kids.

And in terms of de-radicalizing, you know, this is a process that has taken this family two years, and it would not have happened without, you know, this de-radicalization expert that they found at an organization called Parents for Peace, which is now funded by the DHS because this is really an epidemic of radicalization that's hitting the country.

TAPPER: Maya Sulkin, thanks for coming on. And also, just congratulations. It's a really compelling story. It's very appropriately sympathetic. You earned the trust of this family. And you just described a phenomenon that really could happen in any neighborhood, in any part of the country. So, congratulations. A really good story on "The Free Press." So, if you're interested in reading more, please check it out. Thank you.

[17:30:00]

SULKIN: Thank you so much for saying that and for having me on.

[17:30:02] TAPPER: Ahead, the medical fight to stop Ebola. CNN's Clarissa Ward is on the front lines there, suiting up in the epicenter of this deadly outbreak. We're going to go there live.

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TAPPER: In our World Lead, CNN is on the front lines of the deadly Ebola outbreak in Africa. As of tonight, the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the number of confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is at 263, with 43 confirmed deaths. More than 1,100 suspected cases are still being investigated. CNN's Clarissa Ward gained extraordinary access to the so-called Red Zone at a hospital in Bunia in the Congo and shares now the heart-wrenching mix of grief and fear and little hope.

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[17:35:11]

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a surreal, but now all too familiar ritual. Healthcare workers painstakingly disinfect the coffin of the latest suspected victim of the Ebola virus at Bunia's General Hospital. As family members look on in anguish, unable to get close to their loved one. Torn apart by grief and consumed by fear.

Oh my father, why God, this woman cries. Oh God, this is my only father.

As the dead are carried out, new potential cases are arriving. At the entrance to the hospital, everyone's temperature must be taken.

WARD: So this is the room where they take people who are found to have a fever. There is a woman in there now. Obviously, they don't know if she has Ebola or not, but they're going to keep her here until they do more tests and get a better sense of what's going on.

WARD (voice-over): At a makeshift coordination center inside the hospital, Dr. Richard Kojan and his team are working round the clock to keep up with an outbreak they say is out of control. They agreed to show me and photojournalist Alex Platt what they're up against.

WARD: We are now getting ready to go into the so-called red zone of this hospital. That is the area where all suspected Ebola patients are put and there is a lot of protective gear, unsurprisingly, that one needs to wear to go inside.

WARD (voice-over): Bundibugyo is a strain of the virus that few were expecting. There is no vaccine and no cure. The doctors write our names on our backs so they can recognize us and then it's time to go in.

At the moment, patients are treated in hastily constructed tents. Thirty-year-old Gloria is a lab technician, one of dozens of health care workers believed to be infected.

WARD: (Speaking in Foreign Language). She says it's difficult to breathe.

WARD (voice-over): Earlier, we met her sister waiting outside for news.

WARD (through audio translation): I saw your sister. She's waiting for the moment she can hug you again. Do you want us to tell your sister something from you? A message?

WARD (voice-over): Do not be afraid, she says. But it's impossible not to be scared. Some of the patients here are in very bad shape.

WARD: How do you stay strong when you're seeing this?

DR. RICHARD KOJAN, ICU DOCTOR, ALIMA: For me, its our humanity.

WARD: Your humanity?

KOJAN: Yes, it's our humanity. When people are suffering like this, I feel it. I feel it.

He was in a coma.

WARD: Yes.

KOJAN: It's Ebola confirmed.

WARD (voice-over): Ten-year-old Meshack (ph) is still very weak. His mouth ravaged with blisters from the virus. He asked the doctors for a banana, an encouraging sign. Slowly, slowly, Dr. Kojan warns him. His condition is improving, but he has a long way to go.

WARD: He wants to lay down? Let's help him lay down then.

WARD (voice-over): They lay him down in the corridor while his room is disinfected. Nothing about this situation is OK. But these doctors are doing everything they possibly can.

As we walk to another ward, a familiar sound in the distance.

WARD: You can hear the cries of a family who are claiming the body of their loved one. This is a scene that's playing out here multiple times every single day.

WARD (voice-over): This is a temporary ward for suspected cases. Patients lie waiting for test results that are taking up to a week to process.

WARD: So this is the situation that healthcare workers really want to avoid and are racing to put a stop to. You have five patients in the same room, all of them suspected of having Ebola, but doctors can't be sure. They can't rule out the possibility that one person in here may not have Ebola. And then, of course, there's a strong chance they could contract it.

[17:40:02] WARD (voice-over): Every exit from the red zone is as careful as the entry. Protective equipment must be sprayed down with chlorine and methodically removed.

WARD: We were in there for maybe half an hour and I could barely stand up by the end. It's incredibly tiring, really hot. You're sweating so much, you're thirsty. I just, like, help us understand the kind of stamina that you need as a doctor to be going in and out of that red zone multiple times every single day.

KOJAN: It's really hard. We have to stand strong for those patients and otherwise, you know, the situation will be really very, very bad.

WARD: That 10-year-old boy. That's hard to see.

KOJAN: The first day, you know, he was really bleeding. A lot of diarrhea and shock, you know. So you have to get a way to give IV fluid. It's not really easy. So, and for me, you know, like an ICU doctor, when you have a situation like this, it's very hard to just say, I have to stop because I'm tired.

WARD (voice-over): On the outskirts of the city, the family we met earlier is burying their father, 72-year-old farmer Papa Babona Baudoin (ph). The burial team forms a cordon around his grave. The mourners forced to grieve at a distance, the final cruelty of this vicious virus.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: And Jake, it's really hard to overstate just how heroic these doctors and health care workers are. Dr. Richard Kojan, who you saw in our piece there, this is his sixth Ebola crisis that he is responding to here in the DRC. And he said the challenge with this one, Jake, is that they are playing catch-up because it is an unusual strain. When people were presenting themselves early on into clinics, they weren't showing up and testing positive for Ebola.

And so it took doctors weeks before they understood that, in fact, this was Ebola. Now they are desperately trying to limit the spread. But truly, they are doing God's work and they have a long road ahead of them, Jake.

TAPPER: Clarissa Ward in the Democratic Republic of Congo for us. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that amazing report.

[17:42:47]

Coming up next, the Politics Lead, Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner doing some damage control, a sexting while married scandal complicating his campaign if voters were already iffy on him. Might this be the controversy that turns them away or no, not at all?

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TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, some new challenges today for Democrats in their quest to retake the Senate. Exhibit A, Graham Platner. That's the populist firebrand challenging Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins. Now, over the weekend there were multiple reports starting with "The Wall Street Journal" that his wife Amy Gertner told a campaign aide last year that her husband had sent sexually explicit messages to a number of other women. This was earlier in their marriage which is relatively recent.

Now, since those reports surfaced, Platner has attempted some damage control. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM PLATNER (D-ME), SENATE CANDIDATE: It's no surprise to me that the establishment media outlets are just going to run gossip instead of wanting to talk about the things that actually matter in this race which are the material realities that the Mainers are working with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And here is Platner's wife.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMY GERTNER, GRAHAM PLATNER'S WIFE: I find it really shameful that there's a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Back in January after a previous controversy our own Manu Raju asked Platner if we in the media or the public should brace for any more scandalous information about him to break.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are there other skeletons from your past that still may emerge in this race?

PLATNER: No. My life is not very complicated and there are no, there is not anything else coming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: My panel joins me now. So Adrienne Elrod what do you think about his defense that, A, and his wife's defense, A, this is just gossip. This isn't about what he's running on and this is the establishment out to get him.

ADRIENNE ELROD, FORMER SENIOR SPOKESWOMAN, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN: Well, look Jake I think it's less relevant what I think. I think it's more relevant what the voters in Maine think. And they're the ones who are ultimately going to make this decision. I mean, look, Graham Platner was recruited into this race. He didn't seek out wanting to be a politician. It was not something that he wanted.

He was recruited by local people who wanted to see somebody with authenticity and somebody who had his background who they really thought if you're going to take down Susan Collins. You need somebody who's not establishment, somebody who kind of comes out of left field and has an interesting history and also an interesting and effective way of telling stories and sounding authentic to voters which he is. And that's one of the reasons why he's caught fire.

[17:50:05]

So at the end of the day, I think voters will decide I mean, look, Jake, I'm not going to sit here and defend a man, you know, sexting with other women when he's married. But I think at the end of the day this will be something that voters decide. And right now they are frustrated with Susan Collins. Prices are high. Is this something that they are going to decide is not worth it? That will be up to Maine voters to ultimately decide.

TAPPER: What do you think?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Voters can forgive a mistake. This is a pattern. This is a pattern of a guy who continues to lie over and over and over again. The Nazi tattoo, first, he said, oh, I didn't know what it actually was it turns out he knew what it was several years ago.

ELROD: I don't think that's necessarily the case.

SINGLETON: It is true. Then when Manu and even "The New York Times" our Lulu Garcia asked is there anything else? Absolutely not. My records squeaky clean. I want to focus on the issues that matter to the people of Maine. And what happens is a week later we find out that this guy is sexting 12 women and you have to presume that none of these ladies will come out and give an interview. Is there more to come?

I think Democrats are looking at this and thinking this is a massive mistake. And when you look at local reporting, local reporters are talking to Democratic voters in the state of Maine, they said, I don't want to vote for this guy. This isn't the ideal candidate. He doesn't have my values a party that says believe all women.

Susan Collins -- you may not like Susan Collins but she's independent. She's the type of Republican who doesn't always vote with the party that gives the President a lot of headache as we all know. But she's someone who's tried and true and the voters of Maine know where she stands on most issues. That's not the same for Graham Platner, Jake.

TAPPER: So let's -- here's what Platner told "The New York Times."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PLATNER: I'm certainly an imperfect person and I certainly went through my struggles and which I'm sure we'll talk about. But I also know for a fact that like I've never been close to money, I've never been close to power. I don't think anything I've ever done has been outside of the realm of like what people do when they struggle.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: So this is how he talks about these issues or, you know, Reddit posts that don't really hold up to the light of day for a Senate candidate theoretically, the totenkopf tattoo, et cetera. And he kind of argues like, look, this is just who I am. I'm a fallible guy. But I'm one of you, I mean that's his argument.

ELROD: Look, again, I go back to what I said earlier this is up to the Maine voters to decide. I will say this, Jake, I think that Democrats, National Democrats if we continue to have these purity tests on candidates, we're not going to ever win back races. And I think when you look at somebody like Graham Platner who, yes, was not recruited by Chuck Schumer but was recruited by local people who said if we're going to beat Susan Collins, we need somebody like you to take her on and he caught fire. And he's still rolling, running 10 points or so ahead of Susan Collins so it will be up to the Maine voters to decide and again the purity test that we tend to deploy among National Democrats for the candidates that we support we got to stop doing that because otherwise we're going to get people who are picture perfect and are not always going to be representative to the voters that they seek to represent.

SINGLETON: I'll just add really quickly here, Jake. You and I both know. Every single day you're talking about a crisis and not the issues of voters that is a net negative to the campaign and I don't see a way out of here.

TAPPER: So let's move on to another topic that Adrienne will love. Former First Lady Dr. Jill Biden went on NBC. She was asked if she regretted urging her husband to run for re-election in 2024. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JILL BIDEN, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: As I look back, would I want to put Joe through the hurt and the pain that we felt during that time? Never. Never. I mean it was so hurtful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you think Shermichael, I mean, her answer is, question, would you recommend again that he run for re-election? And the answer is, no, because it hurt him so much and hurt me so much.

SINGLETON: Sure. Look, let me just before the politics. I'm a human. We all saw the president age. I hope to God that I'm blessed to live until 80 and still do what I like and enjoy and hopefully I still have the physical strength and mental stamina to do so. So I want to say that first as a human side of this and I don't want to dismiss what we all saw occur to the president because it happens to all of us if we live long enough to age.

That said I just find it hard to believe that the First Lady wasn't aware, Jake, that the president was having some issues.

TAPPER: Yes.

SINGLETON: And to try to hide that I think is unfortunate and it's not good for the American people or for Democrats.

TAPPER: So CNN got an early copy of the book which doesn't come out until tomorrow. And in her book this paragraph caught my eye. If you knew Joe Biden well, you'd know that if he actually got to the point where he wasn't capable of doing the job, he would step down. Certainly, if he exhibited cognitive impairment, I would not hesitate to say so. His staff would not hesitate to say so. But he was nowhere near that point in the summer of 2024.

There's a lot in there. What do you think? First of all do you believe any of that?

[17:55:05]

ELROD: Look, I traveled on the campaign trail with him, Jake. And I saw somebody who certainly showed his age sometimes because campaigning is hard. But I also saw somebody who went from stop to stop, rallied a rally and brought the energy to the room. So I think again when you're campaigning for president and you're 80 years old it's a little bit different than when you're 45, 50 years old and running for reelection or running for the first time.

I'll finally say this about Dr. Biden. Look, I know her well, I respect her dearly. She deserves to tell her truth and to tell her story of what she saw during that time and she's doing that now with this book.

SINGLETON: Just wish she was honest in the midst of all of this.

TAPPER: Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.

The breaking news tonight, the Justice Department says it will abide a judge's order that paused that so-called Anti-Weaponization Fund $1.776 billion after a lot of pushback from Republicans as well as Democrats. So what are those Republicans saying now? CNN's Manu Raju chasing them down the halls. We're going to check in with them next.

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