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White House "Looking" Into Global Tech Outage Hitting Airlines; Major Donors Hold Back Dollars As Calls Grow For Biden To Drop Out; Rally Shooter Researched Past Mass Shooter, Family Prior To Attack. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 19, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

DAVID POLYANSKY, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF FOR SENATOR TED CRUZ: Voters alike. And -- and the reason why is because maybe they don't want to listen to him for a full 90 minutes. But they sure as heck know that when he gets off that stage and gets sworn in and goes into that Oval Office, again, he is going to fight for the economy and -- and get prices under control. He is going to fight to make sure we're not embedded in wars globally across, you know, every spectrum from the Middle East to Europe.

They know they can trust him to fight. And -- and by the way, in a -- in a contrast with Joe Biden, who is having to hide now, because of COVID. He's been subjected to weeks. I mean, we're on our fourth week now of questioning whether he can actually do the job. A 78-year-old man stood on that stage for 90 minutes and delivered a speech. I mean, I'm going to be tired when I walk off the set. So that's pretty impressive. And I think it's a good reminder, a guy who faced an assassination just a few days ago stood on that stage has the endurance to do what he talked about doing on that stage. That's pretty meaningful.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: One dev -- one takeaway for sure is Republicans leaving this convention do feel that they have wind in their sails, that is --

POLYANSKY: For sure.

BOLDUAN: That's for sure. It's good to see you guys. Thanks for sticking around.

POLYANSKY: Good luck with the boat today.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, friend, planes, trains and automobiles that's going to be we're up to. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. They are going to need the wind in their sails because they're not going to be able to fly home. They're going to have to take that boat. A new update just in to the breaking news 911 and emergency services in several states are now down because of this global tech outage. That's an addition to airlines, airports, train stations all around the world. And a new threat to President Biden in his reelection bid, powerful Democratic donors say they will pull their funding, not just from his campaign, but potentially from all down ballot candidates if Biden stays in the race.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:36:09]

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. This huge, huge I.T. outage hitting airlines and businesses all around the world. The White House says it is looking into the issues and impacts. Industry experts say it all appears to be at least partly because of a software update issued by CrowdStrike, which is a cybersecurity firm that has Microsoft Windows as one of its clients.

The CEO of CrowdStrike says it's not a cyberattack. He says the issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. Still a lot of people still feeling the impacts of this. Delta and American Airlines, they have graded flights, passengers clearly stranded all around the world, not just the United States, but Europe as well. Tensions are high.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so upset right now. There are eight people in my party, eight people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are 13 in ours.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: $456 a ticket and they're giving me $100 back. That is it. And we're screwed. This man is getting married. We have reservations. We have cars that we paid for. I paid $380 and a shuttle to shuttle everyone here this morning. They have been here since before me with three kids. I've been here since 3 o'clock in the morning, $100 is unacceptable. I am a good -- I am a good customer for Legion. And I feel like I'm being completely screwed over. This is bull crap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right with us now CNN transportation analyst, former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo. You can hear the frustration there. The planes can't fly, they can't fly. I guess my question to you is how dependent now are these Airlines on these computers, this cyber technology, when an outage like this happens, how damaging could it be?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Oh, a completely damaged. I mean aviation has -- has so profoundly changed in the last decade or two. I mean, without computers, there literally is no flying. I mean, even in, you know, and then our little small plane, my husband's and my wife, it's -- it's computerized. And it's a tiny little thing. And then to run, you know, the worldwide airlines, airports, et cetera, it's just solid computers. However, the good news, as you mentioned earlier is that it's not an attack. It's not a vicious attack. And this is what we've seen in the past. It's been, well, for example, when we had air traffic control towers, they were doing a patch with a software update with a software upgrade. And the systems are so interconnected, you know, between the planes and scheduling, the reservations, et cetera, that if you have a glitch that isn't right, it can affect so many systems. It literally will take these airlines, you know, probably all day today and -- and maybe until tomorrow to sort this all out.

And it's airline by airline. Some airlines will be up sooner than others. And, you know, the lady we just heard is right. It is not right. I won't use her terms. But United States laws say that the airlines do have to give you a full refund. So if she paid $485 or wherever she said for ticket, she has to get that back under U.S. law. And the Department of Transportation has been getting tougher about that. This is not a weather delay. This is a computer and that doesn't count for excusing the refunds.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to ask you about CrowdStrike and -- and other companies that are involved in these big contracts that span so many. I mean how bad of a situation are we in when one company's glitch can make such a huge impact not just on airlines but on so many different things affecting places like banks, people maybe not being able to get to their money?

SCHIAVO: Exactly. I mean, it's -- it's -- it's almost like preparing for a hurricane. You know, you know when they're coming, everything is going to shut down because of the computers, electricity, et cetera. But in aviation, one of the things that's interesting about that is federal aviation regulations for the aircraft and for key systems and control services set on the aircraft, you have to have redundancy. So you can't rely on one computer, one system, one control service, one -- one overall thing, you have to have the redundancy.

[07:40:22]

But the computers and the systems on the ground, not so. So the ground outages can force, you know, just as much disruption in the skies even though federal aviation regulations for the planes require a lot of backup, not just one system.

BERMAN: We have heard stories about some airlines that have been able to get at least some planes out checking in people by hand. Is that -- is that really feasible on a wide scale?

SCHIAVO: No, because even the things that you can't do by hand, for example, the crew scheduling and the -- and the, you know, the block times and the -- and the actual sequencing of the aircraft in the skies, and to get the -- the takeoff slots, et cetera. That is all done by computer. I mean, one airline, I won't name names, but they had an outage and they couldn't even find where all their pilots and flight attendants and planes were because that's all done by computer.

So you can't really safely fly if you can't keep track of all your assets and your pilots. And of course, they have duty times and when it expires, it expires. You can't fly. And that's on the computer too. So it's very difficult to do it by hand, I would say impossible. You can check a bag by hand, but that's about it.

SIDNER: It just shows how vulnerable we are --

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: -- in many different respects. And this, again, we should repeat that CrowdStrike said this is was not a cyberattack. But it doesn't matter. It still had the effect of something like that. And that is another thing everybody has to worry about, right? Mary, thank you so much for coming on with us and walking us through that. All the frustration is going to last probably through the weekend and maybe a little bit --

BERMAN: If you're lucky.

SIDNER: -- if you're lucky. All right. Ahead, new national polling out this morning ways just how much ground Donald Trump has gained as he prepares to return to the campaign trail alongside his new vice presidential candidate.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:46:28]

SIDNER: This morning, President Biden is facing increasing pressure to drop out of the race, not only from inside the White House, but also from some high rolling campaign donors. Multiple sources telling CNN, furious donors are now threatening to freeze not just his funds, which they have already done, but down ballot donations, if stronger action is not taken to try to get the President to drop out of the campaign.

Joining me now, political anchor for Spectrum News and host of The Big Deal with Errol Louis, Errol Louis himself. And the press advisor for former House Speaker John Boehner, Maura Gillespie, thank you both for being here. Holy smokes. When donors are saying, look, we're going to take money away from down ballot Democrats. That's got to be a real slap in the face here.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's troubling enough of the notion that donors might act as if they could sort of implement in effect, a kind of a slow motion coup of sorts. And for it to even be broader and say, you know what, we'll take the whole ticket, we own this party, we get to dictate thousands of, you know, or -- or hundreds of -- of elections up and down the ballot. That's not acceptable.

SIDNER: I found it great message.

LOUIS: And -- and if it's real, you know, I hope that some of these names will come out. I'd be very interested to know who thinks they have that kind of power. And by the way, I think they're overplaying their hand, not just with Joe Biden, who seems to be pretty stubborn old man in a lot of ways. But up and down the ballot, I think people will be deeply, deeply offended at the notion that some rich folks sitting in Hollywood Hills or some other place can dictate who's going to win in New Mexico or Kentucky or Maryland. I mean, it's just not acceptable.

BERMAN: I do think that's an important perspective that you're ringing there Errol, that people know that that's going on, that there is that feeling out there where they're hearing all these voices. It's not just donors, though, is it, I mean, is elected officials. There are many in the grassroots, the polling, some of it does show half or more of Democrats out there are concerned about having Joe Biden on the ticket. That said, fellow John Boehner alum, my friend, Kevin, our friend, Kevin Madden, you know, Republican strategist, he wrote this last night, he goes, it's just so, so, so much harder to switch out the top of the ticket and run an effective campaign in the space of three months than the coverage or punditry indicates. I know he wasn't talking about our coverage, or your pundit for -- for that matter.

MAURA GILLESPIE, FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL, BLUESTACK STRATEGIST: Absolutely not. We never.

BERMAN: How would you -- how could you run a campaign in three months? How would you switch out that top leadership?

GILLESPIE: I'm going to say what I said for probably the better part of a year is that I thought that they would switch out with Governor Newsom and Michelle Obama. I think that's the only way they win against Trump at this point, truly, and they don't even campaign much because Michelle Obama is beloved by so many. She bring him out in droves. I don't know that Gavin Newsom will bring out the same amount of people but having a ticket like that. I -- I don't see how Kamala Harris or Joe Biden at this stage could possibly beat Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Michelle Obama so I leave that out. How do you build a campaign apparatus for three months?

GILLESPIE: I mean, the Obama family is very integrated into the Biden world. I mean, what's happened here, Biden's inner circle has been too close around him. But he didn't see this coming. They didn't show him this was coming. And I think that that's a real and we didn't as a society, but also as like the Democratic Party. They didn't know how bad it was, or at least we're willing to acknowledge how bad it was because he's so insulated, that's a problem. And if anything else you're going to learn the lesson here is that, you know, donors aside, you can't insulate him so far, or whoever the candidate is so far so that they are not able to see past our noses.

SIDNER: I got to, you know, when you talk about Michelle Obama, I cannot imagine this scenario and I do not like to make predictions but I cannot imagine her coming into this race. She has the life that she's led. She's been very clear that she didn't even necessarily, you know, want her husband necessarily listen, but she stood behind him. She got him there, helped him get there. Can you even imagine that scenario?

[07:50:18]

LOUIS: No, listen. The burden -- the burden is on what I call the fantasy football people, right? Who are imagining these scenarios, which are, I mean, look, in less than 90 days, there'll be early voting starts. And I think the earliest date is Arizona, right? So the notion, even just the creation of palm cards and ads, I mean, the notion that you could just drop in some names, and somehow in three or four weeks win a national election, it's never been done. Let's just put it that way. It seems highly unlikely.

And like I said, the burden to me is on the people who want to spin these fantasies or, you know, try and wield their donor dollars to try and make this happen. I don't see it happening. I mean --

BERMAN: But I do think now, look, can we all agree it is a possibility at this point, there is a chance that Joe Biden leaves this race based on everything we're reading here. So I do think it is worth discussing how it could happen going forward. Would you keep, Errol, do you think you'd have to keep the Biden-Harris even if it's not Harris, if it is Harris, the Biden-Harris reelection team, their campaign staff?

LOUIS: Yes, listen. Yes. I mean, and -- and here's, look, here's -- here's I think where we are in -- in reality, not, you know, sort of hypothetical fantasy. A landslide election, maybe in the making, right? That's what some of the pundits are saying. And that's what some of the pollsters are suggesting. I think they might be wrong about a lot of that there are a lot of reasons to think that they might be wrong, including what we just saw about the supposedly red wave in the last two years that never materialized.

The voters out there are going to decide and we're not 100 percent sure what they're going to do. It seems like a pretty close race to me, as I look at the polls, a two or three or four point difference to me does not equal a landslide. But there were some smart people who think it might be happening. OK. It has happened before. It happened in, you know, there are realignment elections. It happens to sort of look at the United States as big, diverse, complicated country and say, we have to do whatever we can to stop this realignment from happening. You might as well go down to the ocean and tell the wave not to come in.

If there's a wave election in the making, then you got to either try and ride the wave, or at least understand it, be prepared for it. Maybe start thinking about some of those post mortems that Republicans have had to do in the past.

BERMAN: All right, Errol Louis, Maura Gillespie, I will say that I did wake up to messages from Democrats who after Trump's speech for the first time were saying oh, actually he may be beatable. This is a beatable version of Donald Trump.

GILLESPIE: Yes. It was campaign style. Yes.

BERMAN: But we can discuss further.

SIDNER: He -- he went back to his -- his dark sort of rhetoric that was very different than a message of unity.

BERMAN: May have reopened the door there. All right, Errol Louis, Maura Gillespie thank you both very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So we are finally learning some more about the shooter and what he was doing in the days leading up to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Investigators focusing in on his internet searches now. Much more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:57:09]

SIDNER: The following breaking news this morning, really America and the world dealing with a huge problem. A massive tech outage has led to delays at airports and disruptions at banks and businesses around the world. Moments ago Delta said they have, quote, paused its global flight schedule, its global flight schedule because of the ongoing issue. United Airlines says they are starting to resume some flights this morning.

The outage appears to have partly been caused by a software update issued cybersecurity company -- issued by, sorry, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The company CEO says this is not a cyberattack. And that, in their words, the issue has been identified isolated and a fix has been deployed. The White House and FAA saying they are watching this situation closely, John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning new details about the shooter before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Official say he researched the arrest of the Michigan school shooter and the prosecution and ultimately conviction of his parents. He also looked at websites and how to build explosives. CNN's Zach Cohen is in Washington with the latest on this. Zach, what else are you learning?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, John, we're learning more about what law enforcement has found on the cell phone and the online search history of the Trump rally shooter and what it might say about a potential motive or their shooters mindset at the time of the attack. Now, as you mentioned, one of the things investigators have found is that the shooter did research Ethan Crumbley, the school shooter who killed four of his classmates in Michigan in 2021.

But also interesting because they -- the shooter appears to have researched Crumbley's parents who were also indicted and convicted of involuntary manslaughter connected to their son's school shooting. In addition to the research about Crumbley, we're also learning that the shooter looked up how to make explosives online, and also looked up both the location and time of the Democratic National Convention, as well as future Trump rallies. That's part of the reason why investigators say they haven't been able to identify a clear political ideology or motive behind this shooting.

And we're told by one official that there is an emerging theory amongst investigators that the shooter simply knew that he wanted to carry out a mass casualty attack and that the Trump rally in Pennsylvania provided the most -- the most ample opportunity and the most obvious opportunity and the easiest opportunity to carry that out. So we'll have to see the FBI is building a behavioral profile of the shooter that will help inform their ultimate analysis about what his motive may have been. But the investigation continues, John, and identifying the mindset of the shooter is a key part of that.

BERMAN: That is important new information. Zack Cohen, thanks for digging. We'll let you get back to it. Keep us posted.

A new hour of CNN News Central starts now.

[07:59:59]

SIDNER: Breaking news, Delta Airlines now pausing its global flight schedule because of the tech outage wreaking havoc on airlines, businesses, hospitals and emergency systems around the world.