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Obama Planning 27-Day Battleground Blitz For Harris; Elon Musk To Join Trump At Butler, P.A. Rally; Liz Cheney Touts Harris, Rebukes Trump In Battleground Wisconsin. Three Former Officers Convicted on Federal Charges Related to Tyre Nichol's Death; Prosecutors Reviewing New Evidence in Menendez Brother's Case. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 04, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: To mow the grass, that's the counterterrorist term. Take out as many capabilities that Hezbollah has, that Hamas has, and as many of the trained fighters, the ones in Hezbollah that had a lot of experience, they got it in Syria. A lot of those people are being taken off the board. It doesn't mean that they won't have to fight again in future.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. There's just a lot of fear that this is going to turn into a huge regional conflagration. It's already, if you will, a regional war when you see what is happening in the. Kimberly Dozier and Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you both so much. I appreciate your time this morning.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: You bet.

SIDNER: A new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

[08:00:47]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Barack Obama back on the campaign trail. His big plans for a 27-day blitz for Kamala Harris. And from Texas to Maine, tens of thousands of port workers are back on the job this morning. The tentative deal that seems to have averted a massive mess for the U.S. economy.

And a father going above and beyond his 12 hour trek that should have taken only two hours through Hurricane Helene's aftermath to make sure he was there to walk his daughter down the aisle. What he went through to get there, that super dad is our guest.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR, All right, this morning, a milestone, we are exactly one months and one day until the election. It is a crucial moment to assess what is happening and what the status of the race is exactly one month and one day away. The Harris campaign is marking the one month and one day mark with an announcement. Former President Barack Obama hitting the campaign trail first in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He will visit multiple states over the next month in one day. And it is about what he calls all hands on deck.

I couldn't even land the plane on my own joke. CNN Senior Political Analyst Mark Preston is with us now.

Mark, you covered a lot of campaigns, every campaign, this is such an important day, exactly one month and one day away. Talk to us about Barack Obama, what he can do for the Harris campaign on the trail.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I'll tell you what, John. You know, nowadays, how much do endorsements really matter? But in this case, it does matter. Barack Obama, certainly the most popular Democrat right now in the Democratic Party, someone seen as a leader, someone who has been very careful not to overexpose himself out there, speaking about every issue out there, and allowing the Democratic leaders not only in Congress but certainly in the White House to lead their own way. But now he is coming out.

As you noted he will be in Pittsburgh next week. It will be the beginning of this, what his advisers describing as a blitz it could be to battleground states in these final closing weeks. What's interesting, though, John, is that his wing person, Michelle Obama, we haven't heard anything about what her plans are, I will say this, do not expect to see her in Pittsburgh. Good chance they may not even be together on the campaign trail because they are both so popular that we could see some Michelle Obama announcement in the coming days about what her role will be in the Kamala Harris campaign.

BERMAN: Yes, I think you can count on Michelle Obama getting out there at some point in somewhere where the Harris campaign thinks is most important, maybe even more important than where they're sending Barack Obama.

On the subject of Pennsylvania, Mark, Donald Trump going back to Butler, which of course, is the site where there was the assassination attempt, and bringing Elon Musk, of all people.

PRESTON: You know, is he bringing Elon Musk or is Elon Musk just inviting himself along? You know, I often wonder this with the folks who surround Donald Trump, surround himself with specifically Mar-a- Lago. You know, does he invite people to Mar-a-Lago or do they kind of just show up at Mar-a-Lago? And I think it's the latter.

In this case, though, Elon Musk has been a very vocal supporter of Donald Trump. In fact, just in the past few days, John, this is what he said on Twitter, Elon Musk, about Donald Trump. Very few Americans realize that if Trump is not elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it. Now, I don't think Elon Musk is necessarily going to get you a whole lot of Pennsylvania votes, but he does control the incredibly, incredibly influential platform of Twitter.

I guess it's called X now. So, I expect that Elon Musk, who's not only raising money for Donald Trump will probably allow his platform to help promote the Trump candidacy in these closing weeks.

BERMAN: Oh, he's spending a lot of time promoting it on X, Twitter, Twitter, whatever it's called. Mark Preston, thank you very much.

Kate. BOLDUAN: One month and one day. Joining us right now, CNN Political Commentator and Democratic Strategist Maria Cardona and former Strategic Communications Director for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, Marc Lotter.

[08:05:05]

I love a John Berman joke, especially when he starts laughing at his own joke before he finishes it. It's the best.

Let's play pro con together. Marc, Obama's 27 day sprint for the Harris campaign. Give me a pro and con of that.

MARC LOTTER, FORMER STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS DIR., TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: I think it'll help rally the Democrat base. Obviously, they still hold him in very high regard. I don't think it'll move the needle with undecideds because they tried this in 2016 when he was still the sitting president, it wasn't successful. And the one key difference, two thirds, nearly two thirds of the American people still think our country's headed on the wrong track. So going out there and saying that Kamala is the new way forward, well, she's the way of right now, difficult to sell.

BOLDUAN: Maria, let's go flip side on this. As John and Mark are also talking about, it's going to be a really powerful moment when Donald Trump returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of that first attempted assassination that he faced. Elon Musk saying, invited or not, showing up. He says he plans to attend the rally this weekend. Pro and con of that?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think the pro for them is that it will continue to motivate their own base. The con in that is, I don't think their base really needs motivating. What Donald Trump needs most desperately is to expand his map, to expand the voter base that he needs in order to win. And what I think has been, frankly, kind of head scratching, a little jaw dropping to me is that every time he is on the campaign trail and everyone that he brings to the rallies with him does nothing of the sort. And in fact, they serve to alienate the exact same voters that they need to win, Independents, undecideds, if there are any, suburban women, the people who were completely disaffected by him in 2016 and in 2020 that he might have a chance to win back, he's doing absolutely nothing to do that.

So, for Democrats, I think it's great, right? Get him out there. The more that he talks, the more that he alienates voters in the middle that he needs to win, the more people realize this is not what we need in the White House. This man is completely unfit to lead. We're going to vote for Kamala Harris.

BOLDUAN: Perfect segue to then, if they exist, the undecideds, if they do exist, I don't know if we still call them double haters, considering how the campaign has changed. Regardless, we've talked often, Marc, about how Liz Cheney is not where the center of the Republican Party is right now. The center is Donald Trump. His campaign -- her campaigning, though, with Kamala Harris in Wisconsin, quite something to see that image just as a student of politics. Let's play -- let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ CHENEY. (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: I was a Republican even before Donald Trump started spray tanning.

I have never voted for a Democrat, but this year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

MULTIPLE SPEAKERS (Chanting): Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz. Thank you, Liz.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Add to that now, Marc, former Trump aides announcing that they're going to campaign for her in Pennsylvania. You might not like it. Good strategy, though?

LOTTER: Well, I think it's a strategy that's going to basically, again, lock in people who are already locked in. I think if there are those 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent of undecideds, I think they're undecided because Kamala Harris has not been able to convince them that she has a plan to deal with gas and grocery prices, secure the border, or the wars that are raging now around the world.

BOLDUAN: Does Liz Cheney starts speaking to that. I don't know.

LOTTER: And so having some former Trump advisers. Well, they're speaking to the whole threat to democracy thing that has just not moved the needle. And so there's a reason why I think they're still undecided. They're giving Kamala Harris a chance to earn their vote with an actual plan. She can't answer those questions.

And they know that wealth stuff was more affordable, the border was secure, and the world was safer with Donald Trump. So, she's either going to complete that deal or we're going to get more of the same, which is what we have now.

BOLDUAN: So, Marc brings up -- a lot of what you're seeing is talking about Donald -- what they view as Donald Trump's threat to democracy. And we know, Maria, that when the transition from -- on the democratic ticket went from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris, one of the things that really went away was the focus on January 6 and the threat to democracy. And it was a definite campaign messaging shift. I don't know if you call it falling back, but moving to this now, is it, John kind of was talking about it as she walking into a trap?

[08:10:04]

CARDONA: No, I don't think at all. And sure, the -- it was more a message underscoring of what she needed to do in terms of the economy and immigration, that she's leaning into it now. And, in fact, she's closing the gap on those things, on the economy, on immigration, which is what she needed to do, especially as a new candidate where a lot of Americans didn't really know her biography and her background. So I don't think it was so much a complete change in messaging. That messaging was always there underneath.

When the campaign talked about rights and freedoms, that was there front and center. So, I don't think it's a trap at all. And, in fact, I think it kind of puts a great bowtie on everything that Democrats have been talking about because Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. He is a threat to our rights and freedoms. He is a threat to our economy.

He is a threat to the common sense, balanced approaches, the solutions based problem solving that Kamala Harris is offering and that Donald Trump absolutely does not. And, in fact, he offers completely the opposite, chaos on every single one of the issues that Americans care about. And so Kamala Harris being able to talk about that, even with bringing in January 6, I think, underscores that stark difference and that stark contrast between those two candidates.

BOLDUAN: Quick final thought, Marc.

LOTTER: Well, yes. What they're trying to do is turn the page from the book they wrote. The American people know that we had low inflation, a secured border, a safe world, and Kamala Harris, Joe Biden changed all of it. You cannot rewrite the history of today because you are the ones who wrote it. This is the problem that the American people face.

CARDONA: Actually --

LOTTER: And they know that Kamala doesn't have the answers.

CARDONA: Actually, Kate, one very quick thing, the one important thing that Obama can do, because I think Americans understand that four years ago the economy was in a tailspin. The economy was in a tailspin because Donald Trump was an absolute failure in actually dealing with one of the biggest problems that we've had as a country in a century, which is the pandemic. President Obama can remind people that the first couple of years of Trump, the economy was great because Obama handed him that amazing economy. And what Trump did with it was flush it down the toilet.

BOLDUAN: What I have to say is, when you --

LOTTER: Low inflation, cheap gas.

BOLDUAN: -- (inaudible) celebration is very big day is one month and one day to the election. I would want to celebrate with no one other.

CARDONA: True that.

BOLDUAN: Good to see you guys. Thank you so much.

Sara.

CARDONA: Thanks so much.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Jurors reached a mixed verdict in the federal trial of three former Memphis police officers accused in the beating death of Tyre Nichols. Coming up, we will talk to Ben Crump, the lawyer for the Nichols family.

And major new developments in the Menendez brothers murder case. The new evidence that could change their sentences for killing their parents.

And disturbing allegations of sexual assault against Garth Brooks. Hear what he's saying this morning about a new lawsuit from a former employee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:52]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Three former Memphis Police officers were convicted on federal charges of witness tampering in an attempt to cover up the fatal beating death of Tyre Nichols.

The beating sparked national protests and renewed calls for major police reform. The officers were acquitted of the harshest federal civil rights charges for the death of Nichols.

One of them, Demetrius Haley was convicted of a lesser civil rights charge for causing bodily injury. They face up to 20 years behind bars for the witness tampering conviction and are still awaiting trial on state charges with two other officers.

Tyre Nichols died in January 2023 after being beaten mercilessly by officers following a traffic stop.

Joining me now is civil rights attorney representing the family of Tyre Nichols, Benjamin Crump.

Thank you so much for coming in this early morning. This verdict is a bit confusing to a lot of folks. The jury said, yes, the officers caused bodily injury. We know that there are two officers who already pled in the case.

What did you think of this verdict?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY: I thought it was important that the jury found all of them guilty of charges to make sure that none of them would go free. All of them will be held accountable.

Tyre's mother and father, we held hands in court and the one thing, they were completely relieved to say thank you, God, when the judge said all of them are going into custody.

This verdict, when you think about it Martin, Haley and Mills, the jury found that they were the ones most culpable. They found the other two officers were responsible, but they didn't think they did as much as those other three offices. Two pled guilty, then they found Haley guilty with their verdict.

This is so important when you think about it, Sara, because that means the jury was conscientious, they looked at all the evidence and they said everybody is guilty. Everybody should be held accountable. Everybody goes to jail for this brutal beat down of Tyre Nichols, they literally beat him to death, Sara.

[08:20:07]

SIDNER: But they didn't find that they were responsible for his death, even though the medical examiner said that it was a homicide, we saw the beating on television. All of us saw what happened. What did the Nichols family -- how are they responding this morning?

You talked about what they were like in court yesterday. How are they today, as all of this settles?

CRUMP: Well, you know, they are still very emotional. It seemed like the jury believed Martin was the one most responsible for his death.

So, what you have is all the officers pointing fingers at each other and pointing fingers at the city and their training which is going to bode very well for us for the civil case.

Remember, we want for justice criminal culpability as civil accountability, Sara, and we want the laws changed because that would be the proper legacy for Tyre Nichols.

His mother and father and their family are relieved to know that all the officers will be held accountable. They could face up to 20 years in prison and now, we're going to be focused on the sentencing.

We want the same thing to happen to those officers what would have happened if the roles were reversed and Tyre would have been convicted of killing them and then conspiring to cover it up.

We don't want them to get any preferential treatment because they've got a gun and a badge. That's what our community is looking at. We want equal justice to send a message to these killer cops.

SIDNER: There is still another case, potentially on the horizon. Describe what that case is, and what these officers are facing from the state.

CRUMP: Certainly, District Attorney Steve Mulroy talked to Tony Romanucci, Kareem Ali, and everybody on our legal team about the fact, they are going to be watching closely the sentencing from the federal court and they have assured the family that they are ready to proceed with the second degree murder charges against these five officers as well as the lesser include list.

And what's so important, Sara, is in the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act Bill, it is a Tyre Nichols' duty to intervene component that is in there.

I don't care what you say about these officers, they watched. If you want to sit with Martin, if it was Haley, whoever with the most severe of the perpetrators, they all utterly watched. Just like in George Floyd, all of these officers watched Chauvin's knee on George Floyd's neck.

And so, they said it was just a couple of bad apples. Well, why are these good apples just watching the bad apples kill Black people? We have to make sure we speak up. It can't be that officers are allowed to see bad things from other officers and say, well, it's not my issue. It is your issue. It is all about issue because our children keep dying.

SIDNER: Yes, their job is to uphold the law not watch somebody break it.

Benjamin Crump, thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming on this morning -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, developing this morning, could newly revealed evidence clear the way for Lyle and Erik Menendez to someday be free again?

And then minutes from now, the final Jobs Report before millions of voters cast their ballots.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:27:20]

BERMAN: All right, developing this morning a pair of the most famous murder convictions for the 1990's is getting a new look.

LA prosecutors announced they are reviewing new evidence in the case of the Menendez brothers. Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of killing their parents more than 30 years ago. And not coincidentally, may be at all, the Netflix show about the Menendez brothers is a smash hit number one for two weeks running.

Joining us now, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor and Menendez trial addict, I understand, in the 1990's Jennifer Rodgers, nice to see you.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good to see you.

BERMAN: So, why does -- I mean, what does this mean that they're reviewing new evidence in the case?

RODGERS: Well, it could mean one of two things. It could mean that they are reviewing the conviction itself. A lot of offices now, DA's offices have conviction review units where they look back at whether there was prosecutorial or police misconduct or something else that calls into doubt the verdict.

But it sounds more from what the DA was saying, like they are doing a re-sentencing review, which means that even if they know the conviction is valid, the defendants actually did it, all these years later, with defendants who are older have served a lot of time, they are going to say, do they still need to be in prison? Have they served their debt to society? Or, can we ask the judge to take another look and maybe shorted our sentence.

BERMAN: So, a walk down memory lane, there were actually -- there's a hung jury in the first trial but in the new trial with both of them being tried together and they were found guilty, their defense was that it was self-defense because of years of sexual abuse, they say, at the hands of their father and that the mother knew and never did anything about it.

So, some of the new evidence that apparently came to light, that the DA may be looking at her, having reviewed again is a contemporaneous letter that one of the brothers wrote about the abuse. What impact did that have?

RODGERS: Well, if that had come in at the trial, in other words they are saying, we were abused that's why we did it. They didn't really have any support for that at the time, outside of their own testimony.

If that had come out at the time then they could have said, look, we wrote this letter to this other person saying we were being abused, it may have given that more credence, right? The jury may have felt that there was an excuse for what they did and possibly have acquitted them.

I think in this case, again, they are not really looking to overturn the verdict, but instead to say, had all of that evidence been available, perhaps the judge would have sentenced differently, right, had the judge thought that they were abused and that was a big part of that.

There is another thing also, John, that we've learned since that time, 37 years ago, abused people don't always behave after something like this, the way that you think that they should. We've learned a lot about how sexual abuse survivors act in the aftermath of a crime like this.

And so, you know, people think differently about these things now. And that's something that the DA's office will consider when it says to the judge that he or she should or shouldn't take a look at this again.

BERMAN: So the fact that a big chunk of the country that may not have been alive at the time is now fascinated by this. I mean, it really is a smash hit on Netflix. What role does something that play in shining a new light on a case? We sort of saw it with "Serial Podcast," right?

[08:30:18]