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Kamala Harris' New Book Slams Biden's Inner Circle; Interview with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX): Trump Calls Epstein Birthday Letter a Dead Issue; Family of Woman Stabbed on Train, Heartbroken Beyond Words. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 10, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A judge said it did belong to this Russian who made his fortune in gold. But there is another Russian, the former head of Rosneft, who is still contesting that this is his and his lawyers have pledged to continue to fight for it even after the sale. But still, you know, pretty nice, pretty nice toy.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's very subtle too, right? I don't feel like it's ostentatious for a $350 million yacht with a lobster tank.

SCANNELL: I could make do with that.

BERMAN: We could settle. We could settle. All right, Kara Scannell, thank you very much. Great to see you. this morning.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, so what really went down behind the scenes as the country questioned whether Joe Biden should continue his reelection campaign? Kamala Harris is now revealing her thoughts on that for the very first time. What she's calling recklessness today as the first excerpts of her new book come out.

And a quote, very unhappy President Trump lashing out at Israel after that unprecedented strike inside of Qatar, a key U.S. ally. The president's promising to fully lay out his reaction to it all today. And new reporting, those strikes against Hamas may not have been as successful as thought.

An out of this world released -- an out of this world video released by Congress showing a mysterious flying orb over the Middle East, completely unaffected by an incoming U.S. missile.

Sara is out. I'm Kate Bolduan with the John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: All right, breaking this morning, she goes there. Vice President Kamala Harris, as critical as she has been of President Biden's decision to run for re-election, but also her choice not to question that decision. Brand new excerpts of her upcoming book released in the Atlantic just moments ago. In 107 days, Harris writes that leaving the reelection decision up to

President Biden and the First Lady was, in retrospect, recklessness. She also lashes out at the former president's inner circle, saying, None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well. His team didn't get it.

Let's get right to CNN's Isaac Dovere, who's been pouring over these excerpts really out just over the last, what, 90 minutes, two hours. And this is language she has not used before, Isaac.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, like it's striking, John, because for her entire four years as vice president, she was very loyal, very dutifully, taking a second banana sort of role to Joe Biden. Of course, she was the vice president. But even during the campaign, you remember, there were multiple moments where she was asked to say what her differences were with Biden or break with him. Very famously, there was a moment when she was on The View, she was asked, Is there anything you would've done differently? She said, I can't think of anything.

And here she is in this book, which is out in two weeks -- it's the first excerpt running this morning -- taking some real shots at Joe Biden. Recklessness is the word that you referred to here. I'm going to read to you a part of it that's longer here.

It's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should've been left to an individual's ego, an individual's ambition. It should've been more than a personal decision.

That's pretty heady stuff, really, no matter what the circumstance, but especially given where Harris has been on this question in public to this point.

BERMAN: Yes, and look, she also says that it was hard for her. She would have been the worst person to question it because people would have said she was doing it for her own reasons because she was ambitious. And she said, look, I didn't necessarily see President Biden failing to the extent that people say he was. There was no conspiracy there.

I was also taken. by how critical she was of President Biden's inner circle, really, from the minute that they stepped in the White House, you know, January 20th, 2021.

DOVERE: Look, John, I reported on this all throughout the four years of that presidency and vice presidency. She had a lot of stumbles and a lot of mistakes that she made on her own. She is not wrong that she was being undercut by some people in the Biden inner circle throughout that time. And certainly when it came to the question of preparing her to be to be a presidential candidate at some point in the future, the Biden team was not really focused on that and stayed focused on building up Biden through the moment when Biden decided that he wasn't going to run for reelection, and then transferred, obviously, all of the campaign apparatus to Harris. She became the nominee very quickly, had the 107 days that she refers to in the title of this book to run the campaign. Didn't work out for her.

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But she does address that big question of Biden's capacity, which, of course, has been subject of a lot of scrutiny, including in a book written by our own Jake Tapper and on The Hill with oversight hearings from the Republicans in Congress. This is what she writes about that.

She says there were issues of age where he was tired, but she says, I don't believe it was incapacity. If I believe that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country.

BERMAN: Isaac Dovere, these words are going to be parsed and poured over, I think, for the next several weeks until we see the full book. Good to see you this morning. Thank you very much -- Kate.

DOVERE: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, the backlash is growing, as well as questions about Israel's unprecedented strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders. President Trump says that the words he uses, he's very unhappy about the attack, adding that he's going to issue a full statement on it today.

Two Israeli officials say that there are doubts now, though, about the actual success of that attack and strike, which targeted Hamas's chief negotiator and disrupted Gaza ceasefire talks. Two Israeli sources say Israel intentionally told the United States about the strike at the last minute, knowing that the U.S. would warn Qatar an attack was imminent. Much more to come on that.

And breaking news this morning as well. The Polish Prime Minister says that Poland is closer to a conflict than at any point since World War II. That is because Poland was just forced to shoot down Russian drones that had invaded its airspace. Polish officials say the Kremlin violated the airspace 19 times, actually, and that seven drones and parts of an unidentified missile have been found. The debris located and found in an area spanning hundreds of miles. Poland is also now invoking Article 4 of NATO, calling for a meeting to discuss how to respond as a collective.

NATO Secretary General spoke out just this morning, saying intentional or not on the part of Russia, he calls it reckless.

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MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Putin, I mean, my message is clear: Stop the war in Ukraine, stop the escalating war, which he is now basically mounting on innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure, stop violating allied airspace, and know that we stand ready, that we are vigilant, and that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: No injuries have been reported from those Russian drones that invaded Polish airspace, but the ministry says one of the drones did hit a residential building.

So we are now hearing from the family of the woman killed in that tragic train stabbing in North Carolina. And what they are now calling for will that to you next.

The White House also says let an expert examine the handwriting. That's the take now as they insist and maintain that Donald Trump is not the Donald who wrote that birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein years ago.

And it is a violent smash and grab caught on camera in California, robbers ramming a car into a jewelry store, then dozens of men ransacking the place before taking off, and now the hunt to find them all. We'll be back.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New in the Jeffrey Epstein case this morning. The first reaction from President Trump since we got a look at the letter in a birthday book sent to Epstein in 2003 with a suggestive drawing of a woman that had a Donald signature at the bottom. Now, the White House has said it's not his signature, although it looks very similar to other signatures, just like that from Donald Trump at the time.

When asked directly about the latest Epstein disclosures by NBC, the president said, I don't comment on something that's a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It's a dead issue.

With us now is Congressman Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas. He's on the House Oversight Committee that released this letter. Congressman Sessions, thanks so much for being with us. As always, when it comes to the Epstein case, what do you think is a dead issue? What's a dead issue to you?

REP. PETE SESSIONS (R-TX), OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, John, let's be quite honest about this. Both Republicans and Democrats are on the case. We're going to receive information. It's not going to be a necessarily a release in 30 days that we were pushed to just a week ago. It is going to be a meticulous investigation that Republicans and Democrats will work together.

I re-spoke to my ranking member, Mr. Mfume, just last week, and I said, Just so you know, I don't know all the briefings that our colleagues that are Democrats receive, but at any time you are not receiving the data information and timely dissemination of information, you need to let me know. It's all I can do as part of James Comer's team to make sure that we are working together.

So what do I think about it? I think that what we've got to do is to continue our investigation. We want the truth. I want to be able to answer questions, and we're going to get there.

BERMAN: Again, what's a dead issue then? Anything.

SESSIONS: Well, no, there's no dead issue. We're working. And I'm sorry, John, I did not directly say, we are continuing this investigation on a bipartisan basis, looking at data, looking at information. And there are a lot of questions we still have, and we're working to that end.

BERMAN: OK, so it is not a dead issue, you say, which is not what the president just said. Let's talk about that letter in the birthday book.

SESSIONS: Well, it might it might be for the president, but it is not for Congress. They just now received the information.

BERMAN: Well, OK, so it's not a dead issue for you. I mean, it is a dead issue for the president. What does that tell you about his level of curiosity about the Epstein investigation?

SESSIONS: Well, it's hard for me to know what the last four presidents have looked at in this whole issue.

[08:15:00]

It is brand-new to Congress to begin its review of the documents and ask questions. The president's probably worked through this a long time ago. They had the knowledge, they had the data, they had the information. He can draw a conclusion after six months. I've not drawn that conclusion yet.

BERMAN: Does it look like his signature to you on the bottom of that letter?

SESSIONS: You know what we're we're looking at that. We're also looking at people who are gathering together his signature at the time, and that's what we need to pay attention to. We've been get provided the information. Now what we need to do is draw our own conclusion.

BERMAN: So to you it's an open question about whether that's his signature on this document.

SESSIONS: Well, evidently the president, who was not under oath, stated it was not his. The White House has stated that. So we will start from that perspective unless proven otherwise. But this is simply a small part of the entire questions. We need to we need to put together this information. Why did the last in essence, four presidents, not move forward on this? Where is the evidence? What is the scope of the entire matter? And we're still looking at that. We've had them now about 10 days. John and I will tell you, we are beginning what will be a bipartisan effort, but it is not aimed at Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Understood.

SESSIONS: It's aimed at the truth. How did these things happen? So I know people want to go specifically to Donald Trump, and there's a lot of drumbeat on the hill by my colleagues that are Democrats to do that. We're after the larger sense to answer questions.

BERMAN: And I do get that belief listening to you, especially when you talk about your conversations with the ranking member Mfume on this. But why did you just bring up that the White House when they said it wasn't his signature? Why did you raise the issue of them not being under oath? Why would that be important?

SESSIONS: Well, all I'm saying is, is that we will look at the data and then decide what further we need if we think that it's not representative of Donald Trump or is representative of Donald Trump. We have taken at face value what has been said. So I don't think that our investigation right now is trying to focus on that at all.

BERMAN: One question on the economy. The jobs numbers that have been coming back have been anemic, right, June was revised downward to actually a loss of jobs. You were getting growth each month in the 20s of thousands. How concerned are you right now of manufacturing jobs down? Young people are having a hard time finding jobs. How concerned are you about the current state of the economy?

SESSIONS: I am very concerned, and this is where any president, any board of governors for the Fed, and even the Supreme Court although they will rule on the facts of law. I am concerned about this, and if it's truthful, we need to look at the policies that we have. Some people have suggested it's a number of issues.

I think it's related to, perhaps you do, too, in this battle that the president is having about interest rates, about whether we're going to have new starts, about whether we're going to allow people, just like my son, who bought a home this last weekend, darn near 7 percent interest rates. But he got the house he wanted and then we'll make some accommodations later.

It is keeping people away from jobs. It is keeping people away from building, builders that build buildings, that build homes. And we need to, we need to know what the truth is.

BERMAN: Congressman Pete Sessions, congratulations to your son on his new home. I hope you help him furnish it nicely. People with new homes, they need some help. Thank you for your time this morning, Congressman.

SESSIONS: You bet.

BERMAN: All right, we're just moments away from the release of a key inflation report on the heels of all the gloomy jobs numbers. What will it tell us about the future of the economy?

And new health guidelines from the Trump administration, but less and fewer specifics than some experts were expecting.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: Heartbroken beyond words, that is what the family is saying in part in a statement. The family of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian woman who was living here as a refugee in the United States who was murdered on that Charlotte, North Carolina train.

This morning, federal charges have been filed against the man who police say carried out that unprovoked attack that was caught on camera. He is 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher following this one for us from Charlotte. Dianne, we know -- what more -- we've now heard from her family. What more are they saying?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So they're sharing a little bit about how they experience their moments just before Iryna's final moments. But they're also saying they seek accountability and they are demanding systemic change. We learned from them that Iryna had just texted her boyfriend before she was killed that she would be home soon. And her family became alarmed when she didn't show up at the apartment and her phone showed that she was still at that light rail station.

Now, the family says its immediate priority is for the suspect, DeCarlos Brown, to, quote, be brought to justice and remain behind bars. But they're also calling for a full investigation into the circumstances that led to Iryna's death.

They say there were lapses in security protocols and failures within the public transportation system.

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For example, they cite a lack of effective or visible security on the Charlotte Area Transit System, or CATS Blue Line, that's the light rail, and they say there was failure an oversight from CATS and professional security services or PSS. They've issued a call to action demanding city officials address these failures and an enact reform.

And they also have a request for the public and the media. They say out of respect for Iryna's dignity and their own incredible grief to please stop sharing the unedited footage of her final moments of her killing. They say it is incredibly difficult for them to continue seeing this over and over again and disrespects Iryna's dignity.

Now, last night, where the primary elections here in Charlotte, the Democratic mayor, Vi Lyles, won her primary race. In about an hour or two, we're going to be hearing from state and local Republicans talking about safety within the city of Charlotte and on public transportation and, Kate, likely lambasting Democrats for what they say are shortcomings in their leadership.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Dianne, for your continued reporting on this, your sensitivity to it, and hopefully, if possible, the politics can remain out of it. Thank you so much.

Ahead for us, a health alert this morning. The kissing bug disease is on the rise in a number of states. What you need to know. Pucker up -- just kidding.

Plus, a new video released in a congressional hearing appears to show a UFO continuing to fly after being struck by a U.S. missile.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Does this video scare you guys? Yes or no?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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