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Woman Who Dated Graham Platner Says He Raped Her In 2021; Multiple Democrats Demanding Platner Withdraw From Maine Senate Race; Trump Criticizes NATO Over Iran Ahead Of High- Stakes Summit; Soon: Hearing Resumes For Man Accused Of Killing Charlie Kirk; Prince Harry Loses Privacy Case Against UK Tabloid Publisher. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 07, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:20]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, more and more Democrats saying he's got to go. Graham Platner under growing pressure to drop out of the Maine Senate race as these Democrats are pushing him to step aside after a new allegation of rape. We are standing by to see if he announces any decision this morning.

And moments ago, President Trump again criticizing NATO ahead of critical meetings with allies in Turkey apparently still angry over the lack of support for the war in Iran.

And she sparked backlash from the entertainment industry back in 2025 now. AI actress Tilly Norwood Set to make her feature debut.

I'm Kate Bolduan. Nope. That is a glitch. I'm Sara Sidner. And this, ladies and gentlemen --

(CROSSTALK)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Sara Sidner.

SIDNER: I am Tilly Norwood.

BERMAN: Yes.

SIDNER: Those stories and more AI news ahead.

BERMAN: All right, we are standing by for news from Maine, where Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner says he is reflecting on the best path forward for his campaign. Now you'd be hard-pressed to find a time that words like that did not lead to a candidate dropping out.

Platner faces new allegations of sexual assault. Jenny Racicot told Jake Tapper the Platner came to her house drunk in 2021 and forced himself on her after she repeatedly said no.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JENNY RACICOT, GRAHAM PLATNER ACCUSER: So, he had kind of like jumped on top of me and indicated that he had intentions that were sexual in nature. And I remember just at first being like, hey, I'm not into this, like don't, I'm not in the mood, like don't, whatever.

And it got to the point where I was like, OK, I feel like I've said this enough times. Like he's not listening to me or he's not hearing me and I looked at him and I remember this very specific look in his eyes and I could smell alcohol and I was like, this is different.

I remember specifically him like grabbing at my chest and I like hit his hand and I said don't touch me and I remember that during the altercation --

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And then --

RACICOT: -- specifically.

TAPPER: -- he kept going.

RACICOT: Yes, and it was this weird mix of like coming in and out of I don't think consciousness is the word, but like coming to and kind of falling back into that drunken. I don't know what I'm doing state. And yes, and he just -- he would apologize in those moments and then go back to doing what he was doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Platner calls the allegations serious, but false. And this morning it seems every national Democrat who's been asked says he should drop out.

I want to get right to see it as Jeff Zeleny. And again, we shouldn't presume anything, but it really does seem like a waiting game at this point. Every Democrats saying, he should leave. Platner saying he's reflecting on the future that almost always leads to a campaign suspension.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): John, there is no doubt about it. I mean the support for him among Democrats as a collapsed virtually entirely the only person whose name is really not on that list is Senator Bernie Sanders. And he was one of the biggest as supporters of him, but Bernie Sanders has been silent about this. He's not supporting his candidacy. I talked to a Sanders adviser who said that they too are reflecting, the Senator is reflecting on the next steps here.

So it's a matter of when this is likely to happen, but John the bottom line here is the Maine law effectively allows for this. If Platner makes his decision by Monday July 13th, there's a couple weeks for Maine Democrats to decide a new candidate. So, I'm told that is what is happening at this moment deciding what the next steps would be. And this is a tricky path for Maine Democrats because if there's an establishment pick that could be a rejected, but there was a very competitive Maine a gubernatorial a Democratic of primary. So, there are several candidates there who've already been vetted to some degree and have also had some support for Maine voters.

So look for some of the potential candidates to come from that pool, but it is impossible to believe or virtually impossible to believe that the Graham Platner could continue going forward here. The Democratic a senatorial a campaign committee has said it will not spend a dime in Maine if he stays on the ballot.

So look Susan Collins and Republicans are -- are trying to win this seat and if he would stay in the race, they certainly would.

[09:05:03]

BERMAN: Yes, just to remind people Democrats, we need to pick up four Senate seats to retake the Senate --

ZELENY (on-camera): Right.

BERMAN: -- almost all combinations go through Maine. It would almost -- it would be next to impossible, though not completely impossible, for Democrats to win without Maine --

ZELENY (on-camera): Right.

BERMAN: -- which is why they need this race so badly (INAUDIBLE).

ZELENY (on-camera): But the question, John, is if there's a new candidate, could this race reset? And by November, is Graham Platner a distant memory? I mean, Republicans are also not thrilled about the idea of running against someone else potentially, so very, very, very uncertain at this hour in Maine.

BERMAN: It's a very fair question. I think the Mainers very much want to come up with a process to pick that --

ZELENY (on-camera): Right.

BERMAN: -- different candidate that may not just be the party saying, I pick you. It may be some kind of caucus convention meeting, some kind.

ZELENY (on-camera): A mini convention is what we're hearing, right?

BERMAN: Which would be very interesting to cover. Something you've never done, Jeff Zeleny, now's your chance.

ZELENY (on-camera): That's right.

BERMAN: All right. Thanks very much for being with us.

Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, questions only really swirling around that right now.

Also right now, we're keeping an eye overseas. President Trump is in Turkey for the critical NATO summit. We just saw moments ago the warm welcome that he has received from Turkey's President Erdogan, who's hosting this gathering.

But the President wasting no time, though, in sitting down for their meeting to set the tone for how the remainder of his meetings with world leaders might go. Once again, airing grievances with European allies for what he perceives is not doing enough to support the war with Iran that he started.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: You see, I was very disappointed with NATO.

We didn't need any help at all. And in a way, I was testing people. I was testing to see whether or not they'd be there, because I've long said that we help them, but I'm not sure that they'd be there for us. And Italy turned us down and Germany turned us down and France turned us down. And that's OK. But you know, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not there for us? We've always been there for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: As we've seen, there is more to it than -- than that, for sure.

CNN's Kristen Holmes traveling with the President in Ankara right now.

Kristen, what are you hearing about kind of what the expectation is from President Trump and his team going into this?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Well, we had talked to U.S. officials as well as European leaders who said that President Trump was expected to air his grievances. But certainly in this very first bilateral meeting with President Erdogan, if I'm a European leader watching this, I feel pretty uneasy going into the big meeting, because this is something President Trump has continued to do, to lash out at NATO for a variety of reasons, saying they're not spending enough on defense.

I'll remind you, a year ago, President Trump actually got a win on defense, saying that they signed a deal at NATO that they would spend five percent of GDP on defense. So that was considered a win. But there are years to do that, and it's been a very slow roll. But of course, what you heard him there was really airing those grievances about Iran in particular.

And I have been told that he's been doing that in private and public and saying, as he did today, that he's only here at this NATO summit because President Erdogan of Turkey was hosting it. And it wouldn't have been considered unkind or unfair or a shun for him to not show up. And he wants to respect that relationship.

Now, the other part of this is that troop withdrawal. We reported this morning that there have been private conversations that the President was considering withdrawing one-third of troops from Europe. He was asked specifically today if he is considering, if he is going to withdraw more troops. And he said, we'll see. So again, not another good sign for these European leaders.

Now, we know there are separate conversations happening with them, where they're trying to come up with their own plans for security because they believe they can't rely on the United States. But really, what they wanted to come out of this was just an alliance or a meeting on the alliance that really showed unity. And so far, President Trump is not starting with that unity.

And just a quick message here, because this is going to be a point of contention back at home. President Trump did signal a willingness to sell Turkey those F-35s, even despite a ban, a congressional ban that was put in place. This is something that Republicans are not going to be happy about, likely.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And the question then becomes for Republicans, we just had one on the show, which is, what has Turkey done or shown, which it would have to be maybe behind the scenes, that can allay the concerns over national security in order to allow that to happen, to let them back in the program?

Kristen, traveling with the President, you're the best. Thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Let's -- let's go to Ankara, Turkey and hear some more of what he's saying right now.

TRUMP: -- it's not going to happen. It was Greenland that in my and it continues to be that should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn't go along with it and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia and we don't have to spend any money. We could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe.

Because as you probably noticed, Europe's a very different place than it was 20 years ago. A lot different. Much different. It's a much different. And they better be careful with immigration and energy. If they're not careful with those two things, you're not going to have a Europe anymore.

[09:10:15]

OK, thank you very much, everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

SIDNER: All right, we were just listening to President Trump talking about Greenland, saying with all the money we spent to help them with Russia, we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe, going after Greenland again and going after Europe.

Let's go to Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois, who joins us now. Congressman Quigley sits on the Intelligence and Appropriation Committees and is co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus.

Look, let me start with this. We just heard the President, again, sort of on the attack when it comes to Greenland. He talked about removing all of the soldiers of Europe, saying that's a possibility or as a threat. He also said, and I want to quote here, when talking about NATO, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they are not there for us? We have always been there for them.

I'd just like to get your thoughts on what you're seeing here, because clearly, he's come to the NATO alliance, the NATO summit, and he's on the attack.

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Yes, it's frustrating and discouraging. You know, a basic tenet of foreign policy is to have a friend, you need to be one. Article 5 has only been put in place one time, after 9/11, and our NATO allies came to our defense. They fought with us in Afghanistan, they've done much more. And obviously what the President's done or hasn't done in Ukraine is discouraging.

So at the same time, Russia poses perhaps its greatest threat since the Cold War. And there's other threats across the world. The President decides this is a good time to further threaten and insult our NATO allies. He treated the war in Ukraine as some sort of weird moral equivalence.

So this was always a strategic and moral imperative for the United States, to think that we could isolate ourselves and only have troops in the U.S. and keep ourselves safe is just mindless and scary. And I hope my Republican colleagues stand up, as they're apparently starting to do, against the troop withdrawals and the supply withdrawals.

SIDNER: You know, you mentioned that the only time that NATO officially came to a country's aid during war was in response to 9/11. They helped the United States, came to the United States' aid in 2001.

Are you worried that what you're hearing from the President is signaling to the world that America is an ungrateful nation and should not be trusted when it comes to either helping other nations or just in general when it comes to things like intelligence?

QUIGLEY: I'm not worried about it. I'm worried about that it's a fact. I don't know who our friends are anymore. I don't know who would trust us. If this is some notion that you could withdraw troops from Europe and focus them more toward Asia or concerns about China, why would our friends in Asia have any faith in us? Why would any country have any faith in us after what we've done? Threatening our allies, trade wars, basically isolating ourselves. None of that worked in 1939. It's not going to work now.

We get more than just military joint assistance from our allies. We get critical intelligence, which protects our troops, which protects the homeland. We are stronger economically because of our trade partners. But if they don't like us and they don't want to trade, the world will spin without us. They'll grow stronger economically. We won't. And they'll be stronger militarily as a result of this. This should be a scary time. We need to come back into session next week in Congress and work on the National Defense Authorization Act in response to this president's loose attacks in NATO that are taking place as we speak.

SIDNER: Congressman, you're painting a dark picture here. I do want to get to politics that are here at home. Democrats finally saying something that you called for a month ago now that Maine Democrat Graham Platner is facing accusations of rape from a woman that he dated. He went public and spoke to Jake Tapper.

You'll hear what she is saying and then his response. Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Did Graham Platner rape you?

RACICOT: By definition, yes, absolutely.

TAPPER: Because he had non-consensual sex with you, forced himself on you.

[09:15:04]

After you had told him no and fought him off.

RACICOT: He violated multiple layers of consent that night by coming into my home when I asked him not to and by advancing on me when I told him not to. And furthermore, another incident that I had told him not to do. And --

TAPPER: With protection.

RACICOT: Yes.

GRAHAM PLATNER, (D) MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false allegations against me.

Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.

Regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting. But mindful, the political reality it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: You said last month, a month ago on this show to our Kate Bolduan, that if there's a way to replace him on the ballot, I'd be all for it. That was before this. That was when it was found that he had a Nazi tattoo on his chest, that he claimed he was unaware was a Nazi symbol. When he was accused by several women of violent or sexually inappropriate behavior. When he made some incendiary Reddit comments repeating racist stereotypes against black people and others. But it is only now that we're hearing a woman accuse him of rape that several of your colleagues are finally coming forward and saying he should get out of the race. Why do you think it took your colleagues so long?

QUIGLEY: You know, I hate to be right in this situation. I wish I was wrong about everything, but it was pretty obvious before the primary. This was a person not fit for public office.

We have, we have to be consistent. Right. I mean, these are disgusting allegations. We can't decry those and we're in opposition against and then not speak truth to the situation here. This is how we got in trouble in the past is when we don't -- we tell the American people what they're feeling and we tell them not to ignore the obvious.

So, look, there's time we move forward. Hopefully learn the lesson this time. Find a good candidate. There's a lot of talent in Maine. I have great faith that someone can come forward and be a candidate that wins and help us win back the U.S. Senate.

But, you know, what I heard from many was, oh, we need to be pragmatic. We need to be pragmatic, but we need to be true to ourselves. And I asked my colleagues. I think most of them are on the same page that we be consistent.

SIDNER: They are now, it seems.

Congressman Mike Quigley, it is good to have you. Thank you so much for being here this morning.

John.

BERMAN: Erika Kirk face to face with a man prosecutors say shot and killed her husband.

What's next for the U.S. men's national team after an historic dud of a game.

And breaking news. We are just getting word that Prince Harry lost his privacy case against a British tabloid.

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[09:22:12]

BERMAN: We are standing by for a Utah judge to hear evidence in the case against the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk last September.

The judge heard from a former officer who responded to the scene in Kirk's widow Erika and his parents are sitting in the courtroom.

Let's get right to seeing as Nick Watt in Provo, Utah for the latest on all this.

Nick, what are we expecting today?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): Well first up John we're expecting a montage of surveillance video that allegedly shows Tyler Robinson on the campus on the day that Charlie Kirk was shot. We're expecting video for example of this black figure running across a roof and then jumping off shortly after the shooting.

And this was an interesting moment in court yesterday, the prosecution tried to put this video into evidence. But the defense and the judge objected because there were zooms there were arrows there was editing to try and help people understand what they were seeing and the judge didn't like that. So overnight the prosecution has had to re-edit that video and they're going to try and put it into evidence this morning.

So, you mentioned that cop who was on the stand yesterday? He was one of the campus cops, one of the first people to respond. He said he heard the crack of the rifle when he was describing that crack of the rifle. By the way Erika Kirk had to leave the courtroom. She was very, very upset obviously and understandably.

Now that cop described the chaos that initially there was talk on the radios that they had a suspect in custody, they clearly didn't. This guy described the chaos, he described running over towards where he thought the shot came from going up onto the roof and finding what he described as a sniper's pad.

Take a little listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Officer upon seeing this disturbance in the gravel, you've described what it looked like to you.

CHRIS BAGLEY, OFFICER, UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY POLICE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone lying down in a prone position, correct.

BAGLEY: Yes. At that moment I realized because it was a direct line of sight plus the disturbance in the gravel or I could see somebody laid down in a prone position or a sniper position and asked dispatch to get on the bit. Then I realized that we probably didn't have our shooter in custody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT (on-camera): So how it works here in Utah is this is a preliminary hearing. So, we've got five days where the prosecution gets to present their evidence, to try and get to probable cause so that the judge will decide, yes, this goes to a full trial. The judge he decides.

Back to you.

BERMAN: All right. In the meantime, we get to see all this evidence much of it for the first time. Nick Watt in court, thank you so much for being with us.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, (INAUDIBLE). Breaking just moments ago a UK High Court just ruled that Prince Harry along with six others Sir Elton John has lost a high-profile privacy case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over allegations of unlawful information gathering.

[09:25:05]

CNN's Anna Stewart is joining us now from London with the very latest on this.

I'm assuming this is a surprise to Harry. Give us a sense of what the court ruled and what it means.

ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on-camera): So really this is almost the final chapter of what has been a trilogy for Prince Harry of tabloid newspaper publishers. He took on the Mirror a few years ago. He actually won that court -- won that case in court. He took on the Publishers of the Sun. He got a settlement. He was awarded damages and an apology.

Today was the verdict for that final case. This is against the publishers of the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail. It comes some 20 plus years since phone hacking all entered our vocabulary and he has lost this case.

This will be a huge blow for the Duke of Sussex. I'm reading through the summary now. The judge says that the claimants failed to prove their pleaded allegations of unlawful information gathering. This case of course dating back many, many years which was part of the problem. The judge in this case said that it was going to be very hard but they had to prove with evidence that there was unlawful activity, that it was widespread and that the newspapers were aware of that. They failed to prove that and this was wiretapping, bugging homes, hacking phones.

This was the case that actually saw Prince Harry take to the witness stand and say that it had been an endless pursuit, a flat out obsession to put his private life under surveillance. So this is a huge blow for Prince Harry and this of course comes as he is in the UK this week for a number of engagements amid a bit of an uproar about where he is staying and who his security are going to be, who's paying for that.

So really just another bad storyline for Prince Harry right now.

SIDNER: Yes, I mean there is a lot there. The Royals going after some of these different tabloids but in this case, like you said, he's won some others but he has lost this one with the Daily Mail as have the others who were involved in that lawsuit.

Thank you so much Anna Stewart for spelling it all out for us and sort of taking us down history lane if you will.

All right, ahead. It's considered a vital race for Democrats, hopes to take the Senate seat back but the list of Democrats calling on their own nominee to get out of the race now is growing. It is becoming larger and larger. The question is what will Graham Platner do? And five injured in, yep, Pamplona. It happens every year. Spain's running of the bulls is not for the faint of heart.

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