Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Video Statement of Key Witness Played in Utah Court; Maine Democrats Will Hold Convention to Replace Platner; Katie Couric Shares Her Bout With Temporary Amnesia. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 09, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:33:28]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": A short time ago, prosecutors in Utah presented some of the most crucial evidence in the killing of conservative activist, Charlie Kirk. They're showing an interview that was recorded. It was a recorded statement by the man who was the roommate of Kirk's suspected killer, Tyler Robinson.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Prosecutors considered the roommate's testimony as key evidence in the case, with text between them showing Robinson admitting to the fatal shooting of Kirk at Utah Valley University.

CNN's Jean Casarez has the latest for us. Jean?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is going on right now in real time in the courthouse, in the courtroom in Utah, and the purpose of this is to establish whether there is probable cause that Tyler Robinson committed these crimes. This, for the first time, we are seeing the roommate on tape.

The judge is allowing part of this to be broadcast for us to be able to watch and see. This is a public proceeding, and this is and was at the time the roommate of Tyler Robinson. He said that they met in about 2023. Initially, they were just roommates.

Then they started dating, and he talked about how that probably a month before, several weeks before, that Tyler Robinson was talking about a hunting trip, going on a hunting trip -- a camping trip and a hunting trip. Then it progressed to the point of September 10th and 11th.

He said he didn't talk to him until the night of the 10th. That would be the shooting day, evening, around 11 o'clock at night. But then he said that once they physically got together again, he started acting erratically.

[13:35:00]

He was walking around a lot. He started crying. He talked about whether he did or didn't do this. The roommate said, what are you going to do next? He said that eventually that he was going to talk with his parents, and the thought is to turn himself in. The roommate said, I did not want to be in the apartment anymore in light of all of this, and so he wanted to leave.

And then the law enforcement showed the FBI website of the surveillance video of someone, prosecutors say it's Tyler Robinson, on that day at the university shortly before that shot rang out that killed Charlie Kirk. So this is riveting.

There was immense argument from the defense to not allow the public to see this because of the right to a fair trial, that it can influence a potential jury pool, but the judge ruled that part of this 30-minute statement would be allowed to be seen publicly by us.

KEILAR: And Jean, this morning, the Kirk family made a request to the judge. Can you tell us about that?

CASAREZ: Because the defense was arguing so stridently, and they have a responsibility to their client, and they did not want this broadcast. They wanted this to be secret, to be in the hands of the judge. They didn't even want the courtroom to see it.

The attorney for the Kirk family stood up in an emotional request from the judge to make this transparent. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY NEIMAN, KIRK FAMILY ATTORNEY: Your Honor, Jeffrey Neiman on behalf of the Kirk family. I've been very hesitant to speak up at these proceedings. We understand it's the state, the defense, and the judge, you're all doing your job. But I feel as if we need to.

I want to be clear as to what the Kirk family's position is on all of this. The Kirk family believes strongly that if the evidence is being admitted in this preliminary hearing, it should be made public for the world to see. No redactions. This court has tools at its disposal to make sure the defendant receives a fair trial. You'll use them if you find that you need to.

That's it, Your Honor. To not be transparent here, to not be open, to not let the world see what happened, will create doubt and distrust in the judicial system. And that's not what anybody wants. That's not what any of us believe should happen here. And we'd ask the court to consider the position of the family in making its ultimate decision.

Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: And this is not the trial, but this is a mini trial, the preliminary hearing for the judge to look at the evidence to determine on these seven counts in the charging document, the information, if there is probable cause that Tyler Robinson, the defendant, committed these crimes. If so, the case will be bound over for trial. Then there will be a formal arraignment where the defendant himself will enter a plea.

SANCHEZ: Jean Casarez, thank you so much for walking us through those developments.

Up next, veteran journalist, Katie Couric sharing her experience with a temporary bout of amnesia. She called it freaky. We'll discuss what it is, what causes it, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:42:32]

SANCHEZ: A major shake-up is rocking the Democratic Senate race in Maine. The party's nominee, Graham Platner, has dropped out under intense pressure after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her while he was heavily intoxicated back in 2021. An accusation that Platner denies, though he is not bowing out of the race quietly. Instead, he announced his exit in an 11-minute video in which he echoed his denial before going on to blame the Democratic establishment for his downfall. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM PLATNER, (D) FORMER MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: It's not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us. We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish. That if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Democrats now have just two-and-a-half weeks to pick a replacement to take on Republican Senator, Susan Collins, who's one of the most formidable moderate members of the GOP in the Senate. The party has approved a plan to hold a nominating convention, and several potential successors are already vying to replace Platner on the ticket. Let's talk about all of this with CNN Chief Political Analyst, David Axelrod.

David, first off, I just wonder what you think of what you heard. This was a very lengthy video that he put up. What did you think about how he did this?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: I thought it was disgraceful, honestly. You know, he had an opportunity to accept responsibility. There was nowhere in the 11 minutes that he ascribed any of this to his own actions. And, you know, it was very Trumpian. It was -- you know, it was blame the accusers. It was don't accept responsibility. It was martyr yourself.

And it was really, I thought, a bad moment for him, you know, to completely duck responsibility for his own actions and blame everyone but himself, including the accusers, was just a terrible mistake in my view.

[13:45:00] SANCHEZ: I noted that part of your reaction to this online was that you believe something is getting lost in the Platner conversation and that is, quote, "How did a deeply flawed, but gifted candidate, build such a devoted following?"

AXELROD: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: What's your answer?

AXELROD: Yeah. Well, look, you and I, we all discussed this I think the last time I was on with you when this was brewing, this controversy, and I said that we have to ask that question, what is it about him that allowed him to be 30 points ahead of a popular sitting governor and forcing her out of the race. And the answer is that he was speaking to something very real people, feel like they've been ill served by our politics, ill served by the system, the economic system as it's functioning now.

They see great concentrations of wealth influencing policy. You hear that all over the country, it's not just in Maine. So it would be a mistake for people to say, well, you know, this was an aberration and we should just forget about it. You may not agree with the solutions that Graham Platner was offering, but you better have some of your own because people are very, very concerned about the direction of the country.

KEILAR: Yeah. I'm curious how you are seeing how supporters of Platner's rationalize some of their support because even as there was the tattoo and there were some earlier accusations about his behavior, there was smoke, there was already a little bit of fire, and you would hear people say, you know, even if that's true, I believe in what he stands for. That is what I want and I don't want Susan Collins in the Senate, and they would overlook uh even what they would normally object to. What did you think of that?

AXELROD: Well, Brianna, we're seeing a lot of that in our politics. Just think about the president of the United States and the things -- I mean, he just last week, I guess, it was the Supreme Court essentially affirmed an order that's causing him to pay a $5 million judgment to a woman who accused him of sexual abuse and he was found liable by a jury. You don't hear a lot of Republicans saying he should be disqualified for that or all the other things that he's been accused of over the years.

So people have -- you know, they're worrying about their own lives and they tend to see it through that prism and you know, on the Republican side, people see Donald Trump is speaking to their lives. And I think people in Maine thought Graham Platner was giving voice to their concerns and they may have real -- may have had really misgivings about him, but he was effective in articulating those concerns.

So, you know, I don't think it's completely hard to understand how that might happen. It also speaks to what people may have, which is a very low opinion of people in politics generally, so the bar may have been lowered here to the point that that helped -- that would help him. But, as I said to you last time, the load can only take so many bricks. This was way too big a load and now we are where we are.

SANCHEZ: So when it comes to how Democrats in Maine move forward from the reporting, there are indications that Platner's team wants to have some influence over who succeeds him as the nominee. I wonder if you think Platner should have a say in endorsing someone and whether someone that receives that endorsement would even want it.

AXELROD: Yeah, it's a really good question. I think that, you know, from their perspective, they've built a movement, a progressive movement in that state and that he won the primary overwhelmingly and, therefore, the candidate should reflect his positioning on issues. I think the state committee has a different view which is that, yes, people should be involved. There should be broader representation than just a hundred people who are elected to a state committee to make this decision.

And I guess, the solution they've arrived at is a convention at which 600 people, you know, who are elected from all over the state will make that decision. My guess is that the candidate who they arrive at will generally reflect progressive thinking on a lot of issues because there was an overwhelming consensus in the state, whether it's exactly the person who Graham Platner wants to be the nominee, it seems to be Troy Jackson, the former State Senate President, who was his candidate for governor.

You know, whether it's him or someone else, I can't answer that question. I don't think anybody can right now, but, and I'm not sure that -- I think you can overplay your hand if you're Graham Platner.

[13:50:00]

You know, Democrats in Maine are in this situation because of him and because of the fact that he wasn't completely above board and honest about a lot of these controversies that have surfaced. And so I think, you know, there is a limit to people's patience is my guess, as to how, you know, the demands that he might make.

KEILAR: David, great to speak with you as we are keeping our eye on Maine and this Senate race. Thank you so much.

AXELROD: Thanks for having me (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: So if you ever wanted to live in space, maybe just pretend to live in space, this could be your chance. NASA is looking for volunteers for its next mission. What it is, how to apply, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:55:25]

KEILAR: Veteran journalist, Katie Couric is sharing her experience about a recent health scare she had, revealing that she had a bout of temporary amnesia. Transient global amnesia temporarily robs people of their short-term memory. They still know who they are, and they're wide awake and alert.

SANCHEZ: In her Substack article, Couric writes that she called those few hours freaky when she couldn't remember the month, year, or even who is president. Joining us now is Dr. David Langer, Chair of Neurosurgery at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Doctor, thank you so much for being with us.

What is transient global amnesia? How does this happen?

DR. DAVID LANGER, NEUROSURGERY CHAIR, NORTHWELL LENOX HILL HOSPITAL: Well, it's -- the words say it all. It's transient, it's temporary, it's global, meaning it affects all your memory, at least the short- term, and it's amnesia. I mean, you lose memory.

It's a, by definition, short-term with essentially a full recovery, but those memories are, in that period of time, are lost forever. It's almost like a little brain seizure or a temporary loss of connectivity that you just don't incorporate in memory for a very short period of time, and it can be very daunting and very scary for people when they have it.

KEILAR: It's so scary just to read what she was going through that she initially thought, or she and her husband, they thought that she had had a stroke, right? They were able to rule that out with imaging, so that quickly maybe told them what they were facing there, but how uncommon is something like this?

LANGER: It's actually more common than you think. I mean, it's not, a stroke almost never presents purely with just memory loss. That's an odd way for a stroke to present, number one. Number two, when people have it, they're often partly recovered by the time they show up in the emergency room.

It can be very short, so it's very scary though, because all of a sudden you lose, that's when you realize how important, just your memory is so important for your personality. If you wiped your memory out, like who would you be? So there's this kind of inner turmoil people go through when this happens, but it's such a repeatable known entity that when people have it, it's like, don't worry about it, because we know that this entity exists, and what's odd is we really don't know why.

There are some theories about why this happens, but it's not a stroke, and people very rarely, I've never heard of someone having it twice. It's the other odd thing. But by and large, I think it remains scary for folks, and so understanding if you do have this, if it's purely just a short-term memory, it's probably OK. It doesn't mean you shouldn't go seek attention, but if they tell you it's TGA, that's actually a good diagnosis.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned the theories. Do we have any research on what triggers this sort of thing?

LANGER: One theory is almost like a seizure of the hippocampal, a tiny seizure where there's some disruption to the input. The other potentially is maybe a venous problem, just the way the brain drains, a venous congestion. We don't think it's ischemia, or we don't think it's irreversible, like a stroke ischemia, but there may be some blood flow change at the level of the hippocampus, which is the memory centers of the brain.

So it's likely a combination of some or all of this, but the way I like to think about it, it's completely reversible and whatever the cause is, it's not damage. It's probably just sort of temporary disruption, the way we incorporate memory that rarely, if ever, recurs. And so whatever the cause of this is, with that kind of constellation of symptoms, you're lucky and you should be fine, and hopefully this doesn't manifest in some other way.

KEILAR: She and her husband in this Substack post describe that she was asking these questions over and over again, like, where am I? How did I get here? And just -- you get the sense that this was over and over, and that actually when she went back and looked at an article about this, that is one of the telltale signs. That's what people will do. They'll kind of ask the same question almost in the same tone.

I think what's really surprising to people is what you said, that this probably won't happen again. I mean, that is -- that almost like defies, I think, our expectations about something like this. Can you kind of put -- can you explain why that might be?

LANGER: Well, you know, we always ask ourselves who we are as a person. You know, our memory and our sense of self is very connected to our kind of understanding of what it means to be conscious. I think when you go through this, it's -- I mean, it's like, if you have a spinal cord injury and you can't move your arms or your legs, you have this experience where you realize how poor the spinal cord is.

Certainly when you have these situations, it's very scary because there's a complete disconnection between your sense of who you are and lack of control. And there's loss of --