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Dow Falls After New U.S. Strikes on Iran; Judge Tells Deadlocked Clancy Jurors to Keep Deliberating; USPS Whistleblower Says New Plans for Voting by Mail Are Hidden From Public; Moulton Challenging Markey for Massachusetts Senate in Generational Clash; Landfall Imminent as Edouard Nears Texas-Louisiana Coast. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired September 01, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: -- prices are going to go. The more you're going to have these inflationary concerns upset the bond market, and drive up the cost of borrowing. It's really all connected.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Certainly is. Matt Egan, thank you so much.

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Breaking News. The U.S. hitting Iran with new strikes, coming after the two sides traded attacks overnight into Monday.

Plus, deadlocked but deliberating. Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial tell the judge they cannot reach a verdict. The possibility of a mistrial now hangs over the case.

And we have the latest on Edouard, Air Force Hurricane Hunters finding the tropical storm is strengthening. We have the latest on where it could make landfall as we follow these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

First to the Breaking News, the U.S. announcing a new round of strikes on Iran. U.S. Central Command says they're in response to attempted attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and also on American service members deployed in the region.

It was just yesterday that Iran launched missiles and drone attacks toward targets in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates following U.S. strikes on Sunday that hit rocket launchers on Iran's Larak Island.

CNN's Zach Cohen is following all of these breaking details here. Zach, have we gotten any word about the scale of these latest U.S. operations?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Brianna, President Donald Trump taking to Truth Social just a few minutes ago, calling these strikes, quote, "large and powerful, targeting Iranian sites around and near the Strait of Hormuz." Now, the president also says that in this post that these strikes were in retaliation for the Iranians attempting to lay sea mines in the Strait, additional sea mines, and also for shooting those eight missiles at a U.S. military base in Jordan.

So that echoes what we heard just a little bit before that from U.S. Central Command who made clear that, yes, these strikes are a continuation of that retaliation from the U.S. side against Iran for continuing to try to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which remains really the key point of tension between the U.S. and Iran as this conflict has had a flare-up in the last few days, as you mentioned in the lead-in here.

Just over the weekend, Iran and U.S. both traded attacks, Iran firing on U.S. bases in Jordan and in the United Arab Emirates as the U.S. struck additional Iranian targets around Larak Island. And this is something that is going to continue to be a back-and-forth, it seems, and something that the global economy and the markets do not really seem to enjoy.

Oil futures climbing above $94 a barrel today just after U.S. Central Command announced these new strikes. And I do want to go back to yesterday, even. Donald Trump was asked about this tit-for-tat back- and-forth between the U.S. and Iran, really downplaying how much U.S. retaliation there would be, saying that any U.S. action would be extremely limited, instead today calling the strikes large and powerful.

So we'll have to wait and see how Iran potentially responds to these strikes, despite the fact that Donald Trump is warning about an even larger attack if they do so.

KEILAR: Zach Cohen, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Right now, we're waiting to see not when, but if, a verdict can be reached in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. The nine women and three men on the jury are currently deliberating even after they told the judge this morning they were unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether to convict the former nurse charged with murder for strangling her three young kids. Clancy's lawyers say she was in postpartum psychosis and is not criminally responsible.

Watch the judge revealing how the jurors could not reach a consensus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE WILLIAM SULLIVAN, MASSACHUSETTS SUPERIOR COURT: I brought you back out because I know that this was a long trial, all right? I know there were over 80 witnesses, there were over 300 exhibits. But because of that, I'm going to ask you to go back out, keeping in mind all of the instructions that I gave you, to go out and to continue your deliberations at this time, all right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Following the judge's request to keep going, jurors have now been deliberating for about 21 hours. Let's turn to CNN's Jean Casarez, who's outside the courtroom in Plymouth, Massachusetts. So Jean, walk us through what happened in the courtroom when the jury indicated that they were deadlocked.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was about 45 minutes this morning after they started to deliberate, so they wasted no time in sending this note and the note you just played as the judge announced that they were saying that they could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Now, what we know when they walked in was that one of the male jurors took his hands to his face in seemingly frustration. They're in open court. We also know that a female juror actually looked at the defense table, but then looked at the prosecution table. The other jurors, no emotion, stoic, focused, just nothing that would denote one way or the other how they were feeling.

[14:05:00]

But when the judge announced, you cannot reach a decision, that is what you're saying, you're just don't have unanimity at this point, there was an audible response from the gallery in the courtroom, the packed gallery in the courtroom. Every seat is taken in that courtroom, I mean every day that we've been there and it comes from people from the community, from other states have come here, surrounding states and then of course the media.

But I think people in that gallery were shocked and as the judge said, there's so much evidence to this case, I mean think about it, over 300 exhibits that they can look at and talk about, and there were over 80 witnesses. Now they took notes, I saw them in that courtroom, boy, they took copious notes, even to the final expert witnesses that sometimes can be long and lengthy and sophisticated testimony, but boy, they were writing those notes.

So they have their notes inside the courtroom and in the deliberation room. They also have the jury instructions and there are quite a few counts, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, not guilty standing alone, not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility or, as the instruction does say, mental insanity, so there is so much to go through.

But here's the good news, they continue to deliberate. Another note has not been produced to our knowledge at all to the court because otherwise all of a sudden everyone would go into that courtroom and the judge would take the bench and that has not happened.

SANCHEZ: All right. Jean, you've covered so many cases like this one that have been of national attention and have created intense feelings on multiple sides of the argument in the public eye, obviously it's very different what happens behind the closed doors inside a jury room. I wonder how you see this as different from other cases where juries have made clear that there are significant disagreements.

CASAREZ: You know in some cases, I have seen them all of a sudden courts convened and you think, wow, they still can't reach a verdict and suddenly you hear there's a verdict. I have seen that. Then other most recently, the Karen Read, first case in Massachusetts of Karen Read, they could not reach a verdict and the charge which has -- a formal charge has not been given to this jury yet, that was an informal, what we just heard that was informal by the judge to keep deliberating, going at it, see what you can do.

The formal charge has to be read and that would be most likely the next step here in Massachusetts, the formal charge of what they really need to do in that jury room. But the judge cannot force them at all to reach a verdict. You can't do that. You just have to lay out what they need to listen to, keep an open mind, but we're on the way now to see what happens next and that'll be one of two things, a verdict or it'll be a second note saying we're sorry, we're really tried, we cannot try anymore, we cannot reach a unanimous decision.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. More than 20 hours spent deliberating, we'll see how much further this goes if it comes to a resolution. Jean Casarez, live for us in Plymouth, Massachusetts, thanks so much.

CASAREZ: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, a Postal Service whistleblower sounding the alarm over a new system for verifying mail in ballots, the warnings straight ahead.

And deep inside flooded tunnels in Nepal, a desperate search for hundreds of missing workers. Anderson Cooper shows us the rescuers holding out hope for a miracle. That and much more coming your way on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:13:26]

KEILAR: Predicting a bleep show, we had to censor the term. Actually, I think we debated exactly how to handle it, but we just figured it was just safe. We're just going to, why say it, right? OK. But a post office whistleblower did not mince words when raising concerns about a new system for verifying mail in ballots.

The unnamed whistleblower says the system is filled with a host of problems, but technical and operational, and that some of the procedures the U.S. Postal Service is developing under President Trump's mandates are being hidden from the public.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is here with details. All right, Gabe, this is really interesting, hidden from the public, this whistleblower says. What are the major red flags that this whistleblower is sort of sounding here?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So what they're laying out here is this idea that the Postal Service has been carrying out this really rushed and secretive effort to build this portal, this system that they need to implement these new mail ballot rules at President Trump's order.

They are very concerned, this whistleblower, about getting that done before the midterms, that this system is not ready for prime time, and that if that does happen, it risks significant failures that could end with large numbers of voters being disenfranchised.

So I want to explain what this ties back to are these mail ballot rules that the Postal Service published last month. One key element of it is that state and local election officials are going to have to upload the names and addresses of all mail ballot recipients across the country into this government portal in order for the Postal Service to actually mail out those ballots.

[14:15:00]

If states don't comply or if there are any errors in the ballot with the bar codes, with the envelopes, or with those names and addresses, they could be sent back. What this whistleblower is saying is that that system has been developed on this rapid timeline because all of this has been unfolding very quickly, that the I.T. staff who are actually testing it had to essentially test it in a matter of days. You censored it, but they described it as that sort of bleep show of what's happening behind the scenes.

KEILAR: You can say it if you want to, I just think in here, I think people know --

G. COHEN: Better safe than sorry.

KEILAR: People know what we're saying though, I think they get the sense -- I think they get it.

G. COHEN: Yeah, but what they're saying, what this whistleblower is saying is that these --

SANCHEZ: Well you didn't? Boris didn't get it.

(LAUGH)

(CROSSTALK)

G. COHEN: Well look, the point here is that these plans they say were constantly changing, the Postal Service plans, the requirements weren't clearly laid out, and that Postal Service leadership were very dismissive of their concerns. And one key element that they point to is this zero error rule.

So what they're talking about there is that local election officials are going to essentially hand over these large stacks of ballots, in some cases we're talking about thousands of them at once, and if only one of them comes back with any sort of error, according to this whistleblower, the system is going to kick all of those ballots back to the local election office to be fixed, and the concern is if that happens on a really tight time frame, it's going to delay ballots going out to a lot of voters, and it could mean that some voters don't get them in time to actually cast that ballot.

There's a quote here from this whistleblower report that was sent out by a Senate Democrat, Richard Blumenthal, saying, "As designed, the process is entirely unforgiving, it could delay ballots by the thousands in repeated verification cycles, and thus prevent states from mailing enormous numbers of ballots."

Again, just another concern when it comes to the policies that this administration is trying to implement. I do want to stress that there is this federal injunction that was put in place by a federal judge that essentially says, as of now, the Postal Service cannot mandate these rules. The White House has already appealed that, we're expecting more legal action in the coming days, possibly another trip to the Supreme Court.

But as all of this is happening in the courts, as this legal fight is playing out, state officials have been, some of them, panicking about what is going to be the system in place for the midterms, and now we have this whistleblower coming forward and saying inside the Postal Service, it is a mess, and yet they still want this in place for the midterms, and those mail ballots are going to start going out in some states in just a few days.

KEILAR: Yeah, that picture being painted sounds like total chaos.

G. COHEN: Yeah.

KEILAR: Gabe, thank you for the reporting. Boris?

SANCHEZ: It's Election Day in Massachusetts, where Democratic voters are heading to the polls in a primary race focused on generational and ideological divisions. 80-year-old Senator, Ed Markey is aiming to survive a challenge from 47-year-old Congressman, Seth Moulton. Markey has served nearly 50 years in Congress, but he's backed by progressives like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Moulton is a Marine Corps veteran, first elected to Congress in 2014, and he's trying to make the case that it is time for voters to pass the torch.

Let's discuss with David Axelrod, CNN's Chief Political Analyst, also a former senior adviser to President Obama. David, thanks so much for being with us. So, Congressman Moulton built this primary challenge around generational change, even though the older candidate in Markey is running a more progressive campaign. How much do these two arguments weigh on Democratic primary voters right now?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, you know, I think this is the key question. You know that Markey went to Congress, Ed Markey went to Congress three years before Seth Moulton was born. So, he's celebrating his 50th anniversary in the Congress. So, that's seniority plus, plus, plus. And I do think there's a hunger for generational change.

And when Moulton started this campaign, he made some headway with that argument that it's time for generational change, so much so that he got Markey's attention. And when Markey started fighting back and creating a contrast between himself and Moulton, who's far more moderate on some issues than Markey, on things like the Green New Deal, which Markey co-sponsored, and Medicare for All, and the issue of trans girls in sports and so on, Markey painted the picture of a guy who was out of step with progressives in that state. That's a blue state, and in a primary, being the progressive candidate is an advantage. And so, Markey took what was a close race and has opened up a big gap as people, and of course, as you mentioned, he's got the kind of Mount Rushmore of progressives all endorsing him.

[14:20:00]

Interestingly, Boris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed him the day after the Boston Globe very strongly endorsed Moulton, and it was like they wheeled out the big gun after that endorsement, and it kind of slammed the door. It's been interesting to watch.

One other thing that I find interesting about this is that Ed Markey went to Congress 50 years ago as an anti-abortion, anti-busing, social conservative candidate, socially conservative candidate, and here in his golden years, he has found his inner progressive, and that has saved him not just in this race, but won six years ago when he had a serious challenge from Joe Kennedy, a Congressman who was defeated.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, it's fascinating to watch that evolution over the decades. He was forced to clean up some comments during a debate recently, the Senator, about not knowing what kind of A.I. was on his phone. It didn't seem, to your point, to hurt him in recent polling. Did that surprise you?

AXELROD: No, you know, what was interesting to me was he sought -- when he realized he had a serious race, he sought debates, he wanted debates, and one thing about Ed Markey is that he is a very energetic 80. I think people are wary of 80-year-olds after two octogenarian presidents and a view of Congress as a kind of aged gerontocracy. But Markey was very energetic in those debates, and that one mistake, I think, given everything else that was stacking up on his side, was not enough to turn the race.

And honestly, Seth Moulton is an earnest guy, an admirable guy. He's not a very dynamic candidate, and that was apparent in those debates as well. So in an odd way, I think the debates helped the 80-year-old.

SANCHEZ: Given what you said about Massachusetts being a very blue state, I wonder if you take much from this race in terms of this national conversation about ideology within the Democratic Party and also the generational argument, is this really a good test case of a race?

AXELROD: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little bit of a confusing test case. First of all, I think that running on a very progressive agenda on some issues has more power just within the sort of progressive universe, because I think on economic issues, people are very frustrated where things stand. Now, on other issues, less so. The issue of trans girls in sports is a controversial one that I think separates people even within the Democratic coalition.

But this race in a very blue state, just as we've seen in very blue districts, will produce this result. I don't know that that is transferable to races all over the country. I don't think it is. And I do think the generational piece is going to be important moving forward.

I think, for example, in 2028, youth will be an important asset as people assess the choice for the next president because they have had frustrations with aging presidents, the last two of them. So I wouldn't overanalyze this debate.

I would say Markey ran a very good campaign once he woke up and realized he had a race. I don't think Moulton was at the end of the day. If Markey had had a challenge from the left, if Ayanna Pressley, for example, the Congresswoman from the Cambridge area, if she had run, I think he would have had a real problem, because he couldn't have played this card.

And so he would have been on the wrong side of age, and he would not have had a winning card on the progressive side of things. But Moulton was not necessarily the ideal challenger in this race.

SANCHEZ: David Axelrod, always great to get your perspective. Thanks for joining us.

AXELROD: Good to see you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still to come, millions in Texas and Louisiana right now are bracing for damaging winds, torrential rain and dangerous flash flooding. We have the latest on Edouard when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:29:09]

KEILAR: Landfall is imminent as Tropical Storm Edouard is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Millions of people in Texas and Louisiana are bracing for strong winds and bursts of heavy rain that could trigger dangerous flash flooding.

Just minutes ago, NOAA forecasters gave what will likely be their last and final update on just how strong Edouard is before it hits land. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is standing by. Derek, what's the latest in just making sure that I'm saying this correctly?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: No, you're right. So the key term there being imminent because the National Hurricane Center hasn't quite made that official declaration that it has made landfall just yet, but it is getting very, very close.

And we can analyze a lot on this radar and satellite imagery. Right now, the Calcasieu Pass, this is in western sections of Louisiana, reached sustained winds of 44 miles per hour, higher gusts above 50. So some areas have reached tropical storm force status. Remember, we need 39 mile per hour winds or greater --