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GOP Kicks Off First Midterm Convention in Dallas Today; Global Oil Prices Hit $100 a Barrel as U.S. and Iran Trade Attacks; NTSB Says, Amazon Plan Throttles were Set to Full Power Moments Before Crash. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 09, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Republicans kick off their first ever midterm convention today. Trumpapalooza to some, with the president pushing to make sure the November elections are all about him. But here's a quote for you, though, the vibes are very bad in Texas.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Greeting them in Dallas, hello, $100 oil. Breaking overnight, oil prices surge to the highest level since July as new exclusive reporting by CNN reveals a surge in construction at suspected Iranian nuclear sites.

And torrential rains trigger torrential floods, overloading drains, shooting water everywhere.

Sara was on the late shift. I should have been there with her. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: So, this morning, the battle for control of Congress is in the spotlight. Republicans are descending on Dallas to kick off something that they've never done before, hold a convention for the midterms. President Trump is expected to travel there today and act as the headliner event both nights. On social media, he wrote that the convention is totally sold out. Everybody wants to be there.

But after a summer of tough headlines, stubbornly high prices, Berman was just talking about oil, fights over tariffs, the war with Iran, or whatever, even though Donald Trump does not want to call it a war anymore, some Republicans up for re-election appear to have other plans than to be in Dallas, Texas.

And then there's this, Trump's approval among Republicans is dropping to 78 percent in the most recent CNN poll. That's a new low. As Axios put it, quote, Congressional Republicans are preparing to share the stage with a president who has spent the August recess complicating their efforts to run their races on their own terms.

And according to Axios, more than 100 Republican lawmakers are expected to skip this event. But wait, there's more. Political Playbook out just this morning is quoting a person close to the White House saying this, my only hope is that no one watches it since it's competing versus NFL opening games, the person said. Hopefully, nobody notices the embarrassing show.

CNN's Kevin Liptak live at the White House this morning. You might have something to say about that quote this morning, Kevin. What are you hearing?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. I mean, when you listen to the president and when you listen to his advisers, they say that this kind of high-profile stage, putting President Trump in front of all of these midterm voters, despite his historic unpopularity, is actually exactly what the party needs for a winning midterm election season.

They say that he is the only person that can get out some of these low-propensity voters, that can turn around some of these enthusiasm issues for Republicans, and that is exactly what this convention is going to be. You know, they wouldn't be holding it at all unless the president had conceived of it and gotten Republicans to fall in line behind him.

But a lot of Republicans think that that is just the exact opposite approach. That's the reason why many of them are skipping this event altogether. They say that making the election a referendum on the president is just exactly what they don't need ahead of midterms, in which they're staring down a very tough political calendar.

Now, there will be plenty of candidates there, including many who are in some vulnerable races, and what President Trump wrote is that everybody wants to be there, but we're really asking only those candidates that are in tight races, a little up, a little down, or even to speak.

President Trump will be speaking as well on both nights, including the keynote address tonight. What his aide says, that this will kick off a much more aggressive campaign schedule in the two months before the midterm election.

You'll also hear the vice president speak tomorrow night. There'll be a number of cabinet officials, including, I think, notably the attorney general who is normally outside of politics. He will be speaking as well.

But, as you made the point, this is all going up against the NFL season openers. That could be a ratings challenge for a president who is always very highly attuned to how many people are watching him on television.

BOLDUAN: A great note and reminder, Kevin. There's also new reporting, though, about holiday gifts the president has given to some of his closest aides, including Natalie Harp, who's been thrust into the headlines recently.

[07:05:07]

What is this?

LIPTAK: Yes. And this all emerged in these financial disclosure forms that were released last week, which showed $45,000 gifts to three of the president's closest aides. One was Natalie Harp, sort of the omnipresent executive assistant. You also saw a gift go to Margo Martin, the president's communications adviser, and to Chamberlain Harris, who is the director of Oval Office operations. All three of them are very close to the president. They all have desks right outside the Oval Office. Each of them makes $150,000 a year in salary. That's according to government disclosures.

There was an additional gift that went to Walt Nauta, who is another close aide of President Trump's. His salary's slightly higher than those three women, and he got a $20,000 gift from President Trump. And what the disclosure forms listed them as was, quote, cash gift, for the holidays, and some ethics experts are raising concerns. They think that this could run afoul of government rules that prohibit outside salary or bonuses going to government officials.

The White House is defending this, say that this is longstanding practice by the president. A spokesman said that, quote, the president has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including, at times, employees and aides both in government and in his time in the private sector. They go on to say, the gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of those individuals' official government duties and therefore are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards.

But, obviously, those ethical questions still persist. And, obviously, it raises even further questions about in particular, Natalie Harp's relationship to the president.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Kevin. Thank you so much.

And it is Lawn Care Day at the White House once again, John.

BERMAN: Yes. All right, breaking overnight, oil prices hit $100 a barrel. It crossed that threshold, and were hovering there just moments ago. We had a live look at that a little bit ago, the highest level since July. The U.S. military says it struck five Iranian tankers, sinking one after Iranian fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship. CENTCOM says four of the Iranian tankers were in the Gulf of Oman and one near Kharg Island. And new this morning, CNN has learned that analysts are seeing a, quote, surge in construction at a suspected Iranian nuclear site.

CNN's Brian Todd joins us now with the latest on that. Good morning, Brian.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. We have new reporting now from our colleagues, Davis Winkie, Zachary Cohen, and Thomas Bordeaux. This suspected Iranian nuclear site, it is called Pickax Mountain, it's about 140 miles south of Tehran, has seen a flurry of construction work this year.

Analysis by the think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, this analysis which was shared with CNN, says the site, quote, Has shifted from active excavation toward probably internal construction, has seen more road activity this year than ever before, and the reinforcement of portal accesses. But the analysis also says, despite the construction, the site is not yet capable of enrichment work.

Now, intelligence agencies view Pickax Mountain as a possible location for Iran to protect future efforts with its nuclear program. President Trump in recent days said the U.S. may strike Pickax Mountain very soon, but John, it is not quite clear yet if the U.S. has the appropriate munitions to effectively strike that facility and destroy what it needs to destroy. That facility is buried under a lot of granite and has other logistical challenges there, John. So, if the U.S. does decide to strike Pickax Mountain, it's not clear what it may hit. There are operational plans though in place for a U.S. strike on that facility.

BERMAN: He's been talking about Pickax for well over a month at this point, Brian. Meanwhile, as we said, oil prices surging over $100 a barrel as this exchange of fire, a new one, overnight.

Thank you for sharing your reporting on that.

All right, new information coming to light on the deadly plane crash in Miami, what the pilots were doing or trying to do just before landing.

And breaking overnight, A.I. companies are, quote, gambling with our lives. A researcher at one of these top companies quits, saying senior developers privately warned that A.I. could, quote, kill all humans. That doesn't seem good.

And then breaking this morning, a major rebranding, South Park now calling itself South America. They say it is, quote, inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google.

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[07:10:00]

BOLDUAN: This morning, there is new detail coming in about what happened in the moments leading up to that terrifying crash involving an Amazon cargo plane overshooting the runway in Miami, crashing across a road and killing five people that it struck in a van. NTSB investigators, they now say information obtained from the flight data recorder is giving them some new detail, showing that seconds before the crash, the jet's throttles were set to full power.

A crucial step forward in the investigation will happen later today as NTSB officials plan to interview the pilots and crew of that plane.

CNN's Pete Muntean in Miami for us at Miami International Airport with much more. Pete, what are you gathering? What are you getting from this new information coming from NTSB?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, you know, this new data really tells a story that these pilots realized that this landing was doomed, and they applied full power. I want to give you the readout here that the NTSB just gave us from the flight data recorder. All of these times lead up to zero when the recording ends. And the NTSB said 15 seconds before the recording ended, the plane was going about 120 knots. That's about 135, 140 miles per hour.

[07:15:01]

The pilots applied full brakes, and then applied full power, consistent with a go-around is what they said, so full thrust. Then only four seconds later, the speed decayed only about three knots, the pilots ripped the power off back to idle, and then applied full brakes again.

It is so interesting here because it really tells this story that these pilots could tell that they were going to go off the runway, and they needed to do something, but it was a futile effort.

Now comes what will be in the cockpit voice recorder. That is so key. And the NTSB says they have good quality recordings from the cockpit voice recorder. That is huge information. That really makes their job so much easier. Now, they just need to contextualize that with interviews from the pilots.

And I want you to listen now to investigator in charge, Chihoon Shin, who says that will be so key and the next step in this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIHOON SHIN, NTSB INVESTIGATOR: With the cockpit voice recorder, while we have that data, crew accounts and crew interviews will help fill in some of the blanks for us that the crew remembers in terms of actions that they might have done but not verbalized. And so that's something that we need a complete understanding of before we're to analyze what happened with the throttles in this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The NTSB clearly trying to get a much fuller picture of exactly what happened in these final seconds of this landing that was clearly flawed from the start.

What is so interesting now is that they will interview the chief pilots as well from 21 Air. That is the contractor working with Amazon. This is an Amazon-branded plane. 21 Air did the flying. They want to know more about the safety culture there and what was taking place behind the scenes at 21 Air.

We did get a bit of a readout on the experience of the pilots. The captain got his type rating in the 767, meaning licensed specifically for that airplane, back in May. Not clear yet if that is a factor here.

Of course, there is the huge human toll here. Five killed, all Latino men, in that white van that was being operated by that aircraft cleaning contractor. They range in ages from 47 to 75 years old, and NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy calls this an unthinkable tragedy. Kate?

BOLDUAN: It absolutely is. That's the one certainty around all of this. But what can they learn now from all of this very important data coming in?

Pete, thank you so much. Your ability to contextualize it is so critical for us. Thank you.

Also ahead for us, we're now learning what happened behind closed doors during the 37 hours of deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Several jurors are now speaking out about what led to that mistrial.

And it is a new era for Apple. The new CEO today expected to unveil a foldable iPhone. What else in what we know about this.

We'll be back.

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[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. New comments this morning from members of the jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. She's the mother accused of killing her three young children. This trial ended in a mistrial with a hung jury, and at least one of the jurors says she started out believing Clancy should be held criminally responsible, but evolved to decide that she believed she was not guilty.

CNN's Jean Casarez is with us now. It's interesting to hear about jurors sort of shifting in that jury room.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And we're going to let everybody hear, but it came down, it was so simple. They believe that Lindsay Clancy was a wonderful person, a wonderful mother, all the witnesses said that, her diary said that, and she must have snapped. That's what it came down to. They said that one lone juror, he could not get past that he thought she viciously killed her children. He couldn't get past that. And as stayed firm, they would walk around the room because they were so frustrated.

Now, we want you to listen to NBC Boston and our affiliate WBZ, the actual jurors, three of them in that room.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RONI CARLSON, FOREPERSON, LINDSAY CLANCY JURY: We weren't trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did, and she's admitting that. We're trying to figure out, did she know right from wrong at that time? And with everybody saying she loved her children so much, and everything proved she loved her children, from her journals to her mother-in-law, everything proved that she loved her children, so she had to have snapped.

He admitted he had reasonable doubt, and I started filling out the forms. I was so excited. I actually -- there were three forms I had to fill out, and I started filling them out. I wrote my signature on each one, and then he said, but I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will say a majority of the people on, it doesn't matter what side it was on, was very firm in their like stance and their beliefs kind of from the beginning. You know, the standalone juror was not the only one that was unwilling to see things from the other side. So, I'm going to kind of defend that individual in a sense.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: They also said that they listened to the 911 call again in that jury deliberation room, and it was horrific, that they will never forget it. Some had to put earplugs in their ears so they didn't have to listen to it.

But they loved Kevin Reddington, the defense attorney. They thought he was entertaining. The care and love and compassion he gave to his client, they just focused on that. They had nothing positive to say about the prosecutors at all.

BERMAN: Interesting to hear the jurors talk about exactly what they were deciding on.

[07:25:00]

They knew what they were deciding on was whether she knew what she was doing there. They had listened to those jury instructions.

Jean Casarez, thank you very much.

We're at a live look at oil prices this morning. There it is. Breaking overnight, they crossed $100 a barrel for the first time since July.

And then first on CNN, new clues in the fight against colorectal cancer that could save millions of lives.

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[07:30:00]

BOLDUAN: So, there's new CNN reporting this morning, an investigation revealing that repeated vulgar and derogatory statements.