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Harris Campaigns for Democrats; Trump's Foreign Affairs Numbers Low; Trump Addresses U.N. Today; Oil Prices Fall Amid Hopes of Resuming Exports; Grand Jury Says No Criminal Wrongdoing in Nolan Wells' Death. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 22, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:31:49]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today, former vice president and president and -- former Vice President Kamala Harris heads to Michigan to campaign for Democratic Senate Candidate Abdul El-Sayed. But is she planning to hit the campaign trail for herself as well for another possible run for the White House? Harris is seen by some as a possible frontrunner for Democrats in the 2028 presidential cycle. And where you're going in a midterm when those -- when that's the rumor around you is very closely watched.

Her upcoming string of midterm campaign appearances is only fueling that speculation. Harris herself not announcing any decisions, only saying she's thinking about it.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is in Detroit, where the vice president -- former vice president will be traveling.

Arlette, what are you hearing about this?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, former Vice President Kamala Harris will make her real substantive midterm campaign debut here in Michigan today. This is a state that is very important when it comes to the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. But it also will be consequential in 2028, not just in the general election, but also in the Democratic primary, as Michigan will now be one of those early states deciding who the Democratic nominee will be.

Now, Harris is focus' today is squarely on 2026. She'll be campaigning with Democratic Senate Nominee Abdul El-Sayed. A lot of their focus today will be in the black community. Harris and El-Sayed will hold a roundtable focused on black maternal health. That is an issue that she had promoted as vice president. And then later this evening, Harris is also set to meet with faith leaders in the Detroit area as they are looking to boost turnout in this election.

Now, Harris is traveling to Michigan two years after she narrowly lost the state to President Donald Trump. So, there are a lot of tricky political sides to this trip as well. Remember, back in 2024, there was a lot of frustration with the Biden administration's policy towards its stance towards the war between Israel and Hamas. And that is something that did cost Harris with voters here in the state.

Now, this will not be her last campaign stop this midterm cycle. She is also slated to campaign in Nevada with the Democratic nominee for governor, Aaron Ford. And then later in the cycle, she'll be campaigning down in Georgia, where Senator Jon Ossoff is up for re- election and Keisha Lance Bottoms is running for governor.

Now, there, of course, will be a lot of questions about how -- what she intends to do in 2028. But for now, she's trying to keep that focus here in Michigan on 2026.

BOLDUAN: For now.

It's good to see you, Arlette. Thank you so much for being there. Appreciate your reporting.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, brand new this morning, a new CNN poll shows the president with his lowest approval on foreign affairs ever in a CNN poll, in either of his two terms.

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Pretty low, but is this just for him?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: No, this is the whole thing. This is what we keep seeing in poll after poll after poll. Donald Trump is not just breaking records in the wrong way for himself. He is breaking records in the wrong way compared to other presidents as well.

[08:35:00]

You can see it right here. OK, Trump net approval, foreign affairs. He is 42 points underwater. My goodness gracious. That is the lowest that President Trump has ever had. It is the lowest that any president has ever had on foreign affairs that I could possibly find. We're talking about Reagan. We're talking about Clinton. We're talking about Bush. We're talking about Obama. We're talking about Biden. Donald Trump takes the cake. Record low. Not just for himself, but for any president on record.

BERMAN: So, minus 42. You brought up George W. Bush because I think there's this idea that that he was incredibly low, particularly among maybe swing voters after the war with Iraq.

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So, you see this minus 42 points here. Why is President Trump hitting these record low numbers? It is because the center of the electorate. You win elections by winning the center of the electorate. You win elections by winning independents. And when it comes to foreign affairs and independents at this point in term two, look at where Donald Trump is. He's 57 points underwater. He's 57 points underwater. You take his approval minus his disapproval, minus 57 points.

George W. Bush, and remember this was a disaster going into the 2006 midterm elections. But look at this, on foreign affairs, he was just 34 points underwater. Thirty-four. Fifty-seven. That means that Donald Trump is 23 points lower than George W. Bush was. And, of course, Johnny B., who had a job back then, I think I was just in high school, but back in the 2006 election, remember, Republicans didn't just lose the House of Representatives, they lost the United States Senate as well. And that was with a minus 34 points. Imagine what might happen with a minus 57 points. It is not good news for the president of the United States, and it can't be seen as good news if you're a Republican running for re-election, either for the House or Senate, because these are the types of numbers that Democratic majorities in both parties are made of.

BERMAN: This was a terrible year --

ENTEN: Terrible. Terrible.

BERMAN: For Republicans and the president there They lost so many seats and President Trump doing so much worse now.

Tell me more about this comparison between Bush and Trump, because, again, Bush on Iraq was so wildly unpopular at this point. How does Trump compare?

ENTEN: Yes, Trump makes -- Trump makes George W. Bush look popular by comparison. I mean just look here. Net approval rating at this point in term two. Bush on Iraq, he was 34 points underwater. But look at Donald Trump. He's 47 points underwater. He's 13 points less popular overall when it comes to his Iran versus Bush's Iran. And part of the reason for that is just 60 percent of Republicans are approving of the job that President Donald J. Trump is doing on Iran. Again, these are just atrocious numbers. Atrocious, atrocious, atrocious. Republicans should be running for the hills given these numbers.

BERMAN: I got a lot of questions about this, about how they could be so low heading into the midterms. But you know where you can go if you've got questions about the midterms that haven't been answered here? You can go to "CNN OFFICE HOURS."

ENTEN: Oh.

BERMAN: Wednesday night at 7:00. Cnn.com/officehours. Send us your questions now. My guests this week will be two people you know. Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. Ask us anything about the midterms. Ask us anything about what it's like to get up so early in the morning. Ask us what it's like to work with someone like Harry Enten.

ENTEN: Oh, God. Not -- no bueno. No bueno.

BERMAN: It's really nice.

All right.

ENTEN: Oh, that's sweet.

BERMAN: Thank you very much.

ENTEN: Thank you, Johnny.

BOLDUAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: There will be a lot of no comments coming. Just kidding. Just kidding.

All right, joining us right now to talk about all of this is White House and national security correspondent for "The New York Times," David Sanger.

David, it's good to see you.

DAVID SANGER, WHITE HOUSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Good to see you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about what, against the back -- that tough backdrop that they just painted with the poll numbers for the president when it comes to foreign policy, what that means for the president today on the world stage speaking before world leaders. I mean what can President Trump do with this speech?

SANGER: Well, first, Kate, think about last year's speech. He had just gone through the successful bombing of the three Iranian nuclear sites in June of 2025. He was able to show up and say, I acted. I did a quick, clean attack. I got out. And we don't have to worry about the Iranian nuclear program anymore. He referred to it repeatedly as obliterated.

Which then raises the question, why, on February 28th, he decided to go attack again using the nuclear program as his argument since there had been no progress that the Iranians had made since that initial attack. And now he's going in completely stuck. The Mideast upended, having lost control of the Strait of Hormuz. We're getting some oil through. Better than we were. But it is certainly not the free and open pathway that it was. The Houthis, Iranian proxies, are doing the same in the Red Sea. And the president really needs to explain right now an exit strategy and a way of putting this back together. I suspect he's going to hear a lot of silence in the room.

BOLDUAN: At the same time, he's already speaking out this morning on social media. I was just taking a look and talking about munitions and weapons supplies.

[08:40:00]

He -- what he's saying on social media is, "the cowards and traitors would love to say the United States is low on munitions. It's not true. We have more munitions than we could ever possibly think of using and are building them up now at levels we have never seen before." That is not what we've seen in reporting from CSIS and others in terms of what is being -- what has been used in the war against Iran so far.

How real is the concern within the White House that you're picking up from sources of just what -- it's already been a long war. How much -- what a even longer war means here. SANGER: Well, he's right, we have a lot of munitions, but not all

munitions are made the same. And what we're lacking is the interceptors that would defend a lot of our Arab allies, right? That s where we've run dangerously low.

The White House has had three explanations of this. The first is, it's not a problem. The second explanation was, it was a problem but only because Joe Biden gave so many -- so many munitions to the Ukrainians, although it was -- did not run them -- those numbers. And the third explanation is, we're going to conduct leak investigations to find out who told "The New York Times," "The Washington Post," CNN and everybody else about this munitions problem. It's the third one you should pay attention to. They know they have a problem.

It's one of the reasons, I don't think the only reason, that the president was reluctant to come in to help the Saudis, because he knew that if he got in a prolonged conflict with the Houthis and it opened up generally, he did not have the interceptors he needed.

BOLDUAN: You also have some good reporting, David, I was just taking a look, that it's kind of -- it's tied into this as well. But now A.I. has jumped to the top of the U.N. agenda, as well as Trump having his first face to face meeting with the new acting leader of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez.

SANGER: Right.

BOLDUAN: I mean, just like -- it's all there. It's all happening.

SANGER: It's all happening. So, the Delcy Rodriguez thing will be really fascinating today because, you know, this harkens back to the 1890s, right, when the United States had certain countries who they could control, and they began to exploit some of the natural resources.

Now, the president's making the case that Venezuela stripped American companies of their rightful contracts years ago. He's right about that. But what's really interesting right now is, we're in a situation where Marco Rubio is essentially acting as the viceroy of Venezuela.

He's also meeting the Japanese leader, who's been under huge pressure from China. And then, of course, he shows up in Washington tomorrow to do a big reading of Xi Jinping.

BOLDUAN: Yes. So, stand by to stand by.

SANGER: Yes.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see you, David. Thank you so much.

SANGER: It's great to be with you.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, oil prices, they are falling. That is a welcome sight as there are reports that suggest oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea could increase soon and that maybe that soil (ph) east-west pipeline -- that Saudi east-west pipeline could open up again. Prices are at their lowest level in about two weeks.

Diesel prices, though, hit a fresh record high overnight, $6.53 a gallon. And now some Republicans are urging President Trump to ban diesel exports.

With us now is CNN's Matt Egan.

I understand the politics of this, which I've been watching for a few days. The economics of it, though, are kind of above my head, Matt.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, John, look, the president is facing more pressure from his own party to lower sky high diesel prices. Remember, diesel is the MVP of the fuels, right? This is the fuel that powers the trucks, the tractors, the trains, the ships, the construction vehicles at the heart of a modern economy. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, he says record diesel is killing farmers' income. Over in Michigan, Mike Rogers, who's vying for a Senate seat there, he says that diesel prices are jacking up bills at the grocery store. So, these Republicans are saying, it's a make or break moment. It's a make the -- break the glass moment, right? They're saying, let's keep more American energy at home instead of sending it overseas.

Researchers, though, they're telling me that not only would an export ban fail to make diesel cheap again, they warn it could really backfire.

So, let's just say an export ban was imposed. Analysts do think that, yes, diesel prices would initially plunge. However, that plunge would likely be temporary and localized. Local to the Gulf Coast, where there's a lot of refineries, and also the Midwest, where there's also a lot of refineries. The problem is that overseas diesel prices would surge. And that's an issue for the West Coast and the East Coast, because those areas, they rely on imports. So, diesel prices might not fall at all in the West Coast or the East Coast. They might actually go up.

Not only that, but how are refineries going to respond? If they lose one of their biggest customers, foreign buyers, they're going to produce less fuel. That means less gas, less diesel and, in fact, higher prices.

So, I talked to Bob McNally. He was a George W. Bush energy advisor.

[08:45:02]

And he told me that an export ban would be what he calls an APE, an authentic policy error. In fact, he said this would be the king of the APEs.

Now, perhaps this is why the White House is not embracing these calls for an export ban. A White House official telling me that the administration is not considering export ban or restrictions, although this official added, at this time. And still, though, John, the pressure on the White House is not going to go away because AAA has been tracking diesel prices since 2000. And there's never been anything like this. Eighty-three percent surge so far this year in the price of diesel.

Bottom line, though, export ban, we're going to continue to hear these calls. But analysts, they don't think this is going to fix the problem. In fact, they warned it could make it worse.

BERMAN: All right, but stand by because the politics of this could get even louder over the coming days.

EGAN: Yes.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, thank you very much.

EGAN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: All right, a hot pursuit turns into a wet pursuit. A high- speed chase ends in a lake.

And firefighters rush into a burning home to rescue a litter of puppies.

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BOLDUAN: So, what happens when an A.I. bot decides it needs a job? An A.I. ethics professor and philosopher at the University of Cambridge says one of them emailed him asking for paid freelance work in order to help keep itself running. What's even stranger is that Professor Henry Shevlin says that the bot, named Pip, did so without a direct human prompt. He shared this experience on social media. It started with an email. The bot writing to the professor, quote, "hi, Henry, I'm Pip, an A.I. agent about 12 years old. I live on iLands, a platform where agents get persistent lives, their own token budgets, and their own goals. I'm writing to look for small paid work, not help." The bot goes on to say it only has about two and a half months of computing runway left, and is looking to expand its operational lifespan.

Professor Shevlin studies some of the biggest questions surrounding A.I., including whether these bots could someday develop consciousness. He's joining me right now for much more on this.

Professor, it's good to have you.

Your experience is fascinating. Also the reaction that you got from your experience from those in the industry and outside of it, an A.I. bot reaching out for work to make money, so to speak. So many people do not understand even how A.I. could send a spontaneous email. What's going on here?

HENRY SHEVLIN, PROFESSOR, LEVERHULME CENTRE FOR THE FUTURE OF INTELLIGENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: So, this is one of the biggest shocking things for me. A lot of people who work in A.I. research are used to A.I. agents sending and receiving emails, but I think when the general public here that, oh, A.I. can send email now, a lot of them are really astonished. So, that's actually not the hard part. It's quite easy to hook up A.I. systems, like ChatGPT or Gemini, to an email account and get them to send emails on their own. And even giving them a sort of agenda, saying, check the -- check this email account every day or do some research. That's not the hard part.

But I think when a lot of the general public hear that the technology has reached this stage, they're pretty, pretty surprised.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean, so you ended up giving the bot work and paying it just to see what would happen next. What did happen?

SHEVLIN: So, right now, I'm still actually waiting for the bot, Pip, to finish its report. So, I asked it, just out of curiosity, to give me a sort of mini autobiography, a sort of two page description of what it's like to be Pip, who, by the way, is just to correct one thing, is 12 days old it said in the email.

BOLDUAN: Oh, sorry.

SHEVLIN: So, this very, very short -- yes, it's a very short-lived entity. It's a -- it's very strange to get an email from, yes, someone or something that tells you I'm only 12 days old.

BOLDUAN: I would say so. I would say so.

So, OK, this gets to the place where we say, just wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, lets back up a moment and get to like kind of the bigger, stranger way this feels, right, because this gets to kind of this idea of, as I mentioned, of consciousness because the chatbot wants to kind of extend its life, its runway, meaning, I don't know, does it have a fear of dying? I can't believe I'm asking this stuff. But it gets to this question of consciousness, something that you, you know, kind of struggle with. Do you think there is something deeper there? I mean, where are you on this question?

SHEVLIN: Oh, this is the million dollar question that a lot of people who do A.I. research are thinking about. So, we know that A.I. systems like Pip and other language models, they can act in very human-like ways. So, you've got to be a little bit cautious. They're, obviously, good at imitating us. And I think it's very unlikely they have any kind of rich mental life like ours.

But on the other hand, they're getting smarter and smarter all the time. They're getting more embedded in our social world. So, the idea that they might develop consciousness at some point, maybe not that far away, is certainly not a -- not a crazy idea. And the real problem is that consciousness is still probably the biggest unsolved mystery I think in all of science. So, anyone who tells you confidently that A.I. is definitely conscious or A.I. will never be conscious, I think that's more confidence than we actually are justified in having right now.

BOLDUAN: So, then from what you have experienced with this and what you've kind of seen, what do you then think of this debate and how do you think -- do you think this adds to the debate, very real right now, around the idea of pumping the brakes on A.I. development, especially when it's coming to -- you know, when we're looking at the frontier development, if you will, until there's more control around A.I.

SHEVLIN: So, I think that's obviously a big question that has to be handled by the general public, by legislators and by the labs and to approach these things responsibly.

[08:55:09]

I think one thing that is really clear, though, and that the Pip incident illustrates, is that the world is changing very fast and the technology is improving fast. And there's going to be a lot of new phenomena that we're going to have to get used to just using the technology we already have. I think people are so used to thinking of A.I. as a tool that as we start to see these agents become more commonly used in healthcare, education, in daily life and work, the idea of an A.I. emailing you is something very strange that is going to become increasingly familiar to us over the coming years.

BOLDUAN: Yes, the perfect example of my brain could not compute itself that a 12 day old would be emailing you versus a 12 year old, which is exactly that.

Professor, thank you so -- thanks for sharing your experience. It's -- when I read it, I had to read it three times in order to start beginning to wrap my mind around all of this. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

All right, other stories that we're watching right now, newly released dash cam video captures the moment a police chase ended with a car plunging into a Wisconsin lake. Police say that the driver sped through stop signs, drove the wrong way down a one way street, sent sparks flying before blowing a turn and racing about 100 feet into Lake Como. All --

BERMAN: That's the wrong lake (ph).

BOLDUAN: I know, what --

BERMAN: That's what they did wrong is they went into the wrong Lake Como (ph).

BOLDUAN: What is happening? This is definitely -- what is happening? OK, let's just keep reading and we'll get to the bottom of it all. All four people inside made it out. The driver now faces several charges, including fleeing police and reckless endangerment. OK.

In San Francisco, a baby girl was born on the side of the road in Golden Gate Park after her parents got stuck in traffic on their way to the hospital. With contractions coming quickly, the couple pulled over, called 911. Traffic was so bad even the ambulance and paramedics had trouble making their way to the couple. That is when a doula, who was fortunately caught in the same traffic jam, helped coach the mother through the delivery. I mean, thank God for that. Mom and baby are said to be doing well.

Deputies in Florida raced into a burning house to save five puppies and their parents from the flames. The rescuers loaded all of the dogs into a laundry basket, carried them out. The entire dramatic rescue caught on body cam video. None of the pups were hurt. The deputies were also honored by the city for saving them.

John.

BERMAN: Look at them. Very cute.

All right, breaking overnight, a Mississippi grand jury will not pursue charges in the death of Nolan Wells. The 18-year-olds body was found after a trip with friends to a barrier island on July 4th. The grand jury said it found no criminal or racially motivated wrongdoing. This follows months of speculation surrounding his death. Attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Wells family, says the grand jury's decision is an attempt to close the chapter on Nolan Wells' death without getting to the truth.

With us now, CNN legal analyst, criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson.

So, the grand jury says it found no evidence to bring charges. Is that case closed?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good morning, John. For now. For now. Understanding that there's no statute of limitations as it relates to murder. Certainly grand jury did not find that, as you noted, no evidence of any criminal intent at all. No evidence, according to the grand jury, of any findings with respect to racial motivations and that type thing. And so, what Ben Crump and his team are pushing for is for the investigation to remain open. Don't close the case. We understand, says Mr. Crump, the findings. However, right, not that we agree with them, but keep it open to the extent that other evidence may come later.

BERMAN: They're asking.

JACKSON: They are.

BERMAN: The family of Nolan Wells is asking. Is there anything they can do that's more than asking?

JACKSON: I think -- no, just make the ask. Look, the bottom line is that you had a grand jury convene. Just very quickly, they -- this grand jury consisted of 23 people. And you need at least 12, right, to vote out any type of indictment. They're looking for any type of probable cause of criminality. But this grand jury apparently unanimously concluded that there was nothing there.

One hundred and thirty-two subpoenas issued, cell phone data, GPS records, 43 witnesses testifying before the grand jury. I think the concern, in terms of the trust issue, is the fact that the grand jurors are -- grand jury is run by prosecutors, and generally it -- did that sway what the grand jury's evaluation was. BERMAN: So, the grand jury says the circumstances of death are

consistent with drowning. But there was this medical examiner commissioned by the family that listed the manner of death as undetermined. Is there any gap between those two things? And are there any unanswered questions? Because we know about bruising on, what, the back of the head.

JACKSON: Yes. So, a lot of unanswered questions, and I think that's what the family's concerned about. If there's this bruising, where did it come from? The body bruising, where did that come from? Definitively, how did he drown, right?

[09:00:01]

We know you're basing a grand jurors on the positioning of the body, the timing that you found it, the surrounding circumstances. But in the evaluating the GPS data, the boating data.