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Thousands Rally In Israel After Six Hostages Were Killed By Hamas, Blames Fall On Netanyahu; Vice President Harris Slightly Leads The Polls; Trump Struggling With Abortion Issue; Russia And Ukraine Trade Deadly Attacks; Ricky Pearsall Shot During Attempted Robbery; Photos Of Influencers Used In Fake Pro-Trump Accounts. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 01, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

[17:00:00]

JORDAN MACE, TRISTAN'S WIFE: We would encourage anyone that's thinking about it to consider what it might actually be for somebody else because that heart is the reason that he was able to meet his son.

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORESSPONDENT: Jordan and Tristan Mace, co-founders of Valeos, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. You two are doing remarkable work that certainly will help so many others out there understand this ecosystem and what needs to be done to fix it. So, really appreciate you coming on.

MACE: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: And thank you all so much for joining me today. I'm Alex Marquardt. "CNN Newsroom" with Jessica Dean starts next.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the "CNN Newsroom." I'm Jessica Dean in New York. And tonight, frustration, anger, and heartbreak are mounting across Israel. Heated and passionate protests seen across the country over the last several hours there in Tel Aviv. Organizers estimating 550,000 people taken to the streets tonight.

These demonstrators are demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas. The country's largest labor union is joining the fight, vowing a nationwide general strike tomorrow. The mounting anger coming after the tragic news. The IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages, including an American from a tunnel in southern Gaza. The Israeli Health Ministry saying all six of these hostages shot by short range shots likely sometime between Thursday and Friday of this week.

CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us now live in Tel Aviv. And Nic, we have seen these massive protests throughout the day and the evening there. It's now just after midnight in Israel. What have you seen on the ground? What is the general feeling in Israel tonight?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, I think what we've experienced here on the streets of Tel Aviv and colleagues who have been going out to protests here weekend after weekend after weekend, this is the biggest protest they've seen of this type calling for the Prime Minister to get a deal on the hostages. This is something that's grown, it's ramped up, it backed off about a month or so ago, the numbers dropped off a bit. That was out of concern that Iran was about to strike the city.

But this tonight is the biggest I've seen, the biggest they've seen, and the biggest numbers that the organizers are talking about. As you're saying there, 550,000 they're claiming were on the streets of Tel Aviv. Impossible for us to try to get an accurate number because there were so many people out there. We were walking through the crowds for close to half an hour just to sort of get from one place to another and the streets were really densely packed.

And it's that frustration that you're talking about. It's an anger, but also, it's a muted anger tonight because people feel heartbroken about the death of these six hostages. They feel let down by the government. So there's that sense of frustration that this message, the message that they've been calling for so many weekends, that the government needs to do a deal to get the hostages home.

They've heard about the divisions in the cabinet. They've heard what the defense minister has accused the prime minister of, of micromanaging the situation, of not getting a deal when there could be a deal had. They heard the comments by the intelligence chief of the Shin Bet and the Mossad who said that the prime minister is getting -- making the wrong assessment and getting this wrong. So there's that -- all this has been building up and I think it just broke through in the passions, the posters, the protest itself and we were watching in the last hour or so.

Protesters blocking the main highway that runs north south through Tel Aviv. They were lighting fires. The police were standing back for the most part. It was very peaceful. The police containing rather than confronting. But as we were sort of leaving that area, the police were really sort of breaking that up. They were riding through on the mounted police on horseback, getting the protesters away, trying to sort of get that road open.

And you can see the sort of -- the anger, the frustration that have flown out all night and people were sort of letting the message go for tonight. But there's more coming tomorrow. The municipality in Tel Aviv going on strike, many of the major unions in the country threatening to go on strike. These are potentially powerful actions that could undermine the prime minister.

In previous times when these big unions have gone on strike, the airport has been closed. Well, the airport is saying it will be open tomorrow. But I think what we'll see over the coming few days will tell us how big and how much momentum the protests we've seen tonight actually have.

[17:04:55]

DEAN: All right, Nic Robertson for us with the latest in Tel Aviv. Thank you so much for that reporting, Nic. And among the six hostages killed, Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, President Biden speaking with his parents after his body was recovered Saturday. Vice President Kamala Harris and First Gentleman Doug Emhoff also speaking with his parents. CNN's Kevin Liptak is joining us now. And Kevin, Hersh's story and the incredible bravery and tenacity and

humanity of his parents in the face of this unimaginable nightmare has been really well known to a lot of Americans. They just spoke at the Democratic National Convention a couple of weeks ago. What more are we hearing from the White House tonight?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and that address at the convention last week was quite something. I was in the arena, and you could really hear a pin drop as both of them were speaking from the stage. It was kind of the only moment throughout the entire week that everyone in the audience's attention was focused very much on what was being said from the podium.

And so I think at the White House, this is being felt very deeply, certainly by President Biden and Vice President Harris, who, as you mentioned, both spoke on separate phone calls with the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin earlier today.

President Biden did release a statement last night saying that he was devastated and outraged by this death and he said, I have worked tirelessly to bring their beloved Hersh safely to them and am heartbroken by the news of his death. It is as tragic as it is reprehensible. And the president goes on to say, Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes, and we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.

And it was interesting, we did hear directly from President Biden last night after these hostages were discovered beneath Rafah, saying that in his view, that he believed they were still on the verge of an agreement, a ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Hamas and Israel, and he says, we think we can close the deal. So President Biden certainly of the belief that even this tragic discovery does not necessarily prevent those talks from ongoing.

I think when you talk to American officials, they do say that it does add a layer of complexity to what was already very difficult and painstaking negotiations. There are some new questions today about how serious Hamas is about reaching a deal, and certainly American officials acknowledged that this will also apply pressure on the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and certainly we're seeing that play out on the streets of Israel today.

It was interesting both in President Biden's statement and in the vice president statement, neither of them applied their own pressure on Netanyahu either explicitly or implicitly. Certainly, I think they're of the belief that pressure will very much come from inside Israel itself.

DEAN: All right, Kevin Liptak with the latest from Washington, D.C. Thanks so much for that reporting, Kevin. Israel's opposition leader is one of the leaders of the protests that are happening right now and he posted this scathing rebuke of Netanyahu's government on social media.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) YAIR LAPID, ISRAELI OPPOSITION LEADER (through translation): Netanyahu and his death cabinet decided not to rescue the hostages. That blood is on their heads. I call on every citizen whose heart is broken this morning to come at 7:00 p.m. to Begin to demonstrate with us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining us now, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren. Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much for being here with us. It's always nice to have you. This is certainly a very sad, heavy day in this nearly year-long conflict. Do you believe we've reached a tipping point?

MICHAEL OREN, FORMER ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well, first of all, good to be with you, Jessica. It is a dark and traumatic and tragic day for everybody in the state of Israel, those who are against the government, those who support the government, we are united in our grief here. And it could well be a tipping point. I think the tipping point, the pressure within Israel on the government is very intense.

Also within the government itself, defense minister coming out against the prime minister, Defense Minister Gallant. Other ministers coming out and calling for the prime minister to fire the defense minister. Everything at this point is up in the air and Israel's going to be frozen for certainly the next 24 hours with these strikes that your correspondent talked about. I'll be attending Hersh's funeral tomorrow in Jerusalem.

I imagine the tens of thousands of people will be getting to Jerusalem for these funerals. We are going to be in paroxysms of grief for the next certainly 24, 48 hours. When that is over, there's going to have to be some serious soul-searching here. Now, there's a debate about whether Hamas was actually willing to accept the deal, whether the person who bears responsibility is Netanyahu.

There's also that trade-off that if Hamas, you know, if you accept the deal, you have to understand that Hamas is going to survive and Hamas will have a chance to maybe reassert its authority over Gaza and perhaps mount the next attack. There are no easy solutions here. Everything, everything is pink.

[17:09:57]

DEAN: And we talked to a number of Israelis who were out protesting today. I was reading over some of the things that they said. One person saying they were very angry. They said they don't think the government cares about the hostages. Other people saying their heart was broken. The six were captured alive and they could have been saved, but they were murdered by Hamas after surviving the torture of being a hostage in Gaza.

There is obvious anger, frustration, as you've mentioned, grief. And it goes without saying this is all happening because Hamas attacked Israel and took hostages on October 7th, so we start there. But I am curious, how much responsibility do you think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds here for what has transpired? OREN: Well, again, the big question is, was Hamas willing to accept

the deal or not? And if Hamas was not willing to accept the deal, then Netanyahu still bears responsibility for not convincing the Israeli public that he did everything possible, that he went the extra mile, even though Hamas said no. If Hamas said yes, and Netanyahu said no, then there's a different degree of responsibility. Either way, there's going to be responsibility. But that's the nature of the position, the buck ends there. He's the prime minister.

DEAN: And it has been interesting to note, as my colleague Kevin Liptak was just reporting, that U.S. officials have not put any pressure on the prime minister. The thought he was reporting is that that will come internally, and we are seeing these protests here. Do you think that ultimately that the Israeli people will get to a point where they push for a change in how this war is being prosecuted and a change in government?

OREN: I can see, yes, that the protests will continue. They could escalate easily. But let's also keep in mind that the situation in Gaza is not the only front. There are 100,000 Israelis in the north who are now uprooted from their homes who are under (inaudible)) and drone fire from Hezbollah. There is a serious escalation of terror emanating from the West Bank. Israeli policemen, one policewoman was killed, were killed this morning.

So there's a war going on multiple fronts here. And the tendency in this country is to be rally around, certainly the army, and if possible, the government to resist this onslaught from all of our borders. So there's going to be pressures in all different directions, all different directions, but I would expect the protest to continue and to indeed escalate in the coming days.

DEAN: And going back to these hostages who were killed just for a minute, we do know that three of them were slated to be among the first released in this first round of the proposed ceasefire and hostage agreement that obviously has not been agreed upon, but has been sketched out. And we also know that these six hostages were killed a short time before the IDF was able to get to them, that they were likely closing in on them and were shot at a very close range. What does all of this tell you?

OREN: It tells us something very -- another painful choice, which is no good answer. The assumption has been that in order to get Hamas to the negotiating table, you had to ramp up the pressure on Hamas. The Israeli army had to go into places like Rafah, into Gaza city, to Khan Yunis and keep up the pressure. But it turns out Israeli army gets too close to the hostages and it doesn't have information intact on the whereabouts of those hostages.

The people who are holding those hostages, the Hamas terrorists are allowed to take those hostages and execute them rather than have those hostages fall into the -- be released by the IDF. So what do you do? Do you not ramp up the threat pressure? Do you pull Israeli forces back and hope Hamas will come to the table? Or will Hamas conclude, hey, now we know the secret of getting Israel out of the Gaza Strip, we just threatened to shoot hostages? There is no -- there are no good answers here. There are none.

Everything is painful. And it's, you know, at this point where you basically have to say a blessing that you're not the prime minister, you're not in his shoes, you're not in the position that people have to make choices, because at the end of the day, the choices either way are excruciating.

DEAN: Yeah. I mean, there's been this school of thought for a long time that Israel, the government, would have to prioritize. Do you want to get those hostages back, or do you, in Netanyahu's view of all of it, eliminate Hamas? And can you do all those things at the same time, or are they pulling in kind of opposite directions?

OREN: Well, if you want -- I'll just take a conversation between two of my children, both of them veterans of the IDF, combat veterans, my daughter who says, I don't care who wins the war. As far as I'm concerned, Hamas can win the war. Israel has one duty and one duty only, and that's to get the hostages free, because if Israel doesn't get the hostages freed, I won't be able to send my children to the army.

[17:15:02]

Her brother says, yes, but if you don't destroy Hamas, you won't have an army to send your kids to. They're both right, Jessica. That argument is going (inaudible) souls inside our hearts all the time. So Netanyahu, from his perspective, is thinking, I could get the hostages back. They risk the lives of thousands of Israelis in a year or two now, and they'll come and say, why do you agree to this? So either way, it's a terrible choice between our sort of our heart, our soul, and our bodies.

DEAN: All right, Ambassador Michael Oren, thank you very much for that context. We appreciate it.

OREN: (Inaudible).

DEAN: Thank you. Still to come, Labor Day starts what will be a long sprint to Election Day and a familiar face will join Vice President Kamala Harris on the campaign trail. We'll talk more about that here in the "CNN Newsroom."

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DEAN: With just 65 days until Election Day and Labor Day upon us, both presidential campaigns are targeting battleground states. Tomorrow Vice President Kamala Harris joining President Joe Biden in Pittsburgh for a Labor Day event that's focused on the working class. She's also visiting Detroit earlier in the day. Former President Donald Trump's campaign also has Michigan in mind, hosting a video call with some United Auto workers, although that union has already endorsed Harris.

Joining us now, Larry Sabato, the director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and editor of the book "The Return to Normalcy: The 2020 Election That Almost Broke America." Larry, always good to have you on. Thanks so much for being here with us. I want to talk first about this new ABC-Ipsos poll that shows Vice President Harris with a slight lead, 50 percent to 46 percent. That's about where it was. So she didn't get a huge bump coming out of the DNC. What do you make of that?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: She got her bump going in. This was a completely unprecedented situation. And the enthusiasm and energy generated by the replacement of President Biden with Vice President Harris really generated a significant bump for Kamala Harris before the convention even met. I think the convention reinforced it. But actually, this isn't unusual in another way.

In recent elections, there has been virtually no bounce on either side. We used to get big bounces, sometimes five, six, seven points for the side that just had their convention. That's gone. I think it's a product of polarization. We already know who we're for. It's just a question of whether we're going to go vote or visit our couch.

DEAN: Yeah. And that's what I actually wanted to ask you about, because I suspected you might say that it is actually because we're just such a polarized country at this point, and people are so dug in on either side. But there's a traditional kind of common or conventional wisdom in politics that after Labor Day everybody starts to pay attention. That's when voters really start to click in but in this case the voters that are likely going to decide this race It's a tiny little margin of voters in a handful of states What do you think might move them and what are they going to be looking for to inform their decision as we get closer?

SABATO: Jessica, of course, it's the $64,000 question, but we're talking about four, five, six percent of the electorate that is truly undecided and torn. Now, I know a lot more people say, oh, I haven't decided yet. But if we could examine their conscience somehow, I think we'd find that they know how they're going to vote. And we'd look at their record of voting as well.

So I don't think that it's much beyond four, five, six. Let me divide that into two. About half of that group are high-information voters who are going to pay attention to absolutely everything. They read constantly. They debate politics in their office.

And then you have the other half of that group. They were once called in the 1950s, no offense to anybody, the dregs of the electorate. They are not interested in politics, and usually they don't even show up to vote. They resolve their lack of knowledge by leaving it to everybody else. And who's to say that's not the best solution?

DEAN: Yeah, and you do look to September 10th when this debate is scheduled. It's right around the corner. How impactful do you think it might be?

SABATO: That's another $64,000 question. This is amounting to real money, Jessica. DEAN: I know. Big dollars here.

SABATO: I can't pay it, but I'm going to leave that up to you. What I think is important is we all learned again on June 27th at the CNN debate. that everybody who's been saying debates don't matter are completely wrong. In fact, that mattered so much that we got an unprecedented change of leaders in a party, an incumbent president moving out and his vice president being designated. That's never happened in American history.

And going back through the debates beginning in 1960, the Kennedy- Nixon debates, there have been arguably five or six presidential debates in different elections that actually have affected the results.

[17:24:59]

So I don't think anybody's going to ignore September 10th. Now having said that, remember if five or six have affected the results, that means that far more than that have not affected the results. So odds are it won't change that much, but who's going to count on that? Everybody's going to be watching.

DEAN: Well, we're in a weird election year, so anything can happen. I do think, obviously, abortion has become a big issue. It's gone right back to the forefront as we head into this final stretch. And we just last week saw former President Trump really flip-flopping specifically on that potential, on that ballot initiative in Florida, which would potentially overturn the six-week abortion ban there. And then he went back and said he wouldn't be voting for it.

Do you think that the former president -- look, when I was covering the primaries, he can't -- Ron DeSantis put that into place in Florida and the former president at the time said he didn't agree with it? But do you think that Trump is trying to pull his party to a position that might be more mainstream, more palatable? They continue to lose on this issue ever since Roe versus Wade was overturned.

SABATO: Yes, and that's ironic, isn't it? Because the one person most responsible for the overturn of Roe v. Wade is Donald Trump. Even though --

DEAN: And he takes credit for it all the time.

SABATO: He takes credit for it all the time. He was once, as he said to a Sunday morning host about 25 years ago, I am 100 percent pro- choice. Well, things changed, as we know. And then he appointed the three justices of the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade. And now he sees the consequences. He actually saw them to his credit in 2022, because that's why Democrats did not lose nearly as much in those midterm elections as many had projected.

So he's trying to avoid the negative consequences, but you can't have your cake and eat it too in this case. You either are going to take credit for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, or you're gonna do the opposite and try to find ways to minimize the change. There's no way to do both. And I assume he understands that, but he wishes it weren't true. And that's the genesis of all these policy changes that he makes off the top of his head.

DEAN: All right, Larry Sabato, we're going to leave it there, but always good to see you. Thanks so much.

SABATO: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: Ukraine is using drones to launch one of its biggest attacks inside Russia since the start of the war. We're going to break this down when "CNN Newsroom" returns.

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[17:29:59]

DEAN: Tonight, Russia and Ukraine trading major attacks. Ukraine attacking Russian power plants and refineries --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

-- with drones, including near Moscow where -- while Russia has struck Kharkiv.

(BLEEP)

(EXPLOSION)

UNKNOWN: Oh!

DEAN: That strike, including firing ballistic missiles at the city. Of course, it's the second largest city in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say dozens of civilians, including children, were injured.

We're joined now by Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent at "The Wall Street Journal," also a Pulitzer finalist two years in a row for his coverage of the war and author of a new book, "Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence." Thanks so much for being here with us.

I want to talk first about this offensive by Ukraine targeting Russia's energy infrastructure. In a way, is this kind of giving Russia a taste of its own medicine and what they were doing kind of toward the beginning of this war?

YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, absolutely, that's exactly what I was going to say. For nearly two years, Russia has been trying to destroy Ukrainian power stations, Ukrainian refineries, pretty much the entire infrastructure with its cruise ballistic missiles and with its drones.

Ukraine is not allowed by the U.S. and Western allies to use long- range missiles that they had been supplied to target sovereign Russia. So, Ukraine has spent the last two years developing its own drone capabilities. And as we are seeing now, these drones can reach pretty much anywhere in the European part of Russia and they've been striking almost every day at strategic energy and military infrastructure targets there.

DEAN: And what kind of an impact can that have?

TROFIMOV: I think there are two levels. On one level, actually, it is denting the Russian ability to produce fuel for the military because both the refineries are being targeted, but also the strategic reserve locations for the military. But also, psychologically, it's, you know, it's very -- it shows to the Russian citizens, when the drone can hit refinery in Moscow, in the capital of Russia, just to what extent all of Russia's state and military reserves and resources are being used to fight a war in Ukraine, whereas Russia itself is unprotected.

We're seeing this with these drone attacks, but we also saw it last month when the Ukrainian military pushed through the Russian border and managed to capture without much resistance a significant chunk of the Kursk region of Russia --

DEAN: Hmm.

TROFIMOV: -- precisely because the Russian military was not there, it was in Ukraine.

DEAN: Right, and then they had to move them around. Russia's missile strikes on Kharkiv appear at this moment to have targeted civilians. This is something that continues to happen. You talk about psychological warfare in a way.

[17:35:00]

What does this tell you about Russia's strategy here?

TROFIMOV: Well, Russia's strategy all along since the war began was to try to target civilian infrastructure, civilians in Ukraine, to force them to flee, especially in Kharkiv. For the first several months of the war, the Russian military was on the edge of the city, literally on the ring road, and was shelling the city with everything they got, you know, mortars, artillery, tanks. Now, they're further away, so they have to resort to missiles or light bombs. And so, it happens not nearly as frequently as it was in the beginning, but still.

I mean, all along the Russian strategy in Ukraine was to precipitate an exodus of refugees to have millions and millions of Ukrainians flee the country, have the economy collapse, which would make it easier in their mind to conquer Ukraine. It hasn't happened that way. I mean, I think it sort of backfires and actually strengthens the resolve of ordinary Ukrainians to fight back.

DEAN: And I also want to ask you, you have -- your latest piece in the journal focuses on the arrest of Telegram's founder in France, and you talk about the connectivity there to the Russian military and how this could seriously affect Russia's ability to communicate on the battlefield. Can you tell us more about that?

TROFIMOV: Yeah, well, the Russian military has really been relying on Telegram for a lot of its communications because as they found out when the invasion of Ukraine began, they really don't have enough secure communications devices. A lot of the radio traffic was intercepted by the Ukrainians.

And Telegram, because it's not a Western company, it's based in the United Arab Emirates, is seen as, by many in the Russian military, as more safe and secure. So, a lot of this messaging was going on through that platform, you know, targeting for artillery, drone feeds, reconnaissance information.

And now there is a panic in Russia. You can see it on Telegram itself among Russian military analysts, soldiers, who are saying that if Western governments, France, United States, gains access to all the traffic, well, all their secrets will be opened. And so there have been instructions to stop using Telegram and there are not very many other alternative systems right now.

DEAN: It is. It is kind of fascinating how connected it all is. Yaroslav Trofimov, thank you so much for being here with us. We appreciate it.

TROFIMOV: Thank you. Great to be on the show.

DEAN: We're going to have much more on the protests across Israel as hundreds of thousands of Israelis are taken to the streets calling for a ceasefire and hostage deal. I'll tell you how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responding to those protests.

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[17:40:00]

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DEAN: A San Francisco 49ers wide receiver has been released from the hospital this afternoon, a day after being shot in the chest. Authorities saying this happened during an attempted robbery and that a 17-year-old suspect is now in custody. CNN's Camila Bernal is following this story. Camila, what more are you learning about this?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jessica, so the 49ers today saying that Ricky Pearsall has been released from the hospital, so good news there, and his mother also saying that he was in good spirits. There's a Facebook post that was obtained by the athletic and in it, she says, that he was shot in the chest but that the bullet exited in his back and says that it missed all of the vital organs, so he is okay. She says it was God protecting him in that Facebook post. That's what she was saying.

Now, we know that this happened at around 3:30 PM yesterday. It was plain daylight in the Union Square. This is a very popular area of San Francisco where people normally go shopping. So, he was walking alone when this 17-year-old came to rob him at gunpoint. Now, there was a struggle, there was an altercation, and that gun went off and both of them were injured, the 17-year-old and the football player. That 17- year-old took off running, but police were able to arrest him.

Now, because he is a juvenile, the district attorney saying that she's going to make that charging decision either Tuesday or Wednesday, and he will be charged in juvenile court. Now, we're essentially waiting to see what happens next, but there are limited details because he is 17 years old.

This also just sparking a lot of conversation and bringing all of this back into the national conversation in terms of the safety of San Francisco and the mayor, London Breed, saying this is a setback in all of this and what she has been working on to try to get San Francisco to be an area that's known as a place that's safe. Essentially, here's what she said. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR LONDON BREED, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: We are glad that the victim will be okay. But this incident does set us back from all the hard work that we've done in order to make significant changes in public safety in San Francisco. We still have the lowest violent crime rate of any major city. We are on track to have record low numbers of gun violence in particular in this city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: An official saying this was just an attempted robbery and he was not targeted for being a football player. But I do want to point out some of the statistics that the mayor was mentioning.

[17:44:57]

According to the city, compared to 2023 in the first quarter of 2024, the property crime declined by 32%. The violent crime declined by 14. You see it right there. Gun violence declined by 38%. So those are the numbers that she's pointing to.

But there are others that say this is not enough and say that more needs to be done in San Francisco. And among them, the person that's running against her for mayor, Matt Farrell (ph), he says enough is enough and he says there needs to be change in City Hall. So, we'll see what happens moving forward, but thankfully, this football player is okay, Jess.

DEAN: Yeah, amazing. He'll be able to make that recovery. Camila Bernal, thank you so much for that reporting. We'll be right back.

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[17:50:00]

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DEAN: Several European fashion influencers have become the faces of some fake pro-Trump accounts on "X." It's not because the influencers support Trump or have anything to do with him, but it's because their images were stolen and then reposted to promote pro-Trump agenda and conspiracy theories. As CNN's Katie Polglase reports, some of these influencers are outraged.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KATIE POLGLASE, CNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER (voice-over): Debbie is heading home from work in Luxembourg, Northern Europe. Crossing the border into Germany, she races back to her son.

DEBBIE NEDERLOF, MODEL AND SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: Hello.

POLGLASE (voice-over): And of course, Lou (ph). But Debbie's day doesn't end there. She's also a professional model. Her image, not only her identity but her source of income, helping support her and her son. But it has been stolen, used in a pro-Trump account on "X," attracting nearly 30,000 followers in less than six months.

Here it is (INAUDIBLE).

NEDERLOF: Yeah. That's very crazy.

POLGLASE: And when you see these views, you know, saying vote for Trump in 2024, what's your reaction?

NEDERLOF: My -- to be honest, what the (bleep) was my reaction. That was my reaction because I have nothing to do with the United States, with Trump or the political things over there.

POLGLASE: And if people following this account believe that this is you, what do you want to say to them?

NEDERLOF: That it's definitely not me. Definitely, it was never me and it will never be me. And they have to unfollow, please.

POLGLASE: In fact, Debbie is not alone. In partnership with the Center for Information Resilience, CNN found nearly 60 fake Trump-supporting accounts. And from these, we identified nearly a dozen women, real women, from across Europe, from Denmark to the Netherlands, and as far away as Russia, whose identities are being used in accounts telling voters, American voters, to vote for Trump in the upcoming U.S. election.

(Voice-over): Let's take a look at some of these accounts, like Alina, 33 and voting for Trump. But she's not, she's really Kamilla from Denmark.

KAMILLA BROBERG, INFLUENCER: I think it's weird, anything that can discriminate other people on my account because it's my little universe. I don't think it's fair.

POLGLASE (voice-over): And this one, Eva. She even has a verified blue tick, which is supposed to weed out fake accounts.

NERIAH TELLERUP, INFLUENCER: You feel very taken advantage of, also because it's kind of my image. I don't want to think people think that I do what those profiles sometimes are promoting.

POLGLASE (voice-over): We ran the suspicious "X" photos through a reverse image search engine and found they were lifted from Instagram posts. Certain patterns emerged. The fake accounts repost each other. It's a sign of a coordinated campaign. Here, several of the fake accounts post the exact same wording. If you're voting for the man who survived an assassination attempt, I want to follow you. It's another sign the accounts are linked.

And that's not all. Some of the accounts manipulated the images of these women. Have a look at Debbie's post, the original on Instagram and now the fake one on "X." Her hat now reads, make America great again. Look at this t-shirt before and then Trump 2024.

For now, we don't know who is behind all these accounts, but the former U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman who also used to investigate fake accounts for Twitter, told us this.

EMILY HORNE, FORMER SPOKESPERSON, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: I don't think it's unreasonable to ask questions about, could there be a state actor involved? We know that there are multiple state actors who have been using social media to try to sow disinformation campaigns in the run up to the 2024 election.

POLGLASE (voice-over): Regardless, the accounts are reaching influential politicians.

DOUG MASTRIANO, PENNSYLVANIA STATE SENATE MEMBER: Oh, yeah.

POLGLASE (voice-over): Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator for Pennsylvania, follows Debbie's fake account. CNN contacted the senator about the account, but has not heard back.

Back in Germany, Debbie is shocked and upset that her image is being used in this way. With President Trump now back on "X" and Elon Musk, the owner of "X" throwing his weight behind him, fake pro-Trump content appears to be flourishing --

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-- silencing the real women affected.

[17:54:58]

Once again, women's rights at the very heart of this presidential election. Katie Polglase, CNN, Trier, Germany.

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DEAN: Katie, thank you. Protests grow across Israel after the recovery of six dead hostages just a few hours ago. We are live with the very latest here in the "CNN Newsroom."

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