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Protests Erupted in Israel After Hostage Deaths; Biden, Harris Spoke with Parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin; Harris, Trump Target Swing States in Labor Day Push; Strikes at 24 U.S. Hotels Impact Labor Day Holiday; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Support Supreme Court Code of Ethics. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired September 01, 2024 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:13]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

And tonight, people in Israel taking to the streets as frustration, anger, and heartbreak is growing across that country. Massive protests seen in Israel over the last 24 hours. There in Tel Aviv alone organizers estimating 550,000 people turning out to the streets tonight. And the protesters 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.

It is a move Israel's finance minister is right now seeking urgent injunctions to stop the mounting anger coming after the tragic news that the IDF recovered the bodies of six hostages including an American from a tunnel in southern Gaza. The Israeli Health Ministry saying all of these hostages were killed by short range shots likely in the last three to four days as the IDF was likely closing in.

CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us now.

Nic, you were there for the protest tonight in Tel Aviv. It's now 1:00 in the morning there. So these happened a little bit earlier. But what was it like and as we look forward to tomorrow with this strike, what are you anticipating?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And, you know, of all the protests that we've seen calling on the prime minister to get the hostages released, this is the one I think that so far had the biggest numbers, the most energy, that the sort of pent-up anger and frustration, although so many of the people we talked to said that this wasn't the night to be the angry because, they're broken-hearted about these six young hostages.

A lot of young people on the streets tonight. I think that was one of the sort of takeaways for me, just how many young people were out on the streets because they all feel what's happened for the families that have lost -- who have lost their loved ones in this latest terrible situation. But it connects with them because so many of these people but particularly these six hostages were at that Nova Music Festival, five of them were, one was at a nearby kibbutz.

And this is something young people can additionally identify with. So some people here, some young people were telling us they hadn't come out to protest before, but this had really galvanized them because they're frustrated that the prime minister is not listening to their calls to get the hostages brought home, not listening to the demands of two-thirds of the country almost, according to the most recent polling. They want the prime minister to cut a deal with Hamas at whatever cost to get the hostages home.

And tonight, they wanted to come out and show that. And I think the real question now is the anger was muted tonight because of that sense that tonight the country was still in shock, that it was going through the pain and suffering of this loss, but when this city, its municipal council goes on strike tomorrow and others do across the country, when some of the big labor unions here go on strike tomorrow as they've said they will, how many people go out on strike, how many businesses, how many enterprises, how much of the country is affected, how much will be shut down?

In the past big -- the big unions have been able to shut down the airport here. That's not expected tomorrow, but how deep this anger and resentment is felt, and how that becomes realized through strikes and more protests I think that's going to tell us how difficult it will or will not be for the prime minister to ride this out as he is clearly trying to do at the moment -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, it will be a very important 24 hours to see how this all unfolds. And then of course beyond.

Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that reporting.

President Biden and Vice President Harris have both reached out to the family of Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin. He was one of the six hostages killed. Biden and Harris speaking with Hersh's parents after his body was recovered.

And CNN's Kevin Liptak is joining us now.

And Kevin, you can't help but think about, we have heard from both of his parents over the last almost a year, and they have displayed such courage and then they were there at the DNC not too long ago where everyone was standing up and chanting, bring them home. You can't help but think about them tonight and the anguish they must be experiencing.

What are you hearing more about the White House's relationship with them?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think President Biden and the vice president, Kamala Harris, have gotten to know them fairly well over the last 11 months as they underwent this ordeal. And you mentioned the convention last week. It was really quite a powerful moment, probably in my view the powerful emotional high point of the entire week when they came out to speak.

[18:05:04]

You could really hear a pin drop as they were addressing the convention from the podium there. And I think the question now for President Biden and for Vice President Harris is how these hostage and ceasefire negotiations will move forward now that this discovery has been made in the tunnels below Rafah. We know that several of the hostages whose bodies were found were to be part of the initial hostage release.

And so certainly this complicates those negotiations which have been ongoing for the last, you know, several months but had really intensified over the last several weeks. American officials had been in Doha and in Cairo to try and move this deal across the finish line. And when you talk to American officials, they had said that at least on paper and in principle, the two sides were not all that far apart.

I think the question, of course, is now one of political will both on the side of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, but also Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza. And when you talk to American officials today, they do say that there are now questions about how willing Hamas is to reach a deal. And certainly they acknowledged that there is now new pressure on Netanyahu as well. And you see that playing out on the streets of Israel today.

In her statement yesterday, the Vice President Kamala Harris did not mention the ceasefire talks explicitly, although we did hear her in the CNN interview on Thursday, talk about the necessity of a hostage deal. In her statement last night Kamala Harris says that Hamas is an evil terrorist organization and with these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands.

She goes on to say the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel and American citizens in Israel must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza. The Palestinian people, too, have suffered under Hamas' rule for nearly two decades. So making very clear in there that any eventual agreement must, you know, prevent the eventuality that Hamas could return to control in Gaza once this agreement is reached.

So I think, you know, tonight the White House feeling more urgency to get these hostage talks back on the table, but also a degree of uncertainty about how all of this will factor into those talks going forward. But certainly President Biden and Harris very eager to get a deal done that would end to the violence and bring the remaining hostages home.

DEAN: All right. Kevin Liptak for us live from Washington. Thank you for that reporting.

And joining us now CNN political and global affairs analyst Barak Ravid.

Barak, thanks so much for being here with us on this Sunday. We are watching the fallout from this absolutely devastating news that was delivered yesterday. What are your sources telling you tonight as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government witness some 700,000 people taking to the streets across Israel? BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think

what we saw tonight in Tel Aviv, but also across Israel is something we haven't seen since October 7th. It's the same mass of protesters that we saw before October 7th during Netanyahu's judicial overhaul where hundreds of thousands of people every week went to the streets in support of Israel's democracy.

But since the war started, many people didn't want to go to this because they felt that it wasn't appropriate, because the soldiers were fighting either in the south or in the north and, you know, there were everyday soldiers were killed and people didn't felt that it was right thing to do. And I think what we saw tonight is that basically there was a critical mass of people who said, you know, that's it. We can't take it anymore. There needs to be a hostage deal. There needs to be a ceasefire.

And this comes not only from, you know, certain parts of the Israeli society, I think it represents the mainstream Israeli society very wide consensus. You've seen all the polls, between 65 to 70 percent of Israelis who say number one priority is a hostage and ceasefire deal, even more than the destruction of Hamas.

DEAN: And yet, Benjamin Netanyahu, again, all of this started just to be clear because Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. But yet, Benjamin Netanyahu has so far, you know, been hesitant to agree to these outline proposal that the U.S. and others have put together. Hamas also has not agreed to it as well.

Do you think these protests, along with this nationwide general strike that's set for tomorrow, might start to bend him toward that direction? Or do you think he will remain resolute on this?

RAVID: I'm not sure it will change to make Netanyahu change course, to convince him to change course, I don't know. We will have to see.

[18:10:02]

What I do know is that Netanyahu's main interest is to survive politically and for that, he's dependent on the radical right-wing members of his coalition, ultra-nationalist ministers like Itamar Ben- Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich who already said publicly that if Netanyahu pursues this deal, the deal that is now on the table, they will leave the coalition and the government will collapse.

And Israel will go for election, which is the number one thing Netanyahu wants to prevent. More than anything else, OK, more than killing Sinwar, more than bringing back the hostages. His number one priority is to prevent the government from collapsing. And when that's the case, it tells you a lot about, you know, what decision he's going to make when push comes to shove.

DEAN: That is a very, very strong statement to make. That that is his number one priority when you have this many people out in the streets and you have six Israelis, including an Israeli American who were alive just days ago and are now dead after being held in captivity, who were murdered. RAVID: Well, you know, the good thing about Netanyahu that this man is

in power for many, many years so we have a historic record that we can compare. We can go back almost 20 years and see that almost at any juncture when he was facing a decision and it was whether to choose the national interest or his own political interests, he chose the latter. So, you know, we're not inventing anything here. We just need to look at his record for the last 20 years.

And I think that, you know, just today over the weekend, one of the issues Netanyahu spent time on wasn't the -- you know, it wasn't the hostage deal. It was the demonstrations against him and whether during those demonstrations is the right time to fire his minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, who defied him and voted in the last cabinet meeting on Thursday against his extraneous demand that Israel will stay in the Philadelphi Corridor, the stretch of land along the Gaza- Egypt border during the first phase of the hostage deal.

This extraneous demand is one of the things that both Israeli minister of defense, the head of Mossad, the head of Shin Bet, the commander of the IDF, all say that this is a hurdle in front of a hostage deal. So when we are in this situation, the prime minister spends time on whether he should fire the minister of defense or not, again, it tells you a lot about his priority.

DEAN: And I do want to get some additional thoughts and your reporting on this as well, the clashes between Gallant and Netanyahu earlier last week before all this happened. And then there was the cabinet meeting today. There is a lot of very extreme back-and-forth fighting within that cabinet, and between those two men.

RAVID: Yes. Definitely. And today, Netanyahu mobilized his entire cabinet for an organized attack against Gallant. One after the other day attacked the minister of defense who told them last Thursday in the previous cabinet meeting that their decision about the Philadelphi Corridor in a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month, they will have to backtrack because that will be the only way to get a deal if they don't want to completely abandon the hostages.

And today, again, after we saw that six hostages were murdered by Hamas in captivity, Gallant told them, this is exactly what I told you just two days ago, and everything I warned about is what happened. And now you see, and they all attacked him, told him that he's playing into Yahya Sinwar's hands, the leader of Hamas. And Gallant replied and told them the fact that you choose to stay for six weeks, that's what we're talking about. OK.

The first phase of the deal is six weeks of ceasefire. So he told him the fact that you're not willing to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, OK, we're talking about an eight-mile stretch of land, the fact you are not willing to withdraw from it for six weeks and you choose that over the hostages is a moral disgrace. That's what Gallant told Netanyahu and the rest of the cabinet.

DEAN: And I also, its notable that we have not heard President Biden, Vice President Harris, putting any sort of external pressure on Netanyahu, and our reporting from our colleague Kevin Liptak is that the thinking around that is it's going to come -- it needs to come internally from Israelis themselves. Do you think that that's the prudent move? And what is the U.S. of it all in this particular moment?

[18:15:01]

RAVID: Well, Jessica, I have to tell you that I think there are a lot of people inside the administration and outside the administration, including inside the Israeli negotiation team, the thing that some of Biden's top advisers are enabling Netanyahu in delaying the deal. They're not doing it intentionally but they're being manipulated by Netanyahu and they don't understand it, and when President Biden said yesterday that he thinks a deal is close, a lot of people in the Israeli negotiation team said that they have no clue what he's talking about. And that they -- it raises questions about the kind of information the president receives.

And I have to say that until now, the Biden administration hasn't been putting any pressure on Netanyahu. Quite the contrary, Secretary of State Blinken, in his last visit in Israel 10 days ago, even gave Netanyahu a free ride when he said that, oh, Netanyahu basically accepted the deal. So now it's only on Hamas and Israeli negotiators afterwards told their U.S. counterparts, what are you talking about?

Netanyahu did not accept the deal. He's still putting on more demands that will delay a deal. So I think that one of the issues here and one of the main questions should be asked is whether the Biden administration policy is actually leading towards a deal or actually just serve Netanyahu's delay tactics.

DEAN: And so let's just finally look ahead to tomorrow and how this might play out over the next 24 to 48 hours with this strike that they say will be in place. What will that mean for the nation of Israel? We know that one of the finance official is trying to stop this from happening. But what does it mean this strike, how significant is this? And how long do you think this kind of posture from the Israeli people might continue?

RAVID: So I think it's very meaningful. The last time that Israel's national workers union, the Histadrut, went on a general strike was in March 2023 after Netanyahu fired Israel's minister of defense. And only because of that strike Netanyahu had to backtrack and, you know, and say that he's not firing Minister of Defense Gallant.

By the way I don't know if everyone who was watching us now remembers why he fired Gallant because Gallant went on TV and said that Netanyahu's judicial overhaul is a threat, an immediate threat to Israel's national security because Israel's enemies are looking at what's going on internally and they see that Israel is divided and weak, and they will take advantage of the situation which is exactly what happened six months later.

And for that reason, Netanyahu wanted to fire Gallant. Now, he's thinking of firing me again because he says that Netanyahu's current policy is basically an abandonment of the hostages.

DEAN: All right. Barak Ravid, thank you so much. Always good to see you.

RAVID: Thank you.

DEAN: We're going to keep our eye on these massive protests coming out of Israel. But first, former president Trump and Vice President Harris both sharpening their focus on a handful of states that will determine who wins the White House as it reached the final leg of campaign season.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:23:09]

DEAN: There's only 65 days until election day. Both candidates are working hard to win votes in key swing states this Labor Day weekend. Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Michigan tomorrow before joining President Joe Biden in Pittsburgh for an event celebrating the working class. Former president Donald Trump is responding, his Michigan campaign is hosting a video call with some United Autoworkers, although the union is already supporting Harris.

Joining us now, Democratic strategist and co-founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginsky, and Republican strategist and former White House spokesperson for President George W. Bush, Pete Seat.

Good to have both of you here. Thank you so much.

Julie, let's start first with you. We have that new ABC News poll out today and it shows Vice President Harris with that slight lead over former president Trump, 50 percent to 46 percent. This is still a really tight race, though, when you boil it down to the electoral map, to these battleground states, and we're talking about just a small group of people that are persuadable at this point.

How does each campaign do that between now and election day?

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, this is a turnout election. It's not necessarily much of a persuasion election anymore to the extent that even Joe Biden, after his disastrous debate performance, the same ABC News poll showed not much movement after the debate performance. So it's pretty much baked in, right? People know what they think about Donald Trump.

They may not know as much about Kamala Harris, but they certainly know whether they love Donald Trump or hate him. So the job for both sides is to turn out their voters at this point. It is not the typical persuasion election that we've seen in previous campaigns because of Donald Trump, and so ultimately, that's why you're seeing Kamala Harris go on this tour on reproductive rights.

That's why you're seeing the former president doubling down on all the MAGA talking points that don't necessarily do anything to expand his own base, but makes sure that his own base turns out because they both understand that this is an election that will come down to who gets their vote out.

[18:25:11]

DEAN: And Pete, Harris' top campaign adviser saying today she remains the clear underdog. It's a way she's described herself as well. There are advantages to being the underdog, of framing yourself as the underdog. To Julia's point, it can make -- you know, you can convince maybe more people that you must vote. You can't just leave this one up to chance.

Do you think that that is, though, the correct assessment of this situation?

PETE SEAT, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, a campaign calling their candidate the underdog is a tried and true tactic of campaigns because you don't want to get overconfident and you don't want to get complacent. And there's been a lot of reasons for the Kamala Harris campaign to be over confident. There is a burst of enthusiasm behind her candidacy after these switcheroo with Joe Biden.

So I think they see it the same way Julie and I see this race, which is it actually is about persuasion, but it's persuading voters to vote, not necessarily to change who they are going to vote for, but it's about persuading them to show up to the ballot box. And that's why you're going to hear more and more rhetoric from both sides that is appealing to their respective bases. That's what they're doing in all these battleground states. They know who their voters are. They've got to turn them out to win.

DEAN: And so, Julie, we have this debate, we're coming up on it, September 10th. How impactful might that be if we continue with this kind of through line that we have and this conversation that you need to convince your voters to get out and vote? What role does it play in that?

ROGINSKY: Well, the stakes are pretty high for Kamala Harris, again it continues to allow her to introduce herself not just to people who are undecided, although that cohort is incredibly small, but really to the Democratic base to ensure that they turn out. As I said before, it's pretty much baked in for Trump. We know what he is and who he is. You either love him or you hate him.

There's really nothing he can do at this point to change your mind one way or the other, and whether the mics are muted or not. Maybe more helpful to Harris to underscore to her own base, the Democratic base, exactly how toxic he can be when he's allowed to speak, without his mic being muted. But at the same time, it's not going to suddenly persuade a whole swath of Trump supporters to say, oh, my god, this is not a man that were not familiar with.

And again, as I said earlier, ironically, the polls did not shift all that much despite Biden's debate performance. A few months ago. And so I go back to what I said earlier, it's important in the sense that it allows her to re-introduce herself or to introduce herself for the first time to people who may not be that familiar with her but really more to gin up enthusiasm among low propensity voters on the Democratic side, and to bring some of them home who may not be 100 percent of the Democratic camp yet but who typically should be voting Democratic because of their history demographically.

DEAN: And Pete, I just want to get your thoughts on the debate as well.

SEAT: Yes. It's baked in on both sides. Go back to the ABC poll that you referenced. If we dig deeper, 96 percent of voters who say they are not supporting Kamala Harris today say they're not going to, they're not going to go her way. 97 percent who are not supporting Donald Trump today are not going to support him when election day rolls around.

So I think for Kamala Harris, this debate is about platitudes. She doesn't want to get into the policy weeds. She's going to be as vague as possible because she's trying to rekindle the Obama magic. And the more platitudes, the more hope and change, the more likely she is to get her voters out and not turn someone away and get them to stay home.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, it's really about body language for him. Yes, he needs to remind the American people that they were better off economically when he was president. But he has to be careful about how he debates against Kamala Harris. She is not Hillary Clinton. She doesn't come into this with sky high disapproval ratings. And so he has to be very, very careful about his words and his body language.

DEAN: It's going to be interesting to see.

All right. Julie Roginsky and Pete Seat, our thanks to both of you.

ROGINSKY: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, why more than 10,000 hotel workers from coast to coast are using this holiday weekend to send a strong message by walking off the job.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:33:46]

DEAN: Tonight, more than 10,000 workers today walked off the job at hotels all across the country. Those workers demanding better working conditions as well as higher pay.

The video that you're looking at was taken earlier today in Boston as workers began walking out. The strike is at 24 hotels now, it could grow larger.

Joining us now is CNN's Gloria Pazmino.

Gloria, you've been tracking this. What more can you tell us?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, the union is Unite Here, and they represent these workers which voted to authorize the strike. So far, as you said, 24 hotels across the country are being impacted by this.

Take a look at just how many cities, Boston, Greenwich, San Francisco, San Diego, Honolulu, all of them being impacted that by this strike. 10,000 workers are on the picket line. And this is happening at the Marriott Hotels, Hyatt, as well as Hilton. These three hotel chains, some of the biggest in the country, are being impacted. And of course we are in the middle of the Labor Day holiday.

Now I spoke to a worker to try and understand exactly what it is that the workers are demanding, why they're on strike, and why they decided to walk off the job. She told me that they want a return to some of the things that were cut during the pandemic.

[18:35:06]

She said many of her colleagues have to work two jobs in order to keep up with the high cost of living in a place like San Francisco where she lives. And she says that she wants the hotels to pay them better wages, which they believe they can do because hotel tourism, travel, all of them have significantly bounced back since the pandemic.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The health is, of course, you know, it's gone down. Sleep two hours here, two hours there. You know, two hours when you get home, you know, and two hour before you start, you know, another job. You know, so my health kind of gone down. So you don't really have time to maintain, you know, your living standard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: So she works two different jobs at two different hotels in order to be able to afford her bills. She said that it's not just her. She told me that at least half of her colleagues at the hotels that she works at have a second job.

Now, we did get a response from one of the hotel chains. We heard back from Hyatt who told us that they were disappointed that the workers had decided to strike, but that they were looking forward to continuing to negotiate for contracts and recognize the contributions of Hyatt employees.

Now, in the meantime, Jessica, as I mentioned, it is Labor Day weekend. People are expected to travel a lot today and tomorrow, and going into next week. So these hotels, while they will remain open, are going to be impacted. Some of them will be operating with smaller staffs and having to cut back on some of their services -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Gloria Pazmino for us, thank you for that.

Still ahead, we're just days away from a crucial hearing in Washington, D.C. this week that could determine if former president Trump's election interference case will proceed in the months ahead.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:41:31]

DEAN: New tonight, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson signaling support for a Supreme Court code of ethics saying such requirements are, quote, "pretty standard" for the federal judiciary.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON, SUPREME COURT: So, you know, a binding code of ethics is pretty standard for judges and so I guess the question is, is the Supreme Court any different? And I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different than the other courts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now of course this comes as the Supreme Court is facing heavy scrutiny and near record low approval ratings. President Joe Biden calling for an enforceable code of conduct in late July.

Civil rights attorney Maya Wiley is joining us now. She is a former federal prosecutor, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She's also the author of the new book, "Remember, You are a Wiley."

Maya, great to have you here. Thanks so much for being with us. I just want to first start with Justice Jackson's comments today and get your reaction to those.

MAYA WILEY, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: I think Justice Jackson is speaking common sense and something that ordinary Americans, all of this country understand, which is why should there be any different standards and ethics, non-binding standards of that for the Supreme Court when it's the most powerful court in the country and decides what rights we have and what rights we don't.

So it's critically important that we have public faith in the court and it doesn't make any sense that other federal judges have binding ethics rules and the Supreme Court does not.

DEAN: Yes. And do you think that that would help with these low approval ratings with Americans' distrust that they now have in what the highest court in the land?

WILEY: Well, I think it's an important step and we at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights have been calling for ethics reform legislatively and insisting that it be binding. But look, I think we all know and understand that there are more things that need to be discussed about structural reform of the court.

This is a court that has been quite at least in terms of majority ideological and for many of us really just noting that it is ignoring its own precedent. That means all of its previous decisions that says, here's how we're going to decide our cases. And the reason that is so important why it's impacting the court's credibility is that precedent is the thing that keeps justices from partisanship.

In other words, for imposing their own ideology on us, and for ensuring that we, the people know that we have established rights and it can have some expectation that there's going to be consistency no matter what president is appointing justices and what Senate is confirming them. And I think there's more work to do, whether it's discussion of term limits, it's discussion of additional justices. All those are permissible steps under the Constitution.

And I think there's a clear appetite amongst many to have that discussion about what else can we do to protect our rights.

DEAN: And Justice Jackson also in that interview said she's, in her words, concerned about the court's decision to grant partial immunity to Donald Trump because it treats one person differently than others in the criminal justice system.

[18:45:03]

Do you agree with her assessment there?

WILEY: Oh, I certainly do. Just as an attorney, as someone who absolutely saw no reason for the Supreme Court even to take up the case to decide what was being put forth other than to clarify, no, we don't have a kind. That any sitting president that commits crimes, that has -- where there are credible allegations and whether they're not about constitutional duties should be subject to some scrutiny.

It is also one of the things that we have seen in the impeachment process. That the impeachment process is not enough when there's a critical evidence and even some bipartisanship. Remember, this is a prosecution that we're seeing of a former president for acts that this president took up when he was president, that had nothing to do with really the job that the president was supposed to do, but more about what that candidate wanted.

And it's incredibly important that we have guardrails so that we don't have a monarch or a dictator. And these are boundaries that are necessary. And I think most Americans know and understand that they don't think there should be a powerful few that has power over the many that is not subject to the laws of the land.

DEAN: And so on that note this week will be the first hearing in Trump's election subversion case since that Supreme Court ruling on immunity. And right now his attorneys and Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team are at odds over how this should proceed. What are you looking for in this hearing? What are you expecting to come from it?

WILEY: Well, it's going to be very interesting to see what Judge Chutkan is going to do. One of the things that Jack Smith said in the filing was, it's up to you. It's up to you what the timeline is. It's your discretion. One of the things obviously that the Trump attorneys want is to delay everything including any discussion about evidence and proceedings until after the election.

Now the election, as we know, is very close, and it would be difficult to do a whole lot before the election anyway. But I think what Jack Smith has called for, which is appropriate, is let us brief all the issues and decide them all. Let's not delay and drag all of the issues out about immunity and what's going to happen next. And I think what we know is that it's up to Judge Chutkan.

And I think what we also know is if Judge Chutkan decides something on the immunity question, I think we know and expect that Trump attorneys are going to continue to appeal because it's an excellent way, and they have the right to do it, let's be very clear, but it is an excellent way to continue the delays. It has worked for them so far. And I think the American public is just going to have to make its own decisions about what kind of President Donald Trump will make based on the record that we have before us.

DEAN: All right. Maya Wiley, thank you so much. It's great to have you on. We appreciate it.

WILEY: Thank you for having me.

DEAN: We're going to have more news when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:52:24]

DEAN: Hersh Goldberg-Polin was one of the six hostages who were killed in that tunnel in Gaza. His parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month, and this was their message to their son and the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL GOLDBERG-POPLIN, MOTHER OF HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN: Among the hostages are eight American citizens. One of those Americans is our only son. His name is Hersh. He's 23 years old, and like Vice President Kamala Harris, Hersh was born in Oakland, California.

Hersh is a happy go-lucky, laid back, good humored, respectful, and curious person. He is a civilian. He loves soccer, is wild about music and music festivals, and he has been obsessed with geography and travel since he was a little boy.

On October 7th, Hersh and his best friend, Aner, went to a music festival in the south of Israel. It was advertised as celebrating peace, love, and unity. They also went to celebrate Hersh's 23rd birthday. As rockets began to fall, Hersh, Aner and 27 other young festival-goers took refuge in a five-foot-by-eight-foot bomb shelter. Terrorists began to throw grenades into the shelter. Hersh's left forearm, his dominant arm, was blown off before he was loaded onto a pickup truck and stolen from his life and me, and Jon, into Gaza.

And that was 320 days ago. Since then we live on another planet. Anyone who is a parent or has had a parent can try to imagine the anguish and misery that Jon and I, and all the hostage families are enduring.

[18:55:03]

JON POLIN, HERSH GOLDBERG-POLIN'S FATHER: We're also profoundly thankful to you, the millions of people in the United States and all over the world, who had been sending love, support, and strength to the hostage families. You've kept us breathing in a world without air.

There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain there are no winners. We know the one thing that can most immediately released pressure and bring calm to the entire region. A deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza.

GOLDBERG-POLIN: Hersh, Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you. Stay strong, survive.

J. POLIN: Bring them home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And that was just on August 21st. Here we are on September 1st and Hersh's family has released this statement, saying, quote, "With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh. The family thanks you all for your love and support and asked for privacy at this time."

Much more on this when CNN returns.

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