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Congress Honors Troops Killed in Afghanistan; Planes Collide While Taxiing in Atlanta; Harris and Trump Set to Debate. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 10, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:34:27]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: In just hours from now, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will meet for the very first time and face off in an attempt to convince the nation that they are the right leader for this moment.

Let's bring in CNN political analyst Jackie Kucinich and CNN senior political commentator David Urban. He's also a Trump campaign adviser.

Jackie, let me talk to you about these polls showing this race. I mean, just it's neck-and-neck right now. And one of the things that you see in the polling is that voters still want to know more about Kamala Harris. There's been a lot of conversation about, oh, it's so nice how this is like a prime minister's race and everything's been compressed in this tight timeline.

[11:35:06]

But people need to know more about Kamala Harris. And so she's got a job to do tonight.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely.

And she's going to have to really help define herself. The Trump campaign is obviously trying to define her one way. She had a little bit of that at the convention, a lot of that at the convention.

But if your normal voter who doesn't tune into those sort of political events tunes into the debates, they really want to know what she stands for, perhaps if they have heard that she had taken other positions before in 2019, why she's in a different place now, and perhaps maybe why she might be breaking with the Biden administration if she ends up doing that.

So there are a lot of questions that I think your average voter has about Vice President Harris that could be answered tonight.

ACOSTA: Yes, David, have you had a chance to talk at all with the former president about the debate tonight? Any advice that you're offering at this point? Should he step on that muted mic?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, listen, I think President Trump is prepared and will do quite well.

Jackie points out a few things. Listen, it's exactly correct. I think after this race is over and Donald Trump wins on November 6, a little projection here, I think the Harris campaign will go back and lament the fact that they weren't out doing more interviews, that the current vice president wasn't out talking to people like Jackie and Jim yourself and others and informing everybody what she stands for.

Because, otherwise, we're left to divine what she stands for from pieces like our own Andrew Kaczynski KFILE interview with Erin Burnett the other night where he goes through her ACLU report. There are all these other positions from 2019. We're left to divine what she stands for, rather than hear what she stands for.

And I think her being a holed up for all these days has not done her campaign any good whatsoever. So people don't know who she is. They're left to go back and listen to what she said in her past campaigns.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: But she didn't beam down from another planet.

KUCINICH: Right.

ACOSTA: I mean, she has been the vice president for four years.

URBAN: Yes, but...

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, well, let's also -- let's play a clip from the 2019 debate that Harris had and here's an exchange with Tulsi Gabbard of all people. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FMR. REP. TULSI GABBARD (HI): She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. She blocked evidence. She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people, which became a national model for the work that needs to be done. And I am proud of that work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Jackie, I mean, for all the attacks that Kamala Harris as this huge progressive at everything, and she does have a very progressive track record, no question about it, it is interesting to look back at that campaign, 2019, heading into 2020 campaign, where she was hit for not being progressive enough.

KUCINICH: What a difference a cycle makes, right?

ACOSTA: Yes. It does, yes.

KUCINICH: And we should say she's not out here -- she's not going to be on the stage by herself tonight. She's going to be contrasted with the former president, who -- I mean, David does a very good job contrasting her record with the former president's.

However, the president himself has not, has not been able to stick to the issues, has not been able to stick to going after her record. And I think you hear a lot of Republicans say that they wish he would, because perhaps that might have a more coherent message.

We will see if he's able to do that tonight. I think that's going to be a very big test.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, David, I mean, one of the things that you have to wonder is, I have to assume, and maybe I'm assuming incorrectly here, that the vice president is going to challenge the former president to say whether or not he accepts the results of the last election.

And just over the weekend, he's putting out a TRUTH Social post threatening to go after election officials, threatening to go after Democratic donors, of all people, just about everybody under the sun. What happens if she calls him out on that?

URBAN: I mean, I think he will answer it. I think he just answered it this past week and said, I do believe that he acknowledged that he lost this past week. And I'm not quite sure she's going to get to ask the questions. If she does get to ask the questions, I think the ABC moderators will have lost control of the debate.

So I hope that's not the case. I hope the moderators get to do like Jake and Dana did when we had our debate and were asked questions and were largely invisible and they weren't the story. I think Jake -- Jim, if they lose control, if David Muir and the network loses control of the debate like that, it'll be a loss for all Americans.

ACOSTA: And, Jackie, I did want to ask you. I mean, each candidate will say the other is more of the same. Harris is coming off as being the vice president, obviously.

How -- isn't that a challenge to paint herself as the change agent here for voters?

KUCINICH: She has a really interesting needle that she's going to have to thread here by separating herself from the Biden administration in certain ways.

She might want to adopt some of the progress that they made on certain -- in certain areas, but also show that Biden -- and not criticize them. So it's going to be -- to see how she does that in a way when she is facing attacks from the other side and the moderator questions, because they do get a chance to respond if someone says something about them, both candidates.

[11:40:10]

ACOSTA: Yes. So it could come up unprompted?

KUCINICH: It could come up unprompted, because they're not -- I don't think they're allowed to ask each other questions, but if someone says something about the other, they are allowed rebuttal, if I'm remembering the rules correctly.

ACOSTA: Yes. Well, we will get it all straightened out before we go into tonight.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: Yes. All right. Well, Jake -- Jackie and David, thanks a lot. We will be watching tonight. I really appreciate it.

URBAN: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: And I didn't do this to Jackie and David, but I'm going to bring this up.

It's the latest catnip for conspiracy theorists. Several prominent Republicans are sharing -- have you seen this, are now sharing an A.I.-generated image that's being used to promote a false narrative that migrants from Haiti are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

This is the image in question, one of them. You can find it on the official X account for the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. Apparently, they don't have anything better to do but put this kind of stuff up.

It reads -- quote -- "Protect our ducks and kittens in Ohio." You might be asking why is the former president in floodwaters with these animals, but, more importantly, why is this even a thing? Especially since a spokesperson for the city of Springfield tell CNN there have been no credible, key word, credible reports or specific claims of animals being abused or harmed by immigrants.

Turns out this baseless accusation belongs in the litter box.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:45:52]

ACOSTA: All right, we're following some breaking news out of Atlanta right now, where two planes have hit one another at the world's busiest airport.

You can look at this video right now from the tarmac, and you can see -- that's right. You see the tail of the plane right there. Apparently, it has been damaged, that Delta plane.

And CNN's Pete Muntean joins me now.

Pete, I mean, this is pretty alarming stuff and could have been a pretty serious catastrophe.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The good news is, this happened while this -- these two planes were taxing for takeoff, apparently.

ACOSTA: Yes.

MUNTEAN: So the energy, the speed, in which they were traveling relatively low. You usually try not to tax much faster than you're running. Sometimes you do a little bit faster in an airliner, but you can see the really dramatic image there of this Delta Air Lines regional flight operated by Endeavor Airlines sitting there on the taxiway there as flights are departing to the east at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, of course, flanked by emergency vehicles there, the crash fire rescues crews on the scene there.

According to Delta spokesperson Anthony black, we just spoke on the phone, a Delta flight that was taxing out for takeoff as well, an Airbus A350 bound for Tokyo, its wingtip clipped the tail of that other flight and apparently knocked the tail, the vertical tail, off of the rest of the airplane.

The good news here...

ACOSTA: Must have really banged into it, yes, yes.

MUNTEAN: Yes. Yes, hit it with a bit of force.

ACOSTA: Yes.

MUNTEAN: The good news is that nobody was hurt. And the people who were on the plane that is missing its tail were bused back to the terminal.

Still really unclear exactly how this transpired. This is just sort of emblematic of the things that are happening in the U.S. airspace system right now. It is a crowded system right now. You can see all of the airplanes there. There's such a fever for people to travel right now, and the airlines and the aviation system are really bursting at the seams.

The good news is, this did not take place on a runway. That is the problem that we have seen over and over again in 2023, continued to be a problem in 2024. Those are called runway incursions. This so happens to be more of an equivalent of a fender-bender.

But when these are really extreme then the FAA really looks into this. Of course, the FAA will look into this incident to try and figure out exactly what went wrong here. Sometimes, it's just really close quarters and the design of an airport can really be the causal situation here.

ACOSTA: Yes.

MUNTEAN: Sometimes, things are just simply too close and that pilot may have had their tail hanging out a little bit into the other taxiway. These commercial airliners are really difficult to navigate on the ground.

And you sit so high above the ground in the cockpit of a commercial airliner. And the wing is so far behind you, so sometimes it's hard to have a great envisioning of where the rest of the airplane is in space.

(CROSSTALK)

ACOSTA: But if you're a passenger, a member of the flight crew, when this sort of thing happens, that must have been a hell of a bump and very unsettling.

MUNTEAN: Oh, yes, no doubt. And, of course, there will want to be some answers here. We will see, of course, if the National Transportation Safety Board, which has been so on the aviation system to make sure it cleans up its act, will investigate this.

It usually does when there is really significant damage to this plane. And it's possible that this airplane can actually be totaled as well. So they will want to know really sort of how this took place. And, of course, the FAA will be investigating here too, a lot of questions that have yet to be answered.

And, right now, one of the main runways there in Atlanta, runway 8- right, is still closed and a lot of taxiways closed as well. It doesn't really seem to be impacting flights in a big way, although we will see as the day goes on.

ACOSTA: All right, Pete Muntean, and important to note nobody injured in this, so that's very good news.

MUNTEAN: Nobody injured, nobody hurt. That's the big headline.

ACOSTA: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you very much.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:54:13]

ACOSTA: Moments ago, up on Capitol Hill, congressional leaders holding a ceremony honoring the 13 service members killed in Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal in 2021.

Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: David Espinoza. Nicole Gee.

[11:55:06]

Taylor Hoover. Ryan C. Knauss. Hunter Lopez. Rylee McCollum. Dylan Merola. Kareem Nikoui. Johanny Pichardo. Humberto Sanchez. Jared Schmitz. Maxton Soviak. Daegan W. Page.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And I want to bring in CNN military analyst Lieutenant general Mark Hertling.

General Hertling, thank you so much for being with us.

Obviously, we all want to honor what these families have gone through, what these service members have sacrificed. Your thoughts?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: You know, Jim, I was thinking as I was watching the parents and the loved ones come up, I had a total of 253 men and women make the ultimate sacrifice in combat that were under my command.

I have written letters to their parents and loved ones, sometimes received letters back, and even on several occasions met a few of those parents and loved ones.

And they demand our respect. There were over 2,400 service members killed in Afghanistan and another 5,000 killed in Iraq as part of the global war on terrorists. I don't believe any of their loved ones have received the Congressional Gold Medal, but perhaps this ceremony is to further commemorate those service members who gave their all as the final casualties in America's longest war.

It's good that we honor the sacrifices, and, in doing so, should make every effort not to politicize these sacrifices. This is an important ceremony to honor the parents.