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Harris Team Hopes Walz Will Pull Male Voters from Trump; Seismic Activity Detected After Ukrainian Drone Strike; Zelenskyy to Present Victory Plan to U.S. Leaders Next week; Demi Lovato On the Dark Side of Childhood Fame. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired September 19, 2024 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Disgraced movie executive Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty to one count of a criminal sex act in the first degree on Wednesday. This charge dates back to 2006. Weinstein's 23- year prison sentence for criminal sex acts was overturned in April. A retrial is set for November.
The U.S. Justice Department is suing two companies that owned the Dali container ship, which destroyed a bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, killing six people. In March, U.S. officials are seeking more than $100 million in damages. They claim there were years of serious safety violations by the companies.
Well, the U.S. presidential election is proving to be a tight race. The latest University poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris gaining ground on former President Donald Trump in three key battleground states. And the Harris team is trying to cut into a crucial source of Trump's support. And that's men.
Jeff Zeleny shows us how.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Cracks in the glass ceiling aren't enough. We need to make sure that that glass ceiling is shattered and Kamala Harris steps through it.
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tim Walz is hard at work on one of his most important assignments.
WALZ: If you thought Kamala Harris can take care of herself, our job is to do the blocking and tackling and cover her back.
ZELENY (voice-over): He and his running mate rarely discussed gender, yet to gender gap may help decide the election. Strong support from women has put Kamala Harris within reach of defeating Donald Trump.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When we fight, we win.
ZELENY: But with 48 days to go, her campaign is racing to win over another critical set of voters -- men. ANTHONY HERNANDEZ, UNDECIDED NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: It'll be phenomenal to have the first female president. And that's exciting.
Also, Donald Trump is strong president, you know? He gets things done.
ZELENY (voice-over): Anthony Hernandez, a 36-year-old North Carolina voter, is among those at the center of an intense tug of war. His ultimate decision holds clues for November.
ZELENY: So are you undecided?
HERNANDEZ: Definitely undecided, yeah. I didn't know Kamala was so well-spoken, you know. That was a change from Biden.
ZELENY (voice-over): The Trump campaign is working to widen its advantage with male voters overall, particularly young men, with the former president deploying old school muscle.
HULK HOGAN, FORMER WRESTLER: Let Trump-mania run wild, brother.
ZELENY (voice-over): As Democrats take a far different approach to chip away at Trump's edge, with Walz speaking directly to husbands and fathers.
WALZ: Do you want J.D. Vance deciding about your wife and daughter's health?
CROWD: No!
ZELENY: His frequent retort on abortion rights --
WALZ: Mind your own damn business.
ZELENY: -- struck a chord with Tobey Pierce, who saw Walz Tuesday night in Asheville.
TOBEY PIERCE, NORTH CAROLINA HARRIS VOTER: It's none of your damn business. It's my motto now. I think that's a wonderful way to talk about the whole abortion and reproductive rights.
ZELENY (voice-over): At a rain soaked rally, Alex Vigil and Kevin Miller said, they believe Trump exhaustion could help Democrats make inroads with men and women alike.
ALEX VIGIL, NORTH CAROLINA HARRIS VOTER: I'm seeing a lot less Trump flags in our parking lot. I'm seeing a lot more of my staff who used to be for Trump. A little more excited or a little pushing Trump away. KEVIN MILLER, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I'm hoping that its going to be a surprise will be a lot more men than we think.
ZELENY (voice-over): This t-shirt was a gift to Bruce Sargent from his daughter after Trump was first elected. He knows he's in the minority when it comes to how many men vote.
BRUCE SARGENT, NORTH CAROLINA HARRIS VOTER: We're going to rely on a lot of the women showing now. But men just need you to stand behind those women and come out with them.
ZELENY (voice-over): It's an open question just how many men will do that, even those here like Stanley Benedict, not fully enamored with Trump, plan to vote for him.
STANLEY BENEDICT, NORTH CAROLINA TRUMP VOTER: He's got a big ego, and sometimes it's a little too big, because he'll toot his horn a lot. But I support him because he proved himself.
ZELENY (voice-over): While the outcome of the Trump-Harris duel may turn on the gender gap, or the balance of who men and women support, in this election, gender itself is far less a part of the discussion.
WALZ: Kamala Harris isn't talking about the historic nature of this. She just puts her nose down and does the work.
ZELENY: There is no question that women are the lifeblood to the Harris campaign, and men are critical to Trump. But here in battleground North Carolina and in the other top battleground states across the country, men are emerging as one of the key demographics in the final stages of this race. Strategists believe there are simply more persuadable men out there to support either side.
They will be the targets in advertising and other campaign activities. Women could keep Harris in the hunt, but it could be men who could put her over the finish line.
Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Asheville, North Carolina.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: A Ukrainian drone strike in western Russia caused an explosion so large, it may have created a small earthquake. A security source says the drones destroyed a Russian ammunition depot about 250 miles west of Moscow on Wednesday. And seismologists in Norway later said they detected seismic activity, probably caused by that blast.
This before and after video shows the massive plumes of smoke following the attack. A Russian state news agency blamed the fires on fallen drone debris without mentioning what the target was.
[04:35:04]
Clare Sebastian has been monitoring this story. She joins us now. Is this seen as a big success for Ukraine?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think this is really a major success when you look at the sort of evolution of Ukraine's drone program, which has proved so influential over the course of this war.
We now have range. This was, you know, almost 500 kilometers from the border. We've seen them hit targets much further away. But range combined with precision, combined with clearly what was the, what was a very potent weapon for Ukraine. to be able to cause that level of destruction, that level of explosion at a military depot. Which when it was built in 2018, was touted as basically indestructible. Something that could have withstood a nuclear attack.
Clearly, either the ammunition and missiles were not being kept in the tightest of security, or it wasn't, as it seems, indestructible. So there's that. President Zelensky is praising the inspiring precision of this.
Clearly, look, this is a tactical thing for Ukraine. They have got to try to destroy these missiles before they reach their targets in Ukraine. That we're now going into the third winter of the war.
The U.N. just put out a report that said that Russia has destroyed half of the generating capacity that Ukraine would need. Electricity generating capacity that Ukraine would need going into the winter. So there's that.
But I think, look, there's also clearly some messaging here in this strategy of hitting these very high profile targets in Russia, which is to say to the West, look, we can do this as Zelenskyy continues his campaign for permission to use these Western provided long-range missiles on Russian soil. There's no decision on that yet, but he is set to travel to the U.S. next week for the U.N. General Assembly.
FOSTER: What's he using at the moment then?
SEBASTIAN: So these are drones, as far as we understand it. This is what a source with the Ukrainian Security Service has said. And Ukraine is building a lot of its own drones. It has been building them with greater sort of range. We've seen them hit targets, you know, 1,200, 1,300 kilometers from the border. So more than twice this distance. But also increasing their power as well.
So this is something that they've been able to manufacture themselves, which, of course, gets around the issue of NATO provided weapons hitting Russian soil. But if you have a missile like the Storm Shadow or like the ATACMS, the payload is much greater. So they could, albeit within a smaller range, inflict much greater damage.
FOSTER: OK, Clare, thank you so much.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, back to Royal Duty. She hosted an early years meeting at Windsor Castle on Tuesday. The meeting was noted in the court circular, but no other details were released. And we didn't get a press release either. So it's a slow return to work.
It was her first engagement since announcing last week that her chemotherapy treatment was complete. In a video message, she talked about looking forward to returning to public life when she can. She's expected to resume a light schedule of public engagements for the rest of the year.
With the cross-border attacks ramping up between Russia and Ukraine, I'm joined by the Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal to analyze the latest developments in that war.
[04:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet with the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington next week, according to multiple sources. Donald Trump says he'll probably meet with him as well. The Ukrainian leader will be in the U.S. to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York. He wants to present what he calls his victory plan to both Harris and Trump, as well as President Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Maybe we can say that our victory plan has been fully prepared. All the points, all the key accents, the necessary annexes with details to the plan have been identified. Everything has been worked out.
The most important thing now is determination to implement it. There is no and cannot be any alternative to peace, any freezing of the war, or any other manipulations that will simply move the Russian aggression to another stage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: For more, I'm joined by Yaroslav Trofimov. He's the Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. He is also the author of a new book, No Country for Love, which depicts life in Ukraine under Soviet rule.
Trofimov won the National Press Club Award for political analysis of the year. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2023. So appreciate having you here.
YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Glad to be on, sir.
FOSTER: Interesting listening to this idea for the victory plan. No suggestion from Kamala Harris that she's going to allow these long- range missiles to be used. Probably the more interesting conversation is the one with Trump, isn't it?
TROFIMOV: Well, I think both of them. I mean, what Zelenskyy is trying to achieve is to take the war to Russia. I think there's an understanding in Ukraine that if the war is just in Donbas, if it's just, you know, war village after village, this relentless, grinding, almost World War I-style combat, Ukraine is going to lose over time because Russia is just bigger. It has more men, more equipment to throw at it.
And Russia itself on the home front has not been suffering. And so Ukraine has already expanded its campaign inside Russia. We have seen almost everyday attacks by Ukrainian drones on Russian airfields, military airfields, and Russian ammunition facilities and Russian fuel reserves, which are really taking a toll on the Russian war effort already.
But that's mostly using drones, which while effective, are slow. So for example, when Ukraine attacks a Russian military airfield, the Russian planes have the time to take off.
And so Zelenskyy has been asking and will be asking Washington for more and more permission to use this long range missiles that will be much more effective.
FOSTER: And in those meetings, the two presidential candidates are going to need to consider, you know, their presidency. And this growing alliance, if I can call it that, between Russia and Iran and even China, because that's really what we're up against here, isn't it? The West versus that.
And through that, you see the connection between Ukraine and the Middle East.
TROFIMOV: You see very much. Well, first of all, you now have a real military alliance of Russia with Iran and North Korea. You know, while Ukraine is not allowed to use American missiles, British missiles for that matter, to strike Russia, and Russia is using North Korean and Iranian ballistic missiles in the future, but North Korean already, and Iranian drones to strike Ukraine.
And I think what President Putin of Russia has said, he sort of, the warnings he has made is that if Ukraine is allowed to use American missiles to strike deep inside Russia, it will be so-called horizontal escalation, which means that he will try to use this network of Russian alliances to strike U.S. interests in other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, for example, by, you know, he didn't say so specifically, but for example, by enabling the Houthis in Yemen, who are backed by Iran, to maybe attack U.S. naval assets in the region.
FOSTER: I mean, people are quite openly talking about, you know, a new Middle Eastern war, even talking about a third world war. I mean, as someone who's an expert in this area, how worried should people be about that?
TROFIMOV: Well, you know, Putin has been using nuclear blackmail since day one of the war. On the very first morning of the invasion, he warned the West that if you dare to interfere with my so-called special military operation, you will see the consequences, the likes of which you have never seen. That was a bluff.
[04:45:00]
And what Ukraine has exposed over the years is that the Russian red lines are not where they seem to be. You know, right now there are, for nearly seven weeks, Ukrainian troops occupying a significant chunk of Russia in the Kursk region. And still, you know, the red lines have not been crossed.
But what we will see, and we're already seeing, is that this axis of rogue regimes, Iran, Russia, North Korea, buried and aided by China, are increasingly working together to undermine U.S. and interest of Western democracies around the world.
FOSTER: Your book very much focuses on the 1930s and 1940s in Ukraine under Soviet repression. And you're reminding people, really, aren't you, why there's such a drive within Ukraine to win this war?
TROFIMOV: Well, absolutely, absolutely. So the novel is based on my own family histories, you know, what I heard from my grandmother and other members of my family. But these are the histories of most families in Ukraine.
Because Ukraine in the 30s and the 40s and the 50s was probably the deadliest place on Earth, between the artificial famine organized by Stalin that killed millions, the Holocaust, World War II, the post-war insurgency. You know, survival was very difficult and required making a lot of compromises. And I think this novel examines this price of survival, whether it's worth it and what do you have to do to survive this big grinder of history.
And Ukrainians today who are fighting in the front lines realize that no matter how hard it is, no matter how bloody the war is, the alternative is much worse because the Russians want to take Ukraine back to its dark past.
FOSTER: What do you think people in Russia would want to happen if they can't attack further into Ukraine? Because it's pretty clear that they can't win the war without doing that. But you could also sympathize with people in America who might be thinking we don't want to be dragged into this.
TROFIMOV: Well, obviously the U.S. does not want to be dragged into the war in Ukraine. And until now, the only people dying in Ukraine are Ukrainians and Russian soldiers. Russia's goals in the war have not changed.
I think Putin still hopes that an independent Ukraine could be eliminated from the map of the planet and a proxy regime or either an outright annexation could happen. And you know, that can only happen if Western help for Ukraine dries up. That hasn't happened so far. And that's why the outcome of the election in the U.S. is so important for Ukraine's security.
FOSTER: OK. Thank you so much for joining us. Yaroslav Trofimov, thank you so much for your look back on that and showing us your book.
TROFIMOV: Thank you.
FOSTER: We'll be right back.
[04:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Singer Demi Lovato fought a very public battle with addiction and mental health issues, which she blames on the unbalanced upbringing as a child star. She spoke with CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister about her new documentary and the changes that she wants to see in Hollywood.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Pop star Demi Lovato facing the music --
DEMI LOVATO, SINGER, ACTOR: There was a sense of walking on eggshells.
I'm genuinely so sorry.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): From her past, sitting down with former co- stars and fellow former child stars in her new Hulu documentary.
LOVATO: I take full responsibility for all of my actions. I come to terms with a lot of that in this film.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Lovato sat down with CNN for a revealing interview on her film Child Star, which marks her directorial debut.
LOVATO: I immediately went right to drugs and alcohol.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): Not only does Lovato get major stars like Christina Ricci, Kenan Thompson, and Drew Barrymore to open up, she exposes the roots of her own well-documented struggles with substance abuse.
After landing a role on Barney and Friends, Lovato returned to Texas to pursue music and was eventually bullied in school.
LOVATO: I think the jealousy started to run rampant. One day there was a letter that got passed around and in the letter it had said for me to take my life. I really didn't know how I was going to bounce back.
I thought to myself, I want to be so famous that they can't escape me. I want them to regret making this decision to bully me.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): She did break out on Disney Channel projects like Sunny with a Chance, and Camp Rock, but Lovato says she carried the baggage of her inner pain.
LOVATO: I was in such a dark place. I had trauma from being bullied. I was undiagnosed bipolar. There was some substance abuse issues going on and I had an eating disorder. I would have fans chasing my tour bus but I would sit in the back and just be crying and couldn't figure out why.
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): None of it stopped Lovato from pursuing her dreams and becoming a mega star.
LOVATO: What's wrong with being confident?
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): But her struggles peaked in 2018 --
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, OUTFRONT: Breaking news, singer Demi Lovato rushed to the hospital --
WAGMEISTER (voice-over): -- when she was hospitalized for a drug overdose, which she later revealed in a 2021 documentary nearly killed her.
LOVATO: My doctors said that I had five to 10 more minutes. WAGMEISTER: Looking back at your start so young, what have you
discovered now and how it impacted your troubles in your adult life?
LOVATO: Fame for a child creates instability. And when you pair that with instability that was already there, it's kind of like a recipe for disaster.
LOVATO (voice-over): I wouldn't end up where I am had I not made all the choices leading up to this point.
WAGMEISTER: In Child Star, Lovato chronicles her own perseverance, along with that of her peers. But she hopes the film's impact goes further, helping new stars emerging in today's evolving media landscape.
LOVATO: It's kind of the wild, wild west in the digital age.
[04:55:00]
What I hope is that this documentary raises the awareness for legislation so that minors are protected and compensated like they are in the film and television industry.
WAGMEISTER: As you look back on your childhood, teenage years, up to what brought you to here now, how proud are you of yourself?
LOVATO: I'm very proud of myself. I try to live by the philosophy of not having regrets. When I look back at how resilient I've been over some of the darkest moments of my life, I am very, very proud of myself that I've dug myself out of the rubble and living the life that I am today.
WAGMEISTER: Sitting down with Demi, she is at her happiest and healthiest ever. She is engaged in getting married, and she told me all about planning her wedding, but she really hopes to move this conversation forward. As you heard there, she said that she hopes that legislation does pass to help child stars in today's landscape, which is a totally different ballgame than when she came up in Hollywood.
Today, kids on TikTok and social media who are going viral don't have those regulations to protect them, and Demi told me that she hopes one day to be on Capitol Hill fighting for those kids so they are more safe and have protections like she did when she started out in the industry. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Well, thank you for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. CNN "THIS MORNING" with Kasie is up next after a short break.
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