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Scandal for Trump-Backed Candidate Mark Robinson in Swing State North Carolina; Harris Teams Up with Oprah for Rally; Trump: Jews Would Bear Some Blame if He Loses in November; Fighting Ramps Up Between Israel and Hezbollah. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 20, 2024 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican running for governor here in North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of it would be inexcusable and disgusting language that should be condemned in the strongest terms.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kamala Harris!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kamala Harris' historic candidacy has ignited a surge of activism among Black women.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we've seen in the last two days is a death toll among Hezbollah members, the likes of which have not been seen in a 48-hour period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from around the world. I'm Max Foster. It is Friday, September the 20th, 9 a.m. here in London, and it's 4 a.m. in North Carolina, where Republican candidate Mark Robinson is refusing to drop out of the race for governor of North Carolina.

This comes after a CNN K-file investigation revealed that Robinson's history, or Robinson's history of disturbing, lewd comments on a message board for a porn website. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has praised Robinson on the campaign trail, but so far he's been silent on whether his ally should quit the race.

Democratic presidential rival Kamala Harris has put the swing state back in play for Democrats, and CNN's revelations of the disturbing comments could potentially impact Trump, who sits at the top of the Republican ticket.

Robinson is currently North Carolina's lieutenant governor, and he denies making the comments. Here's what he told CNN's Andrew Kaczynski.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK ROBINSON, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR: There's been over $1 million spent on me through AI by a billionaire son who's bound and determined to destroy me. The things that people can do with the Internet now is incredible. But what I can tell you is this, again, these are not my words. This is simply tabloid trash.

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR K-FILE: You mentioned AI. Are you saying that somebody was somehow manufacturing biographical details to exactly match you using your username?

ROBINSON: Look, I have no idea how this was done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: We'll get more now from the investigation from CNN's Dianne Gallagher.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Mark Robinson, the controversial and socially conservative Republican running for governor here in North Carolina, made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website between 2008 and 2012 on a message board in which he referred to himself as a Black Nazi, expressed support for reinstating slavery, as well as other lewd and degrading comments about women, according to a CNN K-file investigation.

Now, despite a recent history of very anti-transgender comments, Robinson said on the website, which was called Nude Africa and included a message board, that he enjoyed watching transgender pornography. He also referred to himself as a perv.

Now, Robinson denies making these comments, and they do predate his entry into politics, where he is currently serving as the lieutenant governor of the state. They were made under a username that CNN was able to identify as Robinson by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address as well. Many of those comments were, again, gratuitous and sexual, lewd nature. They were made on that website.

CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson's comments, given the nature of them.

Now, Robinson did tell CNN on Thursday that, quote: This is not us, these are not our words, and this is not anything that is characteristic of me. I'm not going to get into the minutiae of how somebody manufactured this. These salacious tabloid lies.

He also put out a video statement getting ahead of the CNN story before it was published, comparing himself to Clarence Thomas, calling himself a victim of a high-tech lynching.

[04:05:00] Now, Robinson's opponent in the gubernatorial campaign, the current attorney general here, Democrat Josh Stein, his campaign released a statement saying, quote: North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be governor. Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone.

Now, Robinson has been endorsed by just about every Republican in the state of North Carolina, as well as former President Donald Trump, who at one point called him Martin Luther King on steroids and better than Martin Luther King. The Trump campaign has said that it is focused on winning North Carolina and the presidential race.

The fallout with Republicans here in the Tar Heel state does continue, as many Democrats try and link their opponents today to Mark Robinson and those comments that he made.

Dianne Gallagher, CNN, back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Reactions to the disturbing revelations are still pouring in. One Republican member of Congress says Robinson's -- well, Robinson needs to drop out today, but the North Carolina Republican Party is defending Robinson.

And others say the allegations are very concerning, but they stop short of calling him to step aside. One Republican strategist explains what the issue is for her party.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's all of it. It's every part of it. All of it would be inexcusable and disgusting language that should be condemned in the strongest terms. And Republicans shouldn't campaign or support a candidate like that. And that's the issue here. It's all of it.

It's not one piece that makes one part of it worse than the other. It's the fact that there is a litany, a possible litany of all of these messages of really dark, disgusting comments that can't be said on air. If that's true, this is a problem.

And we need to make sure on both sides of the party that we are putting up better quality candidates in the long run, because we always talk about the moral clarity and the moral -- the morality of the Republican Party. If this is true, this is one of those instances where we would have come up so unbelievably short.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Some Democrats say this is, quote, just the latest proof that Mark Robinson is unhinged, dangerous and completely unfit to be governor. And the Harris campaign has been sharing video and photos of Trump and Robinson together. CNN's Harry Enten described the importance of North Carolina to the electoral map to our Erin Burnett. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: He believes in a three state strategy. He believes that if he can carry Georgia and he can carry North Carolina and he can carry Pennsylvania, then all of a sudden he gets to exactly 270 electoral votes. But if he loses just one of these states, let's say he loses in the state of Pennsylvania.

All of a sudden, Kamala Harris can get to 270 electoral votes this way. Or if we take away these states and in fact, we then say, OK, let's give -- we're going to put that there. But we give North Carolina and Georgia and then we go, OK, we're going to give Arizona and then we give Nevada. That's another way she can get to 200.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, OUTFRONT: So she's got a lot of paths. It seems more right now than he does. All right.

So in light of this news, when you're watching politics, what are people Googling? What are they looking at? What are you seeing tonight?

ENTEN: Yes, take a look here. Google searches for Mark Robinson compared to yesterday. My goodness gracious. Up forty nine hundred percent nationally. And in the great state of North Carolina, up nineteen hundred percent. It seems to me that our dear friend Andy Kaczynski's reporting has had a lot of impact.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, Kamala Harris brought out the star power to her campaign trail in Michigan. Talk show legend Oprah Winfrey hosted the Unite for America virtual rally on Thursday. The U.S. vice president in the battleground state, Winfrey said it felt as if a veil had dropped after President Joe Biden suspended his presidential bid.

She then told Harris that she appeared to have stepped into her power -- or she told Oprah while she stepped into her power as Democratic nominee.

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OPRAH WINFREY, TALK SHOW LEGEND: Literally looking at you at a speech like the week before, which was a great speech. Very nice. And then the next week I saw you walking in the thing. I said, what happened to you?

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You know, we each have those moments in our lives where it's time to step up.

WINFREY: Time to step up.

HARRIS: Time to step up.

The idea that some would suggest and that my opponent suggests, which is that the measure of the strength of a leader based on who you beat down.

Come on. The real measure of the strength of a leader is on who you lift up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, earlier, Harris discussed abortion bans when she spoke to the family of a Georgia woman whose death was linked to the state's restrictive abortion law. She's set to travel to Georgia in the coming hours where she'll address reproductive rights. Gun ownership was another topic discussed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARRIS: I'm a gun owner, Tim.

WINFREY: I did not know that.

HARRIS: If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot.

WINFREY: Yes, yes. I hear that. I hear that.

HARRIS: Probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:10:04]

FOSTER: Meanwhile, Donald Trump made some alarming remarks about Jewish voters in the U.S. on Thursday. CNN's Alayna Treene has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Addressing Jewish supporters at a pair of events in Washington, D.C., Thursday evening, the former president suggested that Jewish Democrats would be partially to blame if he were to lose the election in November. He also repeated a frequent line that Jewish Democrats -- or Jewish Americans, I should say, that vote democratically should have their heads examined. Take a listen to what he said.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm not going to call this as a prediction. But in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I'm at 40 percent. I'm at four -- think of it. That means 60 percent of voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat.

TREENE: Now, to be clear, Donald Trump has repeatedly used this anti- Semitic trope to argue that Jewish Americans who did not vote for him or who plan to not vote for him and instead vote for the Democrats are not sufficiently Jewish, while also simultaneously arguing that he is the most pro-Israel president in U.S. modern history.

Now, Donald Trump also claimed on Thursday that Israel would cease to exist if Kamala Harris were to win in November and not him. Again, this is something we have heard from Donald Trump.

He also continued to argue that he would end the war between Israel and Hamas without offering any specifics.

But look, the goal of the pair of events on Thursday evening was for Donald Trump and his campaign to really try and court Jewish Americans who are feeling disaffected by the way that the Biden administration and Kamala Harris as vice president are handling the war in the Middle East. That was the goal of this tonight.

And it also comes on the heels of Donald Trump having had a tiff with Miriam Adelson, a major mega donor over the summer, where one of his top aides had sent a series of angry texts to her. Since then, they have repaired their relationship. You saw Miriam Adelson introduced Donald Trump at both events.

But this is a very important moment for Donald Trump and a key voting bloc that he is really trying to shore up support with, which is 47 days left until Election Day.

Alayna Treene, CNN, Washington D.C.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, Trump is now making significant legal arguments in the election interference case for the first time since the Supreme Court's immunity decision. Trump's legal team asked a judge for access to information on the special counsel's views on presidential immunity. They also requested a large amount of information from federal agencies outside the Justice Department.

Trump's lawyers believe that the Supreme Court's decision to grant him limited presidential immunity means that special counsel Jack Smith should turn over classified documents. Trump's defense says they're prepared to argue that all of his conduct is immune from prosecution.

The U.S. State Department is slamming Iran for allegedly trying to interfere in the upcoming presidential election. Federal law enforcement officials announced this week that Iranian hackers stole information from the Trump campaign and tried to send it to people affiliated with Joe Biden's campaign over the summer.

Here's what the State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW MILLER, U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: Absolutely troubling. Iran should not interfere in our elections. No country should interfere in our elections. And what we will do, continue to expose those countries that attempt to interfere in our elections and we'll hold them accountable for those actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: But he added that it's nothing new, saying they've been raising concerns for a while about how Iranian cyber actors are trying to meddle in elections around the world.

Well, still ahead, fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East as Israel and Hezbollah ramp up their fighting, the latest from the region next.

Plus, the daily fighting has forced thousands on both sides of the border to flee their homes, turning cities into ghost towns. Residents desperate to return home share their stories with CNN.

And we're learning more about the Titan submersible disaster. Remarkable new images show the wreckage of the submersible on the seafloor. A little later in the show, the new details from this week's hearing.

Stay with us.

[04:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Israel and Hezbollah are ramping up their fighting in the wake of the twin device attacks in Lebanon earlier this week. Israel's military carried out dozens of strikes in the past 24 hours, hitting what it says were about 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers and other sites in southern Lebanon. Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched at least 17 attacks on Israeli military sites. Israeli authorities say at least eight people were hospitalized.

Hezbollah's leader is vowing to retaliate for the attacks when thousands of pages and walkie-talkies exploded across the country. The blast killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASSAN NASRALLAH, HEZBOLLAH LEADER (through translator): The reckoning will come. It's nature, scope, when and where that's something we will definitely keep to ourselves within the tightest circle, even within ourselves because we are in the most precise, sensitive and deeply significant part of the battle.

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FOSTER: I'd like to see this. Paul Hancocks following developments from Abu Dhabi. So we're waiting for a reaction from Hezbollah. But in the meantime, we're seeing Israel ramp up its side of the attacks.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max, we certainly saw overnight that they were among the heaviest strikes on both sides that we've seen since this renewal of hostilities after October the 7th. We saw significant strikes. Israel saying that they had more than 100 strikes against what they called Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure, rocket launchers in particular.

[04:20:02]

In fact, Lebanese state media, NNA, actually said between 9 and 10 p.m. there were at least 52 strikes just in one hour period. So that gives you an idea of just how intense we are seeing the back and forth between Hezbollah and Israel at this point.

Now, the military has said that this is a new era in this conflict. We've heard that from the defense minister himself, saying that as time goes by, Hezbollah will pay an increasing price.

Now, what we heard from Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief, was an acknowledgment that they have been hit hard by what happened this week with those pagers and then the walkie-talkies exploding, thousands being injured and also deaths among them.

He criticized Israel, as you might imagine, saying that there were civilians among those casualties, also medical personnel with pagers. But he said there is no doubt we have suffered a major blow, that the attacks on the group were unprecedented, saying unprecedented during this conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. So really acknowledging just how significant they were.

But he was at pains to point out that the infrastructure of Hezbollah has not been impacted, saying it is still robust. Of course, there are many questions about how Hezbollah would be able to retaliate at this point, given the fact thousands of fighters potentially are injured and that the communication system has been compromised.

Of course, there are also questions about what else may the Israeli military and the intelligence agency have infiltrated within the Hezbollah group itself.

So there was an element of Nasrallah trying to ease concerns within not just Hezbollah sympathizers, but also Lebanon as a whole, that the infrastructure of this group is still robust -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Paula Hancocks, thank you.

Thousands of civilians in both Israel and Lebanon have had to flee their homes due to the cross-border attacks. In a daily occurrence now, really, since October, CNN's Nic Robertson went to one Israeli border town, but the few remaining residents are desperate for a return to normalcy.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR (voice-over): A ghost town close to the Lebanese border, Kiryat Shmona, a shadow of its former self, most of its 25,000 residents evacuated last October. Silence and weeds where once there were people.

ROBERTSON: Almost all of the stores here are shut and frozen in time now for close to a year and it feels as full-on as some of the few people who stay behind sound.

NISAN ZEEVI, JVP IMPACT DIRECTOR INVESTMENT: So now everything is empty after --

ROBERTSON: Empty offices. ZEEVI: -- empty offices, empty labs. Before October 7th, we had here in the Upper Galilee 72 start-ups.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): From fungal plastics to fake eggs, Zeevi sourced hundreds of millions of investment dollars for Israel's up- and-coming high-tech hub in the north.

ZEEVI: It's a very sad feeling because in each one of these offices there were people, entrepreneurs from all over Israel that came here to build the next big thing in agri-tech, in food tech, in climate tech.

ZEEVI: Welcome to my humble house, humble place.

ROBERTSON: So on this side, a beautiful view of Mount Hermon and on this side, Hezbollah.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): When we last met Zeevi nine months ago, he was hopeful his evacuated family and his old life would be back soon. Fast forward to now. It's a distant memory.

ZEEVI: We thought that we're living the dream. Building start-ups, not in Tel Aviv, and living in a small shoebox, but living here at the Galilee.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): A new reality is setting in getting his family back the dream and the startups.

ZEEVI: It is going to be a challenge, challenging time. I think we went back like 30 years.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): So too David Azuli, mayor of nearby front line town, Metula, much more optimistic when we met him in January. Now ground down by Hezbollah's incessant attacks and the government's failure to stop them.

DAVID AZULI, MAYOR OF METULA (through translator): Things got a lot worse. Almost half the houses in Metula are damaged. The government has forgotten about us. The prime minister only cares about his own political survival.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Not helping the mood Hezbollah's attacks have been spiking lately and despite the minister of defense promise to get families home by the beginning of September, the IDF's response falling short of everyone's expectations here.

[04:25:02]

ROBERTSON: Was it burning when you arrived?

RON MOISESKO, ARMY RESERVIST: Yes, it was always burning, the trees. There's a school over there, right over there, that's got some rockets as well.

ROBERTSON: The school was hit as well.

MOISESKO: Yes, the school was hit as well.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Even soldiers like Moisesko, who is from Kiryat Shmona, there is frustration.

MOISESKO: It's tiring to wait that long. The war is endless. We need to do something. Maybe in a more aggressive way or in a peaceful way, we just need to do something.

ZEEVI: Eventually, we are the ones that are paying the price. We're just like a player on a chess. No, we want to come back home.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Not down, not out but flagging.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, an Israeli official tells CNN that one of Benjamin Netanyahu's senior advisers has given the Biden administration a new proposed ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas. It would include safe passage for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to be exiled out of Gaza, according to CAN11, that's an Israeli broadcaster. It would also include the immediate release of all hostages held there in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Hamas hasn't commented on the proposal, but American officials believe it's unlikely that Sinwar would leave Gaza. The hostages' families forum initially praised the outline, but later called it a, quote, cynical and cheap manipulation.

And the State Department said the U.S. is still focusing on the ceasefire proposal that President Joe Biden put forward in May.

Now, after the break, CNN takes a closer look at the Black women inspired by Kamala Harris' historic presidential run. And how they're mobilizing voters.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us.