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Israel Carries Out Strike in Beirut; North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Facing Scandal; President Biden Holds Cabinet Meeting. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 20, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:34:36]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Right now, President Biden is holding his first Cabinet meeting in nearly a year, and it may be his last, given we're just several months out from the end of his presidency.

Joining us now from the White House law and senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak.

Kevin, what do we know about this meeting? I take it there will be cameras in there. We eventually will get the tape from the top of the meeting. Is that right?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, that's exactly right. So, the meeting is set to get under way right now, and we will see the president speaking to his top Cabinet officials when that tape turns around.

[11:35:06]

And what a White House official says is that the president will be telling his team that they need to be engaged in a sprint to the finish, essentially recognizing that, yes, his term is about to end, but that the race is not over yet.

And it is interesting. The president's circumstances are so different from when he last convened his Cabinet about a year ago. He is no longer running for president. And, of course, he really does want to emphasize to his team the importance of trying to ensure all of the programs and policies that he enacted as president are being implemented.

And that will be the key message when he convenes his team around the Cabinet Room table in a few minutes from now, trying to tell them that it's important to relay to the American people what exactly he has accomplished in office, but also the importance of ensuring that those programs are implemented, ensuring that the money is going out the door, ensuring that any programs that can be implemented as part of his policies are put into place.

And, of course, the president has a view, one, to his legacy to ensuring that all of these programs are fulfilling their potential, but also for the potential of a second Trump presidency. And, certainly, he wants to ensure that everything that can be made as permanent as he possibly can is done so in a way that Trump, if he is reelected, isn't able to reverse it when he comes into office.

So, the president, a number of different objectives in this meeting. Interestingly, we will also see the first lady, Jill Biden, participating in this Cabinet meeting. She will be talking about a Biden administration initiative on women's health research. It's her first time participating in a Cabinet meeting.

Of course, first ladies have done this previously, but it's also a sign that she too is looking to burnish her own legacy as the Biden administration winds down.

BLITZER: Interesting.

The Biden position at this meeting, as you know, Kevin, is drastically different from when he last spoke with his top Cabinet officials. It's a significant moment, though, that -- right now.

LIPTAK: Yes, I think it is. And I think it shows that the president is trying to bring this team together in a way that reinforces his view of the next four months.

We're now today exactly four months from when the next president will be inaugurated, but President Biden making clear, at least for now, that he is the one in the Oval Office and that he does have a number of things that he still wants to achieve.

Of course, the president is looking to his legacy, to things like the Inflation Reduction Act, to the infrastructure bill, and ensuring that those pieces of legislation are finalized in some ways. In some ways, the money has been relatively slow going out the door. That's to be expected.

Of course, it's a lot of money, and they wanted to ensure that it wasn't used in a fraudulent way. But now, in the president's mind, is the time for this money to really start being spent, for some of these proposals and projects to start getting under way so that, when he leaves office, that there is this robust package of items that he can point to and say that he accomplished while he's in office.

There are other areas, of course, where the president is still working to enforce his legacy. And I'm thinking of the Middle East in particular, trying to bring that conflict to an end. Prospects now seem dim of a cease-fire agreement, at least while the president is in office. That has been something that he has been very intently focused on now that he is no longer running for president.

So, you see all of these areas where the president is trying to focus himself and his team in the run-up to the election.

BLITZER: Kevin Liptak on the North Lawn of the White House for us.

Kevin, thank you very much.

We will get back to the White House once that Cabinet meeting videotape begins to feed in and we will show it to our viewers as we get it.

We are now some 46 days away from Election Day here in the United States. Absentee ballots, by the way, are scheduled to go out in the battleground state of North Carolina later today. And now there's a major new scandal involving the Tar Heel State's Republican nominee for governor, the current lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson.

A new CNN KFILE investigation, as you know, uncovered dozens of inflammatory posts he wrote on a porn site message board more than a decade ago calling himself -- and I'm quoting him now -- a "black Nazi," calling for slavery to be reinstated and ridiculing Martin Luther King Jr.

Robinson has denied making those comments.

CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona is here with us. Former Trump campaign communications director and Republican strategist Erin Perrine is with us as well.

Erin, could Mark Robinson be a drag on Trump's campaign efforts to win the critically important battleground state of North Carolina?

ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Generally speaking, we haven't seen where downballot has pulled down the upper part of the ticket, kind of reverse coattails. You have seen where the upper part of the ticket can drag downballot, but that's not historically what we have seen.

[11:40:04]

I will caveat all of that with this is the most unprecedented election we have ever seen in modern history. So, you never say never on these things. But what it could do for Republicans is depress turnout. If Republicans are looking and saying, maybe they weren't interested in Trump, but they were going to vote for the rest of the ticket, or they were interested in Trump and wanted to vote, but now they're not so sure,this could be an issue for Republicans in keeping them motivated in North Carolina.

BLITZER: All right, let me get Maria into this conversation.

Maria, as you know, polls showed Robinson trailing in the Tar Heel State before this latest damning KFILE report. The Harris campaign wasted no time flooding social media with pictures of Trump and Robinson together.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BLITZER: What are your thoughts about this?

CARDONA: I think that it's yet another demonstration, indication of how completely out of step and how extremist, not just Donald Trump and not just J.D. Vance are at the top of the ticket, because they are those things, but the rest of the Republican candidates who they have put up for voters to choose. And the comments that Mark Robinson has made in the past and what

KFILE has uncovered are just disgusting. They're indecent. They're gross. And it demonstrates how out of the mainstream and how out of touch Mark Robinson is, along with the rest of the MAGA Republican Party, starting with Donald Trump on down, are with what mainstream America wants and deserves.

And I think it also goes to the really smart and compelling message that the Harris campaign is putting out there in terms of, it's time to just turn the page on this silliness, on this divisiveness. And it is silly and it is divisive, but it's also dangerous, because those kinds of comments puts targets on the backs of vulnerable communities.

BLITZER: Erin, as you know, Trump is scheduled to travel to North Carolina tomorrow. Can he really distance himself from Robinson now after years and years of actually praising him?

PERRINE: I wouldn't be surprised to see Donald Trump try and distance himself at this point.

I mean, tomorrow, we will see if the lieutenant governor is at the event that the president is at and what the president's comments are. I won't be surprised if it's along the lines of "I don't know what's going on with that.'

But I would expect to see Republicans all across North Carolina try and put some distance between themselves. Whether or not they're calling for Robinson to step down, which at this point it is too late in the cycle to do so, or whether they're going to actively say it or not, they will likely put space between themselves, even if they believe what the lieutenant governor has said that these are not true, or if they believe the KFILE reporting.

Because, at this point, he was already down in the ballot, and it's not going to help you to be seen with someone where all of this is in the news on them.

BLITZER: Yes, it's huge, huge news indeed.

Maria, as you know, Oprah hosted Vice President Harris for a virtual town hall last night. They touched on a range of issues, very interesting, including this rather emotional moment with the family of a woman whose death was linked to lack of abortion care. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want you all to know, Amber was not a statistic.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm just so sorry. And the courage that you all have shown is extraordinary.

Is she on death's door before you actually decide to give her help?

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: So does a moment like that move the needle with swing voters, Maria?

CARDONA: There's no question that it does, Wolf.

But we have already seen this issue move the needle with swing voters. Do we remember the red wave in 2022? Oops, no, we don't, because it happened after the Supreme Court got rid of Roe v. Wade. And what we have seen, and it is very active right now, very energetic, huge mobilization on this issue, is that women and men, swing voters can go into the booth with more than one thought on their minds.

The economy is important, but what I have heard so many Republican women tell me, Wolf, is, you know, Maria, the economy is coming back. I'm feeling better about where I am economically, but if my rights are gone, they are not going to come back. And I refuse to raise my daughter in a country that has -- where she has less rights than I did.

It's incredibly compelling, the story that was on TV for so many millions to see last night. There was not a dry eye from people who watched that, is going to have that gut punch of this is not the country that we want to raise daughters in, that we want to raise our families in.

Women are the ones who should be in charge of what happens with their bodies, with their doctors and their families, period, full stop.

BLITZER: Erin, there was another moment last night involving gun ownership. Let's listen to this. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: I'm a gun owner. Tim Walz is a gun...

OPRAH WINFREY, PRODUCER/PHILANTHROPIST: I did not know that.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

[11:45:01]

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

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: Sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

WINFREY: Yes. Yes. I hear that. I hear that.

HARRIS: Probably should not have said that.

(LAUGHTER) HARRIS: But my staff will deal with that later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What do you think, Erin? How's that going to play with swing voters?

PERRINE: I don't know that it will play with swing voters.

There's certainly a bloc of low-propensity gun owners that maybe if they were going to sit on the sidelines could consider now Kamala Harris. But I don't believe that those in the firearm-owning community in the United States are necessarily buying this pro-Second Amendment language that Kamala Harris is using now, given that previously she was in favor of mandatory buybacks.

And when I have heard her speak previously about what she would do to try and lessen firearm casualties in the United States, she doesn't seem to have really a full grasp on how the background check system works in the United States, let alone how the gun show -- quote, unquote -- "gun show loophole" works when it comes to being able to address this.

So my first question to Kamala Harris is, what firearms do you own? What kind of shooter are you? Are you enjoying it for sport or is it for personal protection? Because being able to understand what kind of firearms she owns, I think, could be actually a more persuasive part of this argument for maybe swing, moderate, low-propensity firearm owners.

CARDONA: But you know what is compelling, Wolf, in what Kamala Harris is saying is what the Democratic Party's position is, which the majority of commonsense gunners agree with.

There should be commonsense safety laws, and it's the Republicans that have been extremist on that issue.

BLITZER: All right, Maria, Erin, to both of you, thank you very much.

Still to come, there's more turmoil, and it's rocking the Middle East right now. Lebanon's capital of Beirut is sifting through debris right now after Israel unleashes a deadly strike.

We will have details. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:51:12]

BLITZER: We're following some breaking news out of the Middle East right now, specifically in Lebanon's capital of Beirut, where there is extensive destruction after Israel says it carried out -- and I'm quoting now -- a "targeted strike" this morning.

At least nine people were killed and dozens were injured. Today's strike follows days of escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah yesterday fired more than 100 rockets into Northern Israel in response to this week's pager and walkie-talkie explosions carried out by Israel across Lebanon.

Sean Moorhouse is joining us right now. He's an explosive consultant, former British army officer.

Sean, thanks so much for joining us.

First of all, what's your reaction to Israel's attacks, including these wireless devices that were used?

SEAN MOORHOUSE, FORMER BRITISH ARMY OFFICER: Well, I'm amazed.

It's an audacious attack. Anybody who thought up this attack in the first place to conceive of such an idea is one thing, but then to have the technical capacity to actually carry it out is a completely different order of skill.

So this is a big hit on Hezbollah. It indirectly, of course, affects Iran. And it's quite impressive, I have to say.

BLITZER: Well let me ask you, these walkie-talkies, these pagers are really old-school devices used decades ago. Could a similar type of an attack be involved with some smartphones, high-tech devices?

MOORHOUSE: I mean, the short answer is yes.

But to qualify that, as everything moves into miniaturization, there is less and less space within our digital devices to put any sort of explosive charge. So it's not straightforward to achieve at all.It takes a lot of technical sophistication to do it.

BLITZER: Lebanon's health minister now says that 3,000 people were treated for injuries after the pager and walkie-talkie attacks.

What does that tell you?

MOORHOUSE: Well, bearing in mind how small the spaces are in these devices, especially the pagers, you couldn't get more than a couple of grams, I don't think, of high explosive in there, which is about the size of a pencil eraser.

So these attacks were not designed to kill people. I think they were designed to maim people and, of course, send a very powerful message to Hezbollah.

BLITZER: Sean Moorhouse, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it very much.

MOORHOUSE: Thank you very much, indeed.

BLITZER: And finally this hour, I want to take a moment to share some exciting news for our viewers about the show you are watching right now. My good friend and colleague Pamela Brown is now back from maternity

leave and, as planned, will start anchoring this 11:00 a.m. Eastern hour of NEWSROOM starting on Monday.

Many of you, of course, know Pamela for her truly excellent investigative reporting, including her Emmy-nominated investigation into sexual assault and misconduct within the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, which led to congressional inquiries and systemic change at the top of the Coast Guard Academy.

She also received the Edward R. Murrow Award for her reporting on this story. She has anchored almost every hour of CNN with her tough, but very fair interview style. Pamela is also, as you know, mother of three young kids. There you see them. Her newest son, Henry, was recently born, and she's been soaking in the time with him and his older siblings, Benny and Vivienne.

It's been my pleasure to fill in for her and work with executive producer Bryan Bell and his truly, truly terrific staff. There you see them in the control room right now. I want to thank them for their excellent work.

[11:55:08]

Congratulations also to Pamela, her husband, Adam, and her loving family once again.

Please join her starting Monday, this coming Monday, 11:00 a.m. Eastern. I, of course, will continue to anchor "THE SITUATION ROOM" weekdays 6:00 p.m. Eastern. So I will see you later today.

Thanks very much for watching.

"INSIDE POLITICS," today with Kasie Hunt, starts right after a short break.