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Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) Is Interviewed About 1 American Among 12 Killed In Attack On Saudi Airport; Protests In NYC Over ICE Agents Shooting Man With Child In Car; USS Lincoln Returns To U.S. After Near-Record Deployment; Mental Health Challenges Facing Service Members; A Personal Look At Days After Salman Rushdie's Stabbing. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired October 10, 2026 - 19:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:01:11]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN Newsroom. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York. And tonight we do have breaking news. Twelve people killed, 309 wounded today in an attack on Saudi Arabia's busiest airport, the King Khalid Airport in the capital of Riyadh.

According to the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority, one of those killed was an American. No one has claimed responsibility yet. But the Iran- backed Houthis in Yemen have been escalating missile strikes on Saudi Arabia. And the Houthis claim responsibility for two attacks on the same airport earlier this week.

Let's bring in CNN senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak from the White House. Kevin, what more do we know? And what do we know about how the President is responding or might be responding?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, very, very serious incident. This is now the deadliest attack on a Gulf Arab country since the war between the U.S. and Iran began. Back in February, eyewitnesses at that airport described seeing people lying on the ground, say they heard an explosion. People outside the airport said that they saw dozens of ambulances rushing to the scene.

You know, there's been no claim of responsibility for this particular attack. But the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen, the Houthis, have claimed responsibility for attacks at other airports, including this one, but other airports in Saudi Arabia over the past week. The American embassy in Riyadh is warning Americans about travel to that country now.

They say to reconsider travel to Saudi Arabia due to the risk of drone and missile targeting of American interests by Iran and the Iran- supported Houthis. And this does create a major dilemma now for President Trump. You know, the very powerful Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has been imploring Trump directly over the telephone to try and get him more involved in the Saudi campaign against the Houthis. But the President has stopped short of that. He was asked about this incident earlier today. Listen to what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you excited whether to join the Saudi strikes on the Houthis?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We may. We're going to look at it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How soon?

TRUMP: We just found out about the recent attack, so we'll make a decision. We move very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: Of course, the President, if he decides to get more involved in the campaign against the Houthis, that would open up another front for him in the Middle East at a moment when the Iran war is both deeply unpopular in the United States and also doesn't seem to show any signs of ending. So this will be a big decision for the President. Obviously, this attack now at the Riyadh airport, making that a more urgent decision that the President says he is now considering.

DEAN: Certainly. And in the meantime, another front. We're hearing from President Trump on Ukraine and Russia. He suggested Ukraine get a new leader earlier today after Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned his diesel deal with Russia. Fill people in on where all of that stands right now.

LIPTAK: Yes, and that was a remarkable comment from the President. He was responding when I was asking him about criticism of this deal that he struck with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wherein Russia will export some diesel to supply the global marketplace. This is President Trump's attempt to bring down global diesel prices. But that has come under criticism, including from Zelenskyy, that this is just providing a lifeline to Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

The President saying that he had asked Zelenskyy to stop targeting Russian diesel refineries and that he was so frustrated with Zelenskyy that he is now saying that Ukraine needs a new president. Jessica?

DEAN: All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you so much for your reporting at the White House for us. Thank you so much.

We're joined now by Democratic Representative Adam Smith of Washington. He is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, thank you so much for your time tonight. We really appreciate it. I want to go back to the beginning of our show and start on that Saudi airport attack. Again, we are now being told by the Saudi Aviation Authority that an American is among the 12 killed in the attack. I just want to get your reaction to that first.

[19:05:12]

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Look, it is a devastating development. The president, you know, President Trump starting the war with Iran, not knowing what he is doing, you know, just has led to a situation to spun completely out of control. This war has spread from, you know, within weeks of starting the war against Iran. There's a dozen, 14 different countries now that have been hit.

And now you've got the Houthis at Saudi Arabia in a full scale conflict that is incredibly dangerous for the region. And there is no easy way out of it. You know, we don't have seasoned diplomats trying to negotiate some into it. The Houthis and Iran think they have the upper hand. Trump idiotically thinks he has the upper hand. And they continue to press forward with this conflict.

You know, this is going to lead to massive disruption. And too many people have been killed. And to see another American lose their life because of this stupid war is just devastating.

DEAN: Would you support the U.S. aiding Saudi Arabia in strikes against the Houthis?

SMITH: Look, you know, I don't know that that's going to be particularly helpful. I don't know that we have the capacity. I mean, let's remember that we struck the Houthis over a year ago now in Operation Rough Rider. It didn't seem to really help. What we need is we need a negotiated settlement. Trump needs to get serious about negotiating with Iran and get us out of this war. So, no, I would not support us stepping in and expanding this war even further.

DEAN: But do you think there needs to be some sort of consequence as a result of what happened today?

SMITH: Certainly, I don't know how we deal with this exactly. But consequence how? I mean, you escalate, escalate, escalate. You know, if we attack the Houthis, they attack us. And it goes back and forth. I mean, this is what you're seeing with Iran. This is what we were told when the Iran war started. Here's all the terrible things that Iran has done for 47 years. And I don't disagree with that.

But remember, at the moment that President Trump started this war, Israel had done a pretty good job of weakening Iran, weakening Hezbollah, weakening Hamas. Iran was at their weakest point possible. That was the time for us to cut a deal. Instead, Trump foolishly thought that three weeks of bombing could collapse the Iranian regime. He stepped right into it.

And the notion that continued escalation, holding people accountable, you know, is going to somehow end this, it is simply going to expand it and move it further and further down the road. So, no, I don't support, you know, massive military response. We have to find some diplomatic solution.

DEAN: More broadly on the U.S. war with Iran, as I noted at the beginning of our interview, you are the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee. If Democrats do indeed win control of the House in the upcoming elections and you are running that committee and Democrats are responsible for oversight, how do you see this changing oversight of the war? SMITH: Well, it will shine a brighter light on it. And look, the primary hope here is, well, we can do a lot ourselves, certainly to actually have hearings, to actually bring attention to it, do stuff the Republicans are not doing. But if the election goes the way it's looking like it's going, the primary hope is that Republicans will wake up to the fact that this is not what the American people want. And they will join us in this.

And look, I'm going to be very, very honest about this. President Trump is not paying any attention to Congress. He's not paying any attention to the courts. He's doing what he wants to do. I think ultimately the only way to end this war is to remove Donald Trump from office. OK, I think he is so disconnected from reality right now that even as he sees this war going on, he's talking about how great it's going, how everything's going wonderfully.

So, you know, I would continue to try to work on that angle as well. But we'll increase oversight.

DEAN: Just to be clear. Do you mean -- sorry to interrupt you. I just want to be clear. Do you mean impeachment or do you mean vote him out of off, you know, vote a Democrat in in the next presidential election?

SMITH: No, I mean, at this point, I think it has to be impeachment. I mean, he's so out of control in so many different directions. We can't wait two years. We wait two years and then what? Where are we at as this war continues to spin out of control? You know, he has no exit strategy. He's not listening to anybody and he's more concerned with his ballroom than he is with what's actually going on in this war.

So, yes, we're in a very, very dangerous situation and there are no good options. We also don't really have the munitions to now start a war with Yemen.

[19:10:07]

DEAN: And so if you were to go down --

SMITH: I'm sorry, with the Houthis I should say.

DEAN: Yes, I understand. If you were to go down the impeachment route, though, there are obviously plenty of Democrats who agree with you on that strategy. There are other Democrats who say that's it's a waste of time. It'll go to the Senate. That's not it's not ever going to happen. And we're wasting time doing that.

SMITH: Yes, let me tell you, I was one of those Democrats like a month ago. But I see the disastrous policies that the President is putting forward. I see his, you know, threats to undermine this election coming up. I see how he doesn't pay attention to Congress. I mean, the Russian oil thing. Pivot to that subject, if you don't mind.

DEAN: I did want to ask you about that.

SMITH: We passed two laws. Yes, we passed two laws saying you cannot import Russian oil. President Trump is doing it in blatant violation of both of those laws. He hasn't even submitted any kind of waiver. He hasn't followed any sort of process. He just cut the deal as if the law doesn't apply to him, as if the Constitution, all that doesn't apply to him at all. You know, and now he's doing it.

Look, that is an illegal act. We've got the 2022 law saying that you cannot import any fuel from Russia until the war with Ukraine is over. And then we got the law that just got signed. Trump signed it. He signed it into law. You know, sanctions on Russia say you can't import fuels without imposing like a 500 percent tariff on them.

We've never had a president who simply decided that the law doesn't apply to him. So I think we're in a very different place.

DEAN: And if that's the case, what does Congress do about that in the immediate future?

SMITH: Yes, well, here's the thing, and it makes it difficult. This is why I've moved towards the impeachment thing. What Congress typically does is we pass laws and we exercise oversight. But if the President chooses not to obey the law and then he chooses not to follow the courts when they tell him to. You know, I mean, it puts us in a box and I see the diesel prices that are up on the board. And that's the other thing, by the way.

Importing Russian oil is not going to make a substantial sorry, Russian diesel is not going to make a substantial difference in the diesel prices. It's a tiny, tiny fraction. And then for Trump to basically be siding with Putin against Ukraine in the Ukrainian war, that's not in the best interest of the United States of America. And it's not what we should be doing.

I don't think people fully appreciate how completely off the rails President Trump has gone. And I know people say, well, you know, normal politics wasn't working. That's why we brought in Trump. We needed someone who was different, who wasn't normal. This isn't just not normal. This is a threat to our representative democracy on a level that we have not seen, I believe, in the history of the country.

DEAN: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Congressman Adam Smith, thank you for your time tonight. We do appreciate it.

SMITH: Thank you.

DEAN: Anger grows after ICE agents shoot a man in a car while his five-year-old son was inside that car.

[19:13:13]

Plus, thousands of military families are home with their loved ones this weekend after returning from a nearly year-long deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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DEAN: Police in Erie, Pennsylvania are investigating after eight people, including a pregnant woman, and two small children died in a mass shooting last night. When police arrived at that scene, they found two women dead outside the home. Then inside, they found the bodies of two additional women, two young men, and two children, ages one and five.

They also say they found the 45-year-old gunman dead on the second floor, apparently from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Officials say the gunman was related to seven of those victims. The eighth victim was a friend of the pregnant woman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF RICK LORAH, ERIE, PA POLICE: Some scenes stay with you long after you leave them. This is one of those tragic scenes. I think that mental health is at play here, but I think it's too soon to really go into a motive at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: The police chief declined to discuss motive, but said that investigators will talk to other relatives and examine the cell phones of the women who were killed outside that home.

More protests today in New York City following an ICE shooting on Thursday. Federal agents shot and wounded a man in his vehicle as a five-year-old child was in the backseat. Hundreds of protesters back on the streets again today expressing outrage over that shooting.

ICE officials say officers fired into the vehicle after 28-year-old Oscar Belgal used the car as a weapon during a targeted enforcement operation. Belgal is in ICE custody after suffering a superficial wound to the neck. His son was not injured and is with family members. NYPD releasing video footage of officers responding to that scene after the shooting. And a source tells CNN two federal agents were also injured in the encounter and have since been treated and released from the hospital.

We'll bring in CNN's Mark Morales, who's been following this and today's protests. Mark, what more can you tell us?

MARK MORALES, CNN REPORTER: Well, there's been a lot of anger since this incident has happened with protesters taking to the streets since this incident took place. And most recently, we're finally seeing what happened in the moments before the shooting took place and the chaotic moments afterwards.

[19:20:06]

And part of what's making everybody really upset, aside from the fact that it's another ICE-involved shooting for one of these deportation arrests, but it's also the fact that Belgal's five-year-old son was sitting in the back seat when the shots rang out. Now, NYPD released body camera footage from officers that responded after the incident took place, and you can actually see that they arrive and they find Belgal sitting on the pavement with his hands cuffed behind his back. They make the snap decision that he needs medical attention, so they grab him, throw him in the back of their patrol car, and then race to a local hospital. You actually see them dramatically driving as fast as they can, trying to get him help. Now, aside from that video, NYPD also released sort of an eye-in-the-sky video where you actually see Belgal parked in his car at a hydrant moments before this incident took place.

You see him slightly hit the car in reverse, just as ICE officers with their guns drawn come into frame. One's outside the driver's side window, and the other one's sort of in front of the vehicle at that corner. And he tries to pull away, and you don't actually see the shooting take place, but you do see them engaging with him and him throwing the car in reverse and trying to drive away.

Now, this video puts tactics once again in the spotlight, which, as we've seen in other videos and other instances like this, officials have always tried to make the argument that the vehicle was going to be used as a weapon. Tom Homan was speaking about this this morning, and he had thoughts on this. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: The men and women of ICE perform exactly as they were trained. This man tried to run an officer over. He feared for his life, so he took action. And now this person's in custody. He'll be charged with a federal crime of assaulting a federal law enforcement officer. But many of these instances could be avoided if they simply give us access to the bad guy in the safety and security of the jail rather than release him in the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORALES: Now, aside from the federal assault charge, there's still that big question of the deportation itself and whether or not Belgal is going to be deported. He's got lawyers on his side arguing that he should be released, but a big question is going to be venue and where they're actually going to hear this case because his attorneys filed paperwork to get him out in New York, but at the time they filed it, he was actually at an ICE facility in New Jersey. So they'll have to sort that out.

And in the meantime, Belgal is sitting in a ICE facility -- sitting in a detention center here in Brooklyn, New York, and he's still wondering about his family and how his child is doing. Jessica?

DEAN: All right, Mark Morales with the very latest on that. Thank you for your reporting.

[19:22:48]

And coming up, Hurricane Isaias is leaving damage and a trail of destruction in Florida, but it's not just the southeast. We'll have a look at the powerful storm brewing in Southern California. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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DEAN: Tonight, San Diego is under a tropical storm watch for only the second time on record. Tropical Storm Rachel is moving closer to Southern California, bringing the risk of significant coastal flooding, strong winds, and heavy rain. And CNN's Melissa Nord has the latest on the path. Melissa?

MELISSA NORD, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Jessica, Rachel has intensified a bit. In our newest update we got in from the National Hurricane Center this evening, winds are now 65 miles per hour. Gust is 75 miles per hour. And although it may not be a major hurricane, the remnants of Rachel could pass directly overhead Southern California and into the southwest, producing multiple threats over the next 24 hours.

You can see on satellite imagery from this afternoon approaching the coast of Baja, California. Landfall likely tonight, sometime on either side of midnight local time. And that will be as a tropical storm probably 100 to 200 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. But we do have that tropical storm watch in place for San Diego.

Then the remnants of Rachel steered inland. Thanks to this dip in the jet stream, it helps to kind of pull in and push in that deeper tropical moisture. So tropical rains that lead to flash flooding, that will be one of the most widespread impacts from the remnants of Rachel. Rain amounts will be 1 to 3 inches on average across the southwest. Locally, they could be up to 5 inches.

Now, for those of you who live on the East Coast, you're thinking that doesn't seem like a lot of rainfall. But let me put this in perspective for you. For example, Palm Springs, California, they average two-tenths of an inch of rain for the entire month of October. And they get on average less than 5 inches of rain for the whole year. That's the desert southwest.

So some of these areas could be very prone to flash flooding because their landscape doesn't normally get a lot of rainfall. So that rain is just going to run off and could cause some flash flooding and city flooding in San Diego as well. You can see the rain outlooks for south excessive rainfall. That risk of flash flooding is in the moderate range. That's level three out of four overnight and then again on Sunday. And Sunday, that risk of flash flooding stretches and increases in Las Vegas as well.

Here's the forecast. Radar landfall happening sometime tonight. Then we'll track a lot of those tropical downpours inland as the remnants of Rachel pass right over Southern California and the desert Southwest tomorrow.

DEAN: All right. Melissa Nord, thank you so much.

[19:29:47]

Still to come here, an emotional homecoming after nearly a year at sea. CNN takes you aboard the USS Lincoln as hundreds of sailors step back on land and reunite with their families.

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[19:34:22]

DEAN: Thousands of U.S. sailors and Marines are now back home with their families. CNN's Pamela Brown spoke with one of those sailors as he prepared to hold his 10-month old baby girl, who he had only seen in pictures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Finally home!

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST AND CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: (voice over): Mixed in the emotion on this Navy pier are 122 sailors who have never met their children.

JOEY MONTEMARANO, U.S. NAVY: The only person my daughter knows is my wife right now.

BROWN: Joey Montemarano's daughter, Madeline Grace (ph), was born while he was away at sea. These images are all he knows of his 10- month-old child.

BROWN (on camera): What are you going to do, you think, when you see them?

MONTEMARANO: Probably cry a little bit, probably try to hold back the tears while I kiss my wife, hug my wife, and meet this baby that I have never met before that I can't wait to -- can't wait to meet and interact with.

[19:35:11]

BROWN (voice over): We met Joey and many more of the roughly 5,000 sailors at sea on the USS Lincoln as they headed into port. Most admit they are returning home changed.

AJANAE KELLY, SAILOR, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: This is the hardest one I have to -- had to deal with. So I feel like, if I could do this one, I could do anything.

BROWN (voice over): It's the end of a harrowing 322-day deployment that faced scrutiny over the living conditions on board and low morale that included attempted suicides.

LUIS MORAN, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The man overboard, that was a crazy day.

BROWN (voice over): Many confirmed the uncertainty around the extended deployment brought mental challenges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just thinking about my family and things going on back home that you can't control.

MORAN: I would go to prayer service with the chaplains, and that would help out a lot.

BROWN (voice over): Others we met confirmed food supplies ran low at times.

BARRY USERY, SAILOR, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: I was in cargo for a while, the people that bring the food up. And I was in there during the tough times. Not a lot of food was being brung up. But, as we progressed, it got better.

CAPT. DAN KEELER, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It was stressed, but we never shut anything down.

BROWN (voice over): Captain Dan Keeler, commanding officer of the Lincoln, tells CNN supplies were mainly affected when support ships under threat from Iran were forced to alter their movement in the region.

KEELER: We served 14,000 to 16,000 meals a day, four times a day, so four meals a day. We never missed a meal, not for 10.5 months. There were some sacrifices made. Maybe there was only one protein option, instead of two, but there was always food.

BROWN (on camera): Some of the family members had a town hall with Navy leadership because they were really concerned about their loved ones on this ship. And they were getting pictures of toilets overflowing and mold. What do you say to that?

KEELER: What I will say to all the families is, they were all so amazing. You can't do what we just did without a lot of a support.

I think a lot of the reporting focused on some anecdotal things, because we looked into all this stuff, and there really were no systemic issues. It's a big ship. It's a floating city. We have -- a toilet gets clogged, it eventually gets fixed.

BROWN (voice over): Keeler acknowledges there were five suicide attempts on Lincoln itself and three others on its support ships. He says anyone with mental health problems had access to treatment on this ship. The most severe cases were sent home.

KEELER: We had zero suicides. We had zero casualties on the ship. Every single sailor that left is coming home.

BROWN (voice over): And they're coming home awarded with a Presidential Unit Citation, the military's highest honor for a unit in battle.

ARIANA WESTFALL, AVIATION ORDNANCEMAN, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN: It's going to be pretty cool to be able to wear that and tell everybody why I'm wearing it and what I did to wear it.

BROWN: On board, you could feel the anticipation as we pulled into port. Moments later, among this flood of emotion, Joey Montemarano, a father who served on a ship at war --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who's that? Is this your daddy?

BROWN: --now with his daughter together in peace.

MONTEMARANO: She's perfect.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Oh so sweet! And as Pam highlighted, some sailors and Marines on that ship experienced significant mental health challenges during the deployment. It is part of a broader issue facing many military members today, which is World Mental Health Day.

Let's talk about it with psychiatrist Harold Kudler. He is a retired V.A. psychiatrist and the former National Lead for the Mental Health Policy in V.A. Central Office.

Thank you so much for being here with us.

Just first, generally, how would you describe the current state of military mental health?

HAROLD KUDLER, RETIRED V.A. PSYCHIATRIST, FORMER NATIONAL LEAD FOR THE MENTAL HEALTH POLICY IN V.A. CENTRAL OFFICE: Well, the military has kind of done an about-face in the way it is fielding its mental health service.

For several years, they tried to rely more and more on TRICARE which is a contract program. It is sort of an insurance program in which, civilian doctors can enlist. And the idea was, let's get a much bigger network. Let's put them closer to people all over the country, but it turned out to be very expensive.

And in addition, the money that would have gone to staff up the hospitals in the military treatment facilities, the military hospitals that was spent now in the civilian sector. They followed that path a long way. It really didn't turn out to improve access. Now they are moving in the other direction, trying to restaff the military treatment facilities.

And in the meantime, that access really hasn't been as strong as it could be or should be.

DEAN: Yes, and a recent report found more than a million new mental health diagnoses among active duty troops. In your opinion and your expertise, do you think we are seeing an increase in mental health struggles? Are we getting better at diagnosing and recognizing those struggles in people? Is it maybe a combination of both?

KUDLER: It is a mixture of things. We are asking questions, we are screening for depression, for substance use, for post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

Also, people are more likely to tell us about these problems than they were 10 or 20 years ago. So, that's another factor. And I think we're more sophisticated.

[19:405:10]

We have more people listening and willing to say, look, I see you're not sleeping at night. You're not playing cards with us anymore. You're not going out with us. You're getting withdrawn. Have you thought about talking to somebody?

So that s partly a reflection of things getting better, people being more aware, catching problems early. That's always a good thing.

DEAN: Yes, certainly. That report also found anxiety, adjustment and depressive disorders make up the bulk of these new mental health diagnoses. Why do you think those are the most common that they are seeing among service members?

KUDLER: Well, we are seeing anxiety all across the country, but the fact is that anxiety disorders particularly well, post-traumatic stress disorder for many years was considered an anxiety disorder. It is often a class by itself now, but anxiety disorders are the most common thing. We see depression right behind it, and substance use, and frankly, these things don't usually travel alone. They usually travel in pairs or all three together.

Plus, there are miscellaneous issues, something short of a diagnosis, sleep problems I mentioned, increased smoking, withdrawal, breakdown in relationships. So it is quite a big assortment of problems that people can run into.

DEAN: Yes, all right, Harold Kudler, thank you so much for your time and for your expertise. We really appreciate it.

KUDLER: Glad to be able to join you.

DEAN: Thank you.

And if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health concerns, you can call or text the veterans crisis line at 988 then press one.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:46:25]

DEAN: It has been four years since a man rushed the stage where author, Salman Rushdie was about to speak, stabbing him 15 times. He was gravely wounded and lost his sight in his right eye.

A new documentary takes you behind-the-scenes in the days after the attack on his road to recovery.

Now, for years, Rushdie lived under heavy security in London after Iran's leader called for his death. That religious decree coming after Rushdie's satirical novel "The Satanic Verses" sparked protests in the Muslim world, and ever since, he has lived under the shadow of that threat.

Earlier this week, I spoke with Salman Rushdie about this new documentary.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: We are joined now by Sir Salman Rushdie. He recounts his survival in the book "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder" which this new documentary is based on.

Thank you so much for your time. We are really pleased to have you here with us. You say that --

SALMAN RUSHDIE, AUTHOR: Thank you for having me.

DEAN: Yes. It is great to have you. You say one of your first coherent thoughts after that attack was we need to document this, and we see that in this incredibly personal footage, very vulnerable footage filmed by your wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths.

Explain why you and she both felt it was so important to capture those moments?

RUSHDIE: You know, truthfully, I don t know why I said that. I just -- it was just an instinct at the time that this was an important moment in our life, you know, and that initially I thought what I meant by that was just that she would take the odd iPhone photograph every couple of days just for our own reference.

But she had a better idea. She is a very good cinematographer as well as writer, and she sent for her professional camera and started making a kind of video diary. And it became for us a way of discussing what was happening to us and in a way, taking control of what was happening to us, making it our story that we were telling and had no real sense that it would have a public life until much later.

It was really after I was feeling much better. I wasn't completely recovered, but I was back home here and we sat and watched all the footage that she had made. And at that point, we began to think that maybe it has a wider audience than just the two of us.

And so we began to think about a documentary.

DEAN: Yes, and it had to be, I think when you're in a moment of trauma, like you were, you probably -- there were pieces that you maybe, I would assume didn't even remember until you rewatched them back. Did that happen to you?

RUSHDIE: Yes. And things that I had misremembered. You know, things that I had remembered one way, but which the film showed me had actually happened another way.

You know, for instance, Eliza rather wisely removed all mirrors from my trauma ward. So I actually didn't know what I looked like until I saw the footage and that by that time, I no longer looked like that because I had recovered quite a bit.

And I was kind of horrified when I saw the footage. I thought I really looked terrible. And, you know, in hospitals, people tell you fibs. They say you look much better than you did yesterday. And you want to believe them. So you do. But actually I didn't, I looked terrible.

I mean, it was a discovery watching the footage for me because I hadn't seen myself at that time.

[19:50:03]

DEAN: I am sure it was.

RUSHDIE: You know, and a shock, but also, I thought, actually, I praised her. I said, the footage is very well shot, which given the emotional state that she was in also, is quite remarkable.

And so we began to talk to documentary filmmakers. And, when we were introduced to Alex Gibney and he came to our house and sat with us and watched the footage and was also very moved by it. And just the way he spoke about the kind of film he thought he could make, we both immediately thought, yes, this is the film we want to see. This is the guy we want to work with.

DEAN: It is important to find a partner when you're doing something like this, that can take what you're trying to do and put all of those pieces together and also have that outside perspective as well to add to something that is so deeply, deeply personal.

And there are some -- obviously, there are very heavy moments of you just really, you know, on the edge of possible death and obviously recovering from these incredible wounds. But there are also lighter moments, like starting to dance again to music while you're there in the hospital. You guys have your little date night one night when you're starting to kind of get better.

I am curious more broadly, knowing that this whole experience contains so many things, how it has changed your outlook on life.

RUSHDIE: Well, you know, what you mentioned is those kind of happier moments because I think the film is in some ways, it is also a love story, you know? As well as being a story about great violence and, and it is a story about love overcoming violence really, is how I think of it.

You know, coming back to kind of position that I am in now, which is substantially recovered. I remember that, I remember how important that was. And what it showed me is the importance of just focusing on the most important things in life.

You know, the people you love, the work you love and forget about everything else. So it has focused my mind, it has given me a kind of clarity, extra clarity about how I want to use this fortunate extra lease of life that I've been granted.

DEAN: And you've spent so much of your life fighting for freedom of speech. And there are several that is woven so much through in this documentary. I was reading too that when the judge was sentencing your attacker, the judge in this case said that that attack didn't just attack you. But it, in his words, went to the very heart of what our country, the United States, stands for.

So, how are you thinking about that fight for freedom of speech now?

RUSHDIE: I was very pleased to hear that. I was very pleased to hear the judge speak in those terms, because I did feel and I actually say it somewhere in the documentary, that this event is bigger than just me. You know, it is about an assault on freedom. It is about an assault on the thing we assume is our right, which is to say -- to speak as we believe and to say our piece, to write our stories, to tell our truth.

And this attempt to murder that was an assault on not just on me, but on that entire principle. And I was actually very struck that the judge brought that up.

DEAN: Yes, and to that end, so much of this goes back to your satirical novel, "The Satanic Verses" and the fallout after that Iranian leadership, of course, calling for your death following the publication of that novel decades ago and you had to go into hiding.

RUSHDIE: Yes.

DEAN: You had to have armed security with you. I am curious if the death of the late Ayatollah earlier this year alters how you see the current threat to your life and how you view all of that now.

RUSHDIE: No, I mean, I think that it doesn't really change anything for me, you know? I mean, what does change is because nobody wants a repeat of this kind of assault that we have to take extra precautions, security precautions whenever I am in a public situation like that, you know and I got used to the fact that life had gone back to normal.

You know, I mean, for more than 20 years, living here in the States, doing events all over the country, doing -- you know, leading the kind of normal life of a writer, writing books, doing literary events, giving lectures, book signings without ever being there -- never being a hint of trouble for 20 odd years.

And so this felt like a kind of blast from the past. You know, it felt like something out of the distant past coming back.

And I mean, it is so strange because this young man who attacked me by his own account had not read anything I had written, hadn't been born at the time that the fuss around "The Satanic Verses" happened, had no previous criminal record, and yet, was prepared to commit murder and that seems to me a kind extraordinary demonstration of how far fanaticism will take you.

[18:55:27]

You know, perfectly ordinary kid growing up in New Jersey decides to be a murderer without taking the trouble to inform himself at all about the person he has decided to kill.

It is bizarre!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: And our thanks to Sir Salman Rushdie for sharing his story with us.

And thank you for joining me this evening. I am Jessica Dean. "Real Time" with Bill Maher is headed your way next. Have a great night. We will see you right back here tomorrow.

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