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Foreperson: Holdout Juror Admitted to 'Reasonable Doubt'; Republican Midterm Convention to Kick off in Dallas; How Do Schools Teach 9/11 to the Next Generation? Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired September 09, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: When little Emi Vatavuk's mother started having a seizure, she facetimed her grandparents nearly 700 miles away in Georgia.

[06:00:10]

The grandparents connected her to 911, and in the call, they said they had been coaching Emi to call them if something ever happened to her mom.

Emi was able to flag the paramedics to her apartment to get her mom the help she needed.

Great and quick thinking, Emi.

That does it for CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. I'm Brad Smith, CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: OK. The foreperson from the Lindsay Clancy mistrial now talking about the lone holdout juror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONI CARLSON, JURY'S FOREPERSON: He admitted he had reasonable doubt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, why didn't the judge remove him?

Plus, the goal for Republicans at the first midterm convention: raise money and praise Trump. Is that what the GOP really needs right now?

Also, Donald Trump's version of September 11th. The president is trying to clarify his tale of being carried away by firefighters, afraid of a building collapse.

And the Trump administration wants to pay stay-at-home parents. Even some on the right are asking, isn't that socialism?

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. And here's where we begin: the conversation about the jurors from the Lindsay Clancy trial, because they're speaking out after that trial ended in a mistrial due to one holdout juror. So, in an exclusive interview with NBC-10 Boston, three jurors said

the panel was leaning towards finding the Massachusetts mom not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility. A male juror prevented them from reaching that verdict.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: He admitted he had reasonable doubt after we watched that video of the interview. I think that's what it was. He admitted he had reasonable doubt. And then he said, But I'm still not going to say that she's not guilty by reason of insanity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Clancy admitted to strangling her three children. Her defense claims she was in a state of postpartum psychosis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: We weren't trying to figure out if she murdered the children. She did, and she's admitting that. We're trying to figure out, did she know right from wrong at that time?

Everything proved that she loved her children, so she had to have snapped and not known what she was doing. To me, it was proof.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, Sarah Krissoff. She's a defense attorney and a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, which means you've seen both sides of a case.

And there are so many armchair jurors right now. Right? There's polling on what should have happened in this case.

But there's only a couple people who sat there with all the evidence and tried to figure it out. What have we learned from the comments you heard from these jurors?

SARAH KRISSOFF, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It is always enlightening to hear from the jurors, right? I mean, and so we have a system where both sides present their best narrative, and then the jury gets to decide. And we often don't know what goes on in the jury room.

But in this case, we have this insight through the jurors who have chosen to speak about what happened during deliberations and what caused the mistrial in this case.

CORNISH: So, what did you notice from what they had to say?

KRISSOFF: I mean, I think this -- the information from the jurors now confirms what we are hearing from Lindsay Clancy's lawyer during the course of this; that it really was one juror who was preventing an acquittal here.

It was -- it was a juror who seems to have been a bit confused about the law. But frankly, I think that's his prerogative. He is allowed to make those decisions on his own.

And -- and, you know, that has, you know, led to the possibility of a new trial for Clancy, depending on which way the prosecution goes.

CORNISH: Here's another juror talking about the prosecution's case. And I didn't fully understand it. So, I want a little help from you. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDSAY CLANCY JUROR NO. 5 (via phone): The prosecution didn't have a figurative, you know, smoking gun. There was not a single moment throughout that presentation, that case that you could say, Oh, yes, 100 percent, I'm certain she did it or that she didn't do it. There's -- there's too much gray area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now, earlier we heard a juror say that there's no gray area about her having committed the actual murder. So, help me understand what you think this juror is describing.

KRISSOFF: It sounds like this juror wanted some sort of certainty that she did not get one way or the other.

[06:05:06]

You know, reasonable doubt -- the standard beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean you have to be 100 percent certain that somebody did the crime. Right? There is a -- there are extensive instructions that are given to the jury about what they need to find to get to a decision beyond a reasonable doubt.

But it sounds like this juror just sort of couldn't come to a conclusion strongly one way or the other and thought the prosecution hadn't met its burden.

It's a high burden for the prosecution for a reason to take away someone's liberty. There is a very high burden for the prosecution. And it sounds like this juror just didn't think that the prosecution had met that.

And also, there were a whole bunch of jurors that -- that agreed with this juror.

CORNISH: Right.

KRISSOFF: So, I think that was -- you know, that seems to be the -- the --

CORNISH: So --

KRISSOFF: Go ahead.

CORNISH: The burden was about whether or not she had psychosis? KRISSOFF: I mean, the -- the prosecution is trying to prove guilt

beyond a reasonable doubt. And then it's the defense's job to prove this defense of the insanity, temporary insanity defense. And so, that burden becomes -- shifts to the defense team at that point.

CORNISH: One other thing about this case, which has been kind of just -- we're in the era of true crime.

Clancy's ex-husband, Patrick Clancy, has been the subject of a lot of online conspiracy theories. And lawyers are now issuing statements threatening legal action.

So, a statement we heard: "Patrick Clancy and his family have been subjected to a relentless, escalating, and destructive defamation campaign. Enough is enough. This spread of blatant and baseless falsehoods must stop."

I don't even know in what direction -- you know what I mean? -- do you point your -- your sort of legal army when it comes to people online saying this stuff?

KRISSOFF: Yes. I mean, this -- we're in an era where defamation cases are very common. They're very -- they're brought regularly. There are circumstances where they're successful. There are other circumstances where they aren't successful.

But it is very hard to stop this chatter online, particularly in a case like this that is so public, that has, you know, garnered such national attention, and everybody is focused on it.

We are, as you said, in an era of true crime. People are following these cases very closely. There are -- cases are televised, so they can watch witnesses testify and have a lot more information than they ever had before about these types of cases.

CORNISH: One more thing. You've been a defense attorney, and this one has performed for the public, right? He's very free commentating to the press.

And here is what he has been saying about the idea of somehow President Trump swooping in and offering some sort of pardon. And I want to play that for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN REDDINGTON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR LINDSAY CLANCY: I'd like to say that perhaps Donald Trump, who felt compelled to speak out about this case, may very well -- Mr. President, I would hope that you would consider this young lady, the type of person she is, what she's been through, and consider a pardon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: These are state charges. So, as far as I know, the president doesn't have a role here.

But what do you think the defense is trying to accomplish by raising this publicly, talking about it?

KRISSOFF: That's correct. The president is not able to pardon someone for a state crime. That power belongs in the governor of the appropriate state. But -- and here, Massachusetts.

But I think that the -- the defense attorney is using the press and the public awareness of this case to his advantage. Right? He wants to shape the narrative not only in the courtroom, but in the public.

And so, talking about a pardon, talking about, Hey, listen, my client really is not responsible for her actions here, may press and force the -- the prosecutors to decide how they're going to proceed with this case. Right? They have a lot of discretion about how they're going to proceed at this point.

So, part of that, you know, speaking out publicly about a pardon me, just be sort of for the both the -- the public and also directed towards the prosecutors to tell them, hey -- signal to them, hey, you know, maybe we should go forward in a little bit different way next time.

CORNISH: All right. Sarah Krissoff, thanks for that detail.

KRISSOFF: Thank you.

CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, at least one Republican calls it a Trump-a-palooza. But will the GOP midterm convention actually help candidates who are on the ballot?

Plus, new scrutiny of the man once considered America's mayor? What did Rudy Giuliani and other city leaders know about air quality in New York after 9/11?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:14:42]

CORNISH: OK, Republicans are ready to rumble in Texas. Well, some are.

The Republican midterm convention kicks off today in Dallas. President Trump predicting it will be a rally like never before. Posting on Truth Social it's "really 'HOT!'," "totally sold out," and "everybody wants to be there."

Here's what we know about tickets to the event. They are free, and there are at least a couple Republicans who are just skipping it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm a little bit nervous about it.

The White House is pushing a big bet. It's like we're at the tables. They're pushing all the chips on, saying, We -- if we make this about Donald Trump, and if we make it about Donald Trump's record and put him at the center of this, then we've got a shot to pull this thing off. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Today in the group chat, Julia Manchester, White House correspondent for "The Hill"; Tiana Love Doescher, political commentator for "The Washington Examiner"; and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist.

I have to expose my bias as being someone who doesn't want to be at conventions, but this one is interesting. He also said in his Truth Social that "We're really asking only those Candidates in tight Races, a little up, a little down [...] and we want to save the stage for them."

JULIA MANCHESTER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "THE HILL": That's so interesting, because there is this theory that tying those candidates and having those candidates appear anywhere in proximity with President Trump is a risk.

You know, there's some candidates that have taken that strategy so far. You look at Mike Lawler, for example, President Trump has gone to Mike Lawler's district, campaigned with him. Mike Lawler was at the White House yesterday for the 9/11 memorial event.

Republicans say this is all about turnout. They say President Trump is their turnout machine, and they are really banking on turning out that low-propensity voter base that turns out in presidential elections for President Trump, but doesn't typically turn out in midterms.

But there is a flip side to that. And that is President Trump's approval ratings. He's at 32, 33 percent --

CORNISH: Right.

MANCHESTER: -- in a lot of polls.

CORNISH: Which is different than talking about negative partisanship, right?

MANCHESTER: Absolutely. Yes.

CORNISH: There's always been this claim with Trump that when he's on the ballot, yes, he drives up his core believers, but he also flips out the people who are against him.

You're talking about approval ratings being down overall. What difference can he make?

TIANA LOVE DOESCHER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, "THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Back in 2024, Ted Cruz performed about 6 percent lower than Donald Trump, right, in his Texas reelect. So, Donald Trump got an extra almost half a million voters in the state of Texas.

It's not a coincidence that this convention is in Texas, where you have Ken Paxton, a candidate where this race should not be close. James Talarico is not a moderate. He is not.

CORNISH: Yes. He is way less popular than Ted Cruz, which is not a sentence I thought I'd be saying about a Texas politician.

DOESCHER: No. Hey, look, I'm a Ted Cruz defender. I'm a Tea Party gal.

CORNISH: I'm just saying, Paxton, like, is not doing great.

DOESCHER: But Paxton -- Paxton -- So, what Paxton needs is he needs to be stapled into MAGA, right? There can be no daylight. Because you have to bring out that approval rating. Considering you have seen a modest reduction in Trump's approval among Hispanics.

And Hispanics are -- are some of Trump's core base, especially in that Rio Grande valley for Texas, support for Republicans.

There is a reason -- and it's not a bad one -- that you have candidates like Susan Collins staying away. And I think we're seeing this in the Republican fundraising strategy.

You have MAGA Inc. that's finally shelling out for Paxton. MAGA Inc., going for those right-wing candidates that need to get the low- propensity Trump base. And then the Senate leadership fund --

CORNISH: And this is the PAC controlled by the president.

DOESCHER: -- it goes to the more moderate.

CORNISH: It has 400 million.

ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Tia, respectfully, this shake-down crisis convention that you all are having, quite frankly, is a response to the fact that Trump's approval rating is lowest it's ever been before, perhaps than any other president. He's underwater on every single major issue you can think of.

This Labor Day weekend, gas for the first time in the history of this country, over $4 a gallon; diesel fuel up. Farmers are hurting. Working-class people have gotten a middle finger from your party that's in charge of everything.

So, I think this is, quite frankly, a way for the president to attempt to rehab himself.

However, however, however, you cannot run away from the fact that even people who voted for this president are feeling the residue from the lack of action and policy from him and MAGA Mike Johnson.

And so, as a result, Republicans are scrambling to try to figure out how do we save the day? And at the end of the day, he's the biggest liability Republicans have in this midterm election.

DOESCHER: I don't I don't think you're wrong to say that Republicans are coming from a defensive posture. The White House itself is saying inflation is not back down to the 2 percent benchmark. Right?

Affordability was a problem inherited from Joe Biden. But it is this administration's responsibility. But you can point out the Southern border was open, and now it is

closed. We are at a legal immigration of zero. We are deporting the criminals.

SEAWRIGHT: Except -- except -- I have -- have to stop you right there.

DOESCHER: We did pass One Big, Beautiful Bill. It's got tax cuts in it.

SEAWRIGHT: I have to -- immigration is bigger than the Southern border. And that's why the Republicans are underwater on the issue they have traditionally owned.

CORNISH: Let me tell you what some people are saying.

SEAWRIGHT: Particularly when it comes to ICE and all the other things that come along with immigration.

CORNISH: Brian Fitzpatrick, he's a Republican from Pennsylvania. He says, "Look, my bosses are back home. Times are tough. We need to be listening to everything they're saying about the struggles they're encountering. That's the way the system is supposed to work... not going to some convention center holding signs up."

MANCHESTER: Look, for Brian Fitzpatrick, he is from a district where, being a Republican, it's probably good if he's critical of President Trump.

In fact, if President Trump criticizes Brian Fitzpatrick, that's probably good for him, too.

I think, you know, from the House perspective, this depends district to district.

[06:20:04]

CORNISH: But I've heard some Republicans say, actually, it's good to be there. Mike Lawler, in fact, saying --

MANCHESTER: Yes.

CORNISH: -- it's good to be there. You get to hobnob with the donors. You get to network.

DOESCHER: Right.

CORNISH: Like, he was talking about another value.

This guy is saying there's no value. It's performative.

MANCHESTER: Right.

CORNISH: It's holding up signs. And I don't need to spend my time doing it.

DOESCHER: I mean, frankly, with regards to Fitzpatrick, your bosses may be back home, but your job is in Washington. And Republicans, really, who we should be the most mad at are, you know, Congress for wanting to leave town, for taking all this extra recess time.

SEAWRIGHT: You mean Mike Johnson's Congress. The Republicans are in charge.

DOESCHER: Sure, yes. I -- the one thing I wish, I wish Donald Trump would use the bully pulpit more to not just the SAVE America Act, but why aren't we doing another reconciliation bill to continue the work of One Big, Beautiful Bill?

SEAWRIGHT: That's because you have not done anything to do what you said you were going to do on day one. Lower the cost of living, deal with the affordability crisis, and quite frankly, not get into a war of choice that's causing our economy to fall.

CORNISH: Well, let me pause for just a second, because we are going to talk more about these issues. And frankly, this is what the midterms are about. This exact discussion, beat for beat.

I do want to turn to this, though. Twenty-five years on, schools struggle to teach about the attacks on September 11th to a generation that wasn't alive to see it. So, we want to talk about the risk of distorting history. And I'm going to talk to at least one educator, next.

Plus, the Trump administration drafting a plan to pay married, stay- at-home parents. Some people are calling it socialism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:46]

CORNISH: OK, for those of us who lived at the time of the September 11th attacks, it's a day that you can't forget: where you were, what you were doing.

But what does that day mean now for people who did not live through it?

According to U.S. census data, roughly one-third of the country is 25 years or younger, making that day a piece of distant history that they did not experience firsthand.

And it turns out states haven't really figured out exactly how to bring it up in school. So, the A.P. did an analysis. They found half of the states have laws or education standards that actually require or expect schools to teach students about the 9/11 attacks.

Another 13 have optional mentions, and then other states have laws maybe recommending an observance or a moment of silence. So, there's a patchwork of standards across at least 40 states.

So, we want to know how should you do this? How should teachers talk about this? And we are going to be bringing in Jennifer Lagasse. She is the

director of education programs at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum.

Thank you so much for being here.

JENNIFER LAGASSE, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS, NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 11TH MEMORIAL AND MUSEUM: Well, thank you for having me.

CORNISH: So, as I was looking through this research, I saw in Louisiana, there's a law creating a framework where schools are told to start mentioning 9/11 in lessons as young as second grade.

So, what is an age-appropriate way to introduce this history? What would that even sound like?

LAGASSE: Yes, and it is -- it's a fair question, because the hard thing about 9/11 is there isn't a single aspect of the story that's not complicated, not just intellectually, but emotionally.

So, for our youngest learners, an age-appropriate way to introduce the concept is just that they understand, maybe, what an emergency is. And, you know, an emergency when someone -- and that people needed help. And you can sort of look to the helpers.

So, the idea of thinking of September 11th as a day when many people were hurt and needed help, and looking at the actions of people that rushed to help others as that gentle way. And then you can take those concepts and level them up as the children age.

CORNISH: So, what are the materials that you're offering? I understand you guys have, like, a special kind of lesson plan. What's in it?

LAGASSE: Yes. So, so many things. And especially with the 25th. The amount of lessons we are trying to offer has expanded greatly, because we really are at this turning point where it's not just the children in the classrooms that don't have a lived memory. But now we have a young generation of teachers with no lived memory.

And I have to say, they are very sensitive to the fact that their colleagues might, and they really want to do the subject justice.

So, we have a range of lesson plans. One of our most common questions is what happened on 9/11? And we have interactive lesson plans on our website that use, for the youngest learners, storybooks and for older learners, video testimony from survivors and stakeholders, to really start with the facts of the day, make sure that they understand what happened, but then allow them to connect and realize that this history happened to people just like them.

Because I know it doesn't feel that long ago to those of us that lived it. But for our students, they have all of the distance of a historian when they're thinking about this.

I want to play a clip for folks just so they can get a sense of what you're talking about. Here's just a little bite of some of the materials from that curriculum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that was the first time I'd ever seen my mom cry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not one of us suffers without all of us suffering.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On the worst days, it brings out the best in people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And everybody just became such a true support system for us at the time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No matter what life throws at you, you have an opportunity, you know, to make the best of it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The saying is, it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. You have to look to the light.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's important to tell those stories and to make sure that people truly never forget.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I feel like the stakes are very high, because obviously, from where I'm sitting, I hear a lot of political chatter where people will just toss off the word "terrorism," talk about the 9/11 attacks, talk about conspiracy theories, talk about their theories about what's been learned or not learned.

And I think one of the things I'm struggling with as a parent is my kid is going to say, was going to hear the news. And they're going to go, why shouldn't the mayor go? Wait, what is terrorism? What happened that day?

And it's like question after question after question, you know? Like, how do you answer?