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RFK Jr.'s MAHA Plans?; Excerpts of Kamala Harris Book Released; Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 10, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news: a major provocation from Russia. Poland shoots down several Russian drones as they entered Polish airspace. And we have learned President Trump plans to speak with his Polish counterpart today.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Also, brand-new insight. We're getting our look at former presidential candidate Kamala Harris' new memoir, how she says a lack of support from President Biden's team ultimately impacted his decision to run for reelection.

Killed close to 100 people -- there's more news following on that.

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BLITZER: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: And we begin with the breaking news. CNN has learned that President Trump plans to speak with the Polish president later today after Russia's drone incursion into Poland overnight.

This morning, Poland says it was intentional, the 19 violations of Polish airspace were no accident.

BROWN: And now the country's prime minister warns that his nation is closer to war than at any time since World War II. This video you're seeing now is a home in Eastern Poland believed to have been heavily damaged by the debris from one of those intercepted drones. It's about 10 miles from the border with Ukraine.

And right here, this is new video of one of the drones that was taken down. This morning, the head of NATO says a military alliance has scrambled a number of jets to defend its member nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: Whether it was intentionally or not, it is absolutely reckless. It is absolutely dangerous. But, as I said, the full assessment is ongoing.

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BROWN: All right, let's go live now to CNN chief international security correspondent Nick Paton Walsh in London.

Nick, this is a significant development. What more are you learning?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, it is remarkable, unprecedented, frankly, to have NATO jets scrambled to defend their own airspace and to shoot down Russian aircraft.

In this case, we don't know the precise number of drones, but we do know that Poland is talking about 19 separate intrusions and seven drones being shot down. Now, that's important, because, as we were just hearing from NATO defense ministers and NATO officials, this will be the first time, certainly since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that they have had to act in this defensive way, shooting down Russian aircraft.

Now, we know that there has been civilian damage to homes in the border areas there in about three or four locations. We know that Polish airspace was shut as a result of this frantic scramble of F-35 jets, early warning aircraft, other assets to intercept these drones.

They have even closed one of the major airports of Warsaw. But we're hearing from the Russian Defense Ministry who were asked to respond to this or deferred to by the Kremlin that they weren't targeting Polish sites. Now, it's not the same as saying that didn't enter Polish airspace and asking for dialogue with Poland.

The issue of intentionality, well, the Polish are basically saying you don't make 19 separate intrusions by mistake. Russian ally Belarus is saying maybe there was a navigational problem, jamming or spoofing that may have caused the drones to lose their way. But, ultimately, as the Polish are saying, you don't make this mistake so many potential times.

A massive attack was ongoing inside Ukraine in its far west while this indeed occurred, 400 drones involved in that. So the question really here is what kind of response we may see from NATO. The U.K. defense minister just at his briefing I was just at called this new hostility from Vladimir Putin.

Ultimately, I think they're delicately balancing, being sure they have some kind of response. And they were clear -- the Polish defense minister was supposed to be alongside his five European -- four European counterparts, but urgently had to rush back to Poland -- that they bolster, Poland's defenses seem ready, but don't potentially provoke back Moscow.

Complex, though, the response from the White House here. Trump will be speaking to his Polish counterpart, but remember he has also promised after the violent attacks against the government sector in Kyiv at the weekend, a record drone assault there, that he would talk to Putin -- quote -- "very soon," that European leaders would come to Washington either Monday or Tuesday, passed yesterday.

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None of that has happened yet. Neither indeed have the sanctions he said he was ready to implement being implemented, so a lot resting now on the further response of NATO and the White House and this extraordinary change in the security of NATO's eastern flank, unprecedented moves there by Russian aircraft -- Pamela.

BROWN: Yes, it certainly is.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much.

And happening now, Israel is now facing global backlash over its attack on Hamas leadership in Qatar. That is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and a leading mediator in the Gaza cease-fire talks, or at least was a leading mediator. Qatar is condemning the strikes as -- quote -- "state terrorism."

President Trump says Israel notified him only when it was too late to tell Qatar before the attack happened.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect. And we got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy about the way that went down.

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BROWN: Two Israeli officials tell CNN that, since the incident, President Trump has spoken twice with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The airstrike killed six people, including five Hamas members. A senior Hamas official says there are no more talks taking place on a possible cease-fire in Gaza.

BLITZER: And joining us now is the CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk. He's the former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

Brett, thanks very much for coming in.

As you know, President Trump says the timing of this was horrible. He was notified, but it was way too late to inform Qatar, a key strategic ally of the United States before the attack happened. Do you buy that?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think there's more questions and answers about this strike yesterday.

Unprecedented is kind of overused. It's truly unprecedented, both what happened in Doha and the story out of Poland overnight, an overt operation, standoff strikes, military operation into an Arab capital that's aligned with the United States that was mediating these talks. Look, nobody sheds a tear for these Hamas leaders. Their days have been numbered since October 7, but you have to think about the time and manner of an operation like this.

And the question is, does this help get the hostages out of Gaza? And from what I'm seeing right now, it significantly sets back the efforts to get these hostages out and in the worst case could actually jeopardize their lives in those tunnels under Gaza. Their fate is unfortunately is the hands of these terrorists, Hamas.

So, a lot of questions about the efficacy of this operation. Unclear if it even succeeded, the timing, the manner, the notification, what you just mentioned. I think we will learn more here over the coming days.

BLITZER: Two Israeli sources are telling CNN that this attack by Israel was months in the making, but accelerated in recent weeks. And you had a chance to really assess Israel's actions. So why the attack now, when cease-fire talks had resumed over a possible U.S. framework for a deal that would result in a cease-fire and the return of Israeli hostages?

MCGURK: I have to say, Wolf, these talks have really been stalled to begin with. So I don't suggest there was any imminent breakthrough.

But the United States was trying to get them started again. True these operations take months to plan. But in a clandestine operation -- for example, last summer, the Israelis targeted the former political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. That was a clandestine operation, a Mossad operation. They actually didn't even claim credit for it for months.

Sometimes, you carry an operation like that because it's timing. You can -- everything lines up. But this was an overt military strike. I don't see why this had to take place yesterday. And the fallout is pretty serious.

Look, the leaders in the Gulf, nobody's going to shed a tear for these guys with Hamas, particularly the Saudis, the Emiratis. They're part of the Muslim Brotherhood, kind of mortal enemies of these states. But an overt military strike into a Gulf capital, that is a really -- that really crosses the line, sets a new precedent.

I know there is deep concern in Saudi Arabia and UAE about this. The leader of UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed, is in Qatar today. I think you will see more of that, showing solidarity with Qatar. So I just -- I don't get the strategic merit of this. I understand tactically all these leaders are dead men walking from Hamas. Definitely, their time is coming.

But you got to think about, before carrying an operation like this, what the strategic effects are. And the strategic effect here, the question is, does it help get the hostages home? And, right now, I think it significantly sets back that strategic aim.

BLITZER: You make good points.

I want to quickly turn to the issue of Poland right now, a key NATO ally. Overnight, it shot down seven Russian drones that violated its airspace. The Polish prime minister is saying the country is now closest to war ever since World War II. Do you agree?

MCGURK: Well, Wolf, you don't wake up every morning seeing a statement from the Dutch defense minister saying Dutch F-35s, as part of a NATO mission, were downing Russian drones over NATO airspace. Totally unprecedented.

Look, this is also a bit of a wakeup call. This drone warfare is what is coming. It is coming fast. Just for some numbers, the last six months of last year, Wolf, the Russians fired about 8,000 drones into Ukraine. The first six months of this year, the number is above 20,000.

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They are mass-producing these. The Iranians have transferred technology to Russia. This is coming at us fast. And the fact that we're using F-35s in NATO airspace to take down these Shahed drones -- we used to call them flying lawn mowers. We used to sometimes target our troops in Iraq and Syria. That is not a cost-effective way to get at this.

So we know Poland is now triggered Article 4 for immediate consultations in Brussels today. I think NATO really has to get serious about the defenses for drone warfare. This is what's coming.

BLITZER: Clearly, all of President Trump's efforts to reach out to Putin, the Russian leader, and to try to reach some sort of settlement, they have failed dramatically.

And the situation today is even worse than it was a few weeks and months ago.

MCGURK: The president, Wolf, likes to say that had he been president in 2022, this war never would have started. Can't prove or disprove that. I think it's probably dubious.

But one thing, we have some facts this year. The three largest attacks of the war from Russia have been between June and August, the largest attacks of the war.

BLITZER: Of this year.

MCGURK: Yes, these massive missile and drone swarms coming into Ukraine. So Putin is escalating. He's all in. He seems to be making a mockery of this diplomatic process. And I think it's time to recalculate.

BLITZER: We will see what happens.

Brett McGurk, as usual, thanks very much for coming in -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, still ahead, Wolf, former V.P., Kamala Harris isn't holding back, as we get new excerpts from her upcoming book, how she felt about the decisions that led her to running for president and how she could be viewing 2028.

BLITZER: Plus, the health secretary's new strategy for tackling chronic illness among America's children, we have new information.

Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BLITZER: All right, this is a new video just coming into CNN right now of Israeli airstrikes in Yemen. Take a look at this.

According to Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, he says the IDF, the Israel Defense Forces, struck in Sanaa and other locations in Yemen targeting the military camps manned by Houthi terrorists. The attack comes less than two weeks after Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed Rahawi and other senior Houthi officials were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Sanaa in Yemen.

We're watching these developments very closely. There have been Houthi airstrikes coming into Israel over these past several weeks. Sirens have gone out overnight in Israel because of these Houthi attacks. And now the Israelis are responding once again big time with these latest Israeli airstrikes in Yemen against these Houthi targets -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf, new this morning, Kamala Harris is criticizing her former boss President Biden and his White House staff.

In new excerpts from her upcoming memoir about the 2024 campaign, the former vice president says it was reckless that Biden was given the space to decide to run on his own.

Joining us now is CNN's Eva McKend.

Eva, this was really significant. You followed this campaign closely. Normally, Kamala Harris, as we saw then, was very guarded, but not from what we're reading in these new excerpts.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Right. This is revelatory.

She is a careful politician historically, but now she has the opportunity to give her say. I just got off the phone with a source close to her. And that shouldn't necessarily be read, the reckless quote, as criticism of President Biden, but really she wants to take ownership for not being more involved.

I'm going to read a quote from the book: "It's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have been left to an individual's ego and individual's ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision."

So now, in hindsight, wishing that she would have maybe stepped up and been a part of the conversation to litigate whether he should bow out and not run for a reelection. And then, Pam and Wolf, there's another part of this that I think is really important.

And she essentially argues that she did not feel protected in that White House, that she felt as though the Biden White House staff did not have her back, did not champion, elevate her or protect her from some of the negative stories that she got.

She says: "Their thinking was zero sum. If she's shining, he's dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well, that given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital. It would serve as a testament to his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that, if something happened, the country was in good hands. My success was important for him."

So, some candid insight there, I think really astounding. As the first black woman to become vice president of the United States, for her to be telling the world that she didn't feel supported is sort of a wow moment. And we're going to probably get a lot more of them as this book comes out and she goes on her first stop at the end of this month in New York.

BROWN: Have we heard from the Biden camp in response to this?

MCKEND: I don't believe so as yet, but some of my CNN colleagues are tracking that down.

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BROWN: All right, Eva McKend, thank you so much.

BLITZER: Appreciate it.

All right, I want to discuss right now more on this. CNN political commentator Jamal Simmons is joining us. He's a former communications director for then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Jamal, thanks very much for being here.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Wolf.

BLITZER: You just heard Eva McKend highlight another excerpt from this Kamala Harris book, where she describes the tensions with the Biden orbit, saying their thinking was zero sum. If she's shining, he's dimmed. Was that what you witnessed when you worked with the vice president?

SIMMONS: So, I didn't witness it in those stark terms.

Here's what I witnessed. I have been around for a long time, a little older than I look. I remember when Al Gore was vice president. There was a -- there's a certain way that presidents think about and White Houses think about the president. The president is the primary actor. Everybody is there to protect the president.

Now, at the same time, in the old days, with every other vice president, the vice president's job is to be sort of a backup singer while the president is out front. With Kamala Harris, she was a different kind of vice president.

And I just don't think this White House ever accommodated itself to understanding the specific and special role she played in American life and how her uniqueness, not being a Washington insider while the president was, being from California, we hadn't had in the Democratic Party anybody from the West Coast and so on, she was a really different kind of political force, as well as being an African- American woman with a very special relationship with the black community that's so important in the Democratic Party.

So I think the White House never accommodated itself to her special role and built a vice presidency that fit her. That I think was a fundamental problem. Their vice presidency fit people like Al Gore and Joe Biden and maybe even Mike Pence, but didn't fit somebody like Kamala Harris.

BLITZER: And, as you know, Jamal, then-Vice President Harris repeatedly always defended then President Joe Biden against claims he had declined mentally. But now she writes in her new book, and we just got this first excerpt, she writes he got -- quote -- "tired."

In retrospect, did the vice president play it too safe when it came to speaking out against the president and his team?

SIMMONS: The vice president's job is always very tricky. And she says it in the excerpt. Any time -- if she were to speak up and say maybe this isn't the right call, everyone would turn around and said, well, that's super interesting for the person who's next in line to think maybe the person who's first in line shouldn't be there.

So it's a very tricky role to be the person who's going to benefit from giving the advice that would have gotten the president to sit down. So I give her a lot of grace for having for taking that road in a very careful way to not raise additional suspicion.

BLITZER: You think Kamala Harris is potentially setting yourself up for yet another White House run with these latest remarks in this new book that's about to come out?

SIMMONS: I think the jury's out. When you talk to people who are still around the vice president, spending more time with her, I think she's focused on this book. She's been focused on her family, spending a lot of time in California with her great nieces that she loves dearly and with Doug, her -- obviously, the former second gentleman.

She's spending a lot of time there with friends. I think when we get past the 2026 election or at least get past this book tour, they will probably take another look at it again and then determine what the right course of action is to do. Right now, I think she's focused on moving these books.

BLITZER: Yes, she certainly is.

All right, Jamal Simmons, thank you very, very much.

SIMMONS: Thank you.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: All right, up next right here in THE SITUATION ROOM: He has promised to make the country healthy again, and now Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is revealing how he plans to do that, starting with children.

We will examine coming up.

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BROWN: Well, new this morning, the Trump administration is cracking down on pharmaceutical ads on TV and online. A new directive signed by the president looks to ramp up enforcement of current regulations for drug advertisements.

The administration also says it's writing new rules that could potentially curb drug-related ads altogether. Officials say these regulations will be aimed at closing a provision that has allowed drug companies for decades to include only a short overview of the drug side effects in their ads.

And, this morning, we are learning new details from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his strategy to make America healthy again. It comes nearly a week after facing off with both Democrat and Republican senators during a tense hearing on Capitol Hill.

CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell joins us now.

So, Meg, one thing this report says HHS plans to do is work on a new vaccine framework so the childhood vaccine schedule ensures -- quote -- "scientific and medical freedom." What does this mean?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, I mean, there's been a large focus on that idea from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and allies. When you think about Florida talking about getting rid of vaccine mandates, for example, that's an example of the medical freedom movement.

There is focus on vaccines in this Make Our Children Healthy Again strategy. And that is drawing some alarm from some public health experts. One initiative is a new program between the Department of Health and Human Services and the NIH to study vaccine injuries more.

Here is why RFK, Jr. said we need that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY NOMINEE: It's very important to have a post-licensing surveillance system, where you're going to see the vaccine injuries. Under the current system, most of those vaccine injuries will remain invisible and we will not be able to understand the risk profile of those products and do something about it.

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