Searing Temperatures Over 40 Celsius Across U.S.; Live Coverage of President Trump's Press Conference; Iran Seizes Tanker in Strait of Hormuz
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR, HALA GORANI TONIGHT: Welcome to the show. We begin with some breaking news, as U.S. President Donald Trump is speaking alongside the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte. Let's listen in.</s>MARK RUTTE, PRIME MINISTER OF THE NETHERLANDS: You're</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, we're working --</s>RUTTE: -- so we have to bring that level up too.</s>TRUMP: -- we'll work on that.</s>RUTTE: Absolutely.</s>TRUMP: So thank you very much for being here.</s>RUTTE: Absolutely.</s>TRUMP: Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much.</s>TRUMP: Steve (ph)?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- sanctions on Turkey. Have you ruled out sanctions on Turkey --</s>CROSSTALK) TRUMP: We're looking at it. Very, very difficult situation for a lot of reasons. Things could have been done better in the previous administration. The previous administration made some very big mistakes with regard to Turkey. And it was too bad. So we're looking at it, we'll see what we do. We haven't announced that yet.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, could I just ask a follow-up question? What would your message be to your supporters who were making that chant and would you...</s>TRUMP: Well, these are people that love our country. I want them to keep loving our country. And I think the congresswomen, by the way, should be more positive than they are. The congresswomen have a lot of problems. When you look at the statements they made that were so bad and so horrible to our country, you look at what they said, John (ph), what they said was something that is -- it's hard to believe that they could make statements like that. And I could go page over page over page, many, many statements, whether it's about us, whether it's about Israel, whether it's about the World Trade Center and all of the different things that were said, it was a very terrible thing. I'm not happy about -- when I hear a chant like that. And I've said that and I've said it very strongly. But I will tell you, the congressmen and women also have a big obligation in this country and in every country, frankly. But they have a big obligation. And the obligation is to -- to love your country. There's such hatred. They have such hatred. I've seen statements that they made with such hatred toward our country. And I don't think that's a good thing. They should embrace our country. They should love our country. And things would be a lot better. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.</s>TRUMP: What?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: With the Pentagon -- with the Pentagon's JEDI contract, is there any chance that you might intervene in that contract, in that...</s>TRUMP: Which one is that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... it's the Pentagon's...</s>TRUMP: The Amazon?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct. Amazon and Microsoft...</s>TRUMP: So I'm getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon. They're saying it wasn't competitively bid. This is going on for a long time, I guess probably before this administration. And we're looking at it every seriously. It's a very big contract, one of the biggest ever given, having to do with the cloud and having to do with a lot of other things. And we're getting tremendous -- really, complaints from other companies and from great companies, some of the greatest companies in the world are complaining about it, having to do with Amazon and the Department of Defense. And I will be asking them to look at it very closely to see what's going on because I have had very few things where there's been such complaining. Not only complaining from the media -- or at least asking questions about it from the media -- but complaining from different companies like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM. Great companies are complaining about it. So we're going to take a look at it. We'll take a very strong look at it. Thank you very much, everybody.</s>NOBILO: You've just been hearing, there, from the U.S. president, who was speaking to Mark Rutte in the White House. Well, we want to take you back to last night. So to remind you, it began with a racist tweet. And it turned into a rallying cry. We begin with outrage over a scene at a Trump rally that critics are calling ugly and dangerous. Some are even warning the soul of America could be at stake. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke a short time ago at a White House event, distancing himself from what happened last night in North Carolina. He says that he was, quote, "Not happy" that his supporters chanted, "Send her back," after he riled them up with attacks on a Somali-American congresswoman. Here's what he said when a reporter asked why he didn't silence the crowd.</s>TRUMP: I think I did. I started speaking very quickly. It really was a loud -- I disagreed with it, by the way. But it was quite a chant. And I felt a little bit badly about it. But I will say this. I did -- and I started speaking very quickly.</s>NOBILO: Well, you can judge for yourself, whether or not he tried to stop the crowd or seemed unhappy with their outcry. Take a look.</s>TRUMP: And obviously, and importantly, Omar has a history of launching vicious anti-Semitic screeds.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!</s>NOBILO: Our White House reporter, Stephen Collinson, calls it, "a moment of unrestrained demagoguery." He joins us now, live from Washington. Stephen, you have covered at least five presidential campaigns, I think. I'd like to know your take on what you saw at that rally last night. What did you gauge from the president's reaction? And how far does this depart from any other presidential rallies and performances that we've seen in the past?</s>STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I think it's stepped up a notch from the 2016 campaign. We saw, there, Donald Trump holding these big rallies, engaging in demagogic behaviors, stoking up his crowds. And then stepping back while they, for instance, demanded that one of his opponents, Hillary Clinton, be locked up. This went a step further because it introduced the racial themes that the president has been pressing over the last four days, into that febrile atmosphere of a crowd. And it was an ugly scene. Now, you saw that tape. It's not credible for the president to claim that he was upset about this chant. He clearly waited more than 10 seconds, let it ring out. We've seen him do that before in other rallies with other chants. And for him to now come back and say, "Well, I disavow that," I mean, it's not credible. He's spent the last four days, saying that these congresswomen and Ilhan Omar specifically, do not love their country and they should leave if they don't like it. The weekend, he tweeted, "They should go back," in quotes, to where they come from, even though they're all Americans. So the reason he's pulling back is because there was some backlash in the Republican Party. But the impact and the effect of that chant, the political effect, he's got that and that's something that's going to reverberate through the rest of this campaign.</s>NOBILO: Thanks, Stephen. And speaking of that response from some members of the Republican Party, some Republican lawmakers are criticizing the crowd's chant, while one who recently left the party warns, quote, "This is how history's worst episodes begin." But many Republicans are choosing to remain silent. Our Manu Raju tried to chase down some reaction from Senator Ted Cruz. Take a look.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- you may faint with surprise. You know --</s>MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Senator Cruz? Senator Cruz? Senator Cruz, are you OK? Are you OK with the president, those chants at the Trump rally last night, saying, "Send her back"?</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I'm not interested in giving running color commentary.</s>NOBILO: Let's get some perspective, now, from our CNN political commentator, Van Jones. He's the host of "THE VAN JONES SHOW" here on CNN. It's great to have you on the program. Thanks for being with us.</s>VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Glad to be here.</s>NOBILO: Let's get into the most tangible impact that hearing the president of the United States, being present and not outright condemning this kind of chanting, might have, Van. What concerns you the most about the ripple effects and the immediate impact of this kind of scene being broadcast everywhere?</s>JONES: One thing people may not understand is that already, Ilhan Omar is subject to almost daily death threats. There have already been, I believe, two people who have been convicted for trying to -- for making threats on her life. She is one of the most vulnerable people in our country because of the level of hatred that right-wing media has flipped (ph) up against her. But to see a president of the United States stand -- the most powerful man in the world, standing, surrounding by tens of thousands of people, and for them to unleash that chant against an individual American citizen and lawmaker, "Send her back, send her back." I mean, I felt like I was being kicked in the stomach. I think people across the country were shocked and felt revulsion. This is a very dangerous slope that we're headed down. The president of the United States actually has a record to run on that does not require him to attack people of color, or to single out these women. The economy is strong, you could talk about that. He's done stuff on criminal justice, on addiction and other stuff. He could run a positive campaign. Instead, we are in danger, now, of the president of the United States either wittingly or unwittingly unleashing some kind of a white nationalist, white nativist jihad inside of our country. And he's got to pull back. I was glad, today, that he began to pull back. But this, he is playing with the kind of fire that not only have countries been hurt by, but, you know, almost every individual person who's a person of color in this country, victimized by a hate crime, one of the things that is in their repertoire is, "You should go back to your country." That's right before the punch is thrown. Right before the shot is -- rings out. And so this is very dangerous rhetoric and I'm glad he's pulling back from it.</s>NOBILO: And, Van, why is it that the president is tempted towards not outright condemning this kind of behavior quickly, or even indulging it for one moment? As you point out, there are positive aspects to his record, which he could be running on and emphasizing. What is it about his base, about how he perceives his audience or about the current state of America, that incentivized the president of the United States to occupy this kind of territory and this kind of rhetoric?</s>JONES: The Trump coalition is a complex coalition. It includes people who are, you know, completely honorable, decent people. Business owners, corporate leaders, faith leaders. But they are -- they've allowed their coalition to be marbled through with some of the most disgusting, despicable characters and ideas in the country. And for whatever reason, this president has decided that that nasty core is key for him. He's got to keep feeding that thing, the red meat, keeping them excited because I think he feels he can't win without them. I honestly don't think that if you look at where the country is right now, economically and otherwise, he has to do that. I mean, I would be more afraid as a Democrat if he just ran a straightforward campaign on his achievements and accomplishments. And it's very hard to un-elect a president in this country, as you know. W was re-elected, Obama was re-elected, Clinton was re-elected. So they tend to get re-elected. When you got an economy like this, why do you have to go and scrape the bottom of the barrel and come up with the splinters, and put that at the center of your campaign? It is bewildering to anybody who's watching this, but it's very dangerous.</s>NOBILO: Van, I'm speaking to you from London where, next week, in all likelihood according to polls, Boris Johnson will become the next prime minister. He's been under fire for making comments that have been racist about Muslim women wearing burqas, looking like letterboxes, saying things which are derogatory and racist about people from commonwealth countries. There's obviously Brexit, which was focused mainly around the arguments about immigration from other countries into the United Kingdom. How concerned are you that if the leader of the United States is taking this kind of tone, that it's having a ripple effect worldwide, upon other countries, and normalizing this rhetoric or facilitating leaders occupying positions of power who ordinarily wouldn't be able to do that?</s>JONES: Well, I mean, it's not a fear, it's a fact. I mean, that's happening around the world. Throughout the West, you see these nativist, populist parties rising up, leaders. And then even in the Philippines and other places, people kind of --</s>NOBILO: Yes.</s>JONES: -- mimicking the Donald Trump approach. What's so amazing, though, is that even Boris said this was too far. Even he took a step back and said, "Hey, you can't do this kind of stuff." And so -- but maybe if Trump keeps moving the goalposts, others will continue to follow. But we -- listen, throughout the West, we have a crisis now. I think some of the demographic changes, the technological changes are putting stress and pressure on our societies. And the question is, are we going to turn to each other or on each other? Are we going to say, "Listen, yes, we're going to have, you know, more babies from other countries possibly, we may have other people, you know, praying with -- in different ways. But, jeez, these people could be amazing. They could bring great ideas and vitality. Let's figure out some way to all work together." Or we could turn against each other. And that is the -- the choice every country, now, is going to be faced with. And we'll be faced with that choice in 18 months in the United States of America.</s>NOBILO: Indeed. Van Jones, thank you very much for joining us on the program tonight.</s>JONES: Thank you.</s>NOBILO: Now, to escalating tensions in the Middle East. We're just getting new video purporting to show the seizure of an oil tanker by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is claiming that the seized tanker, which had 12 people on board, was carrying 1 million liters of smuggled fuel. It's just the latest in a series of maritime episodes involving Iran, as the world closely watches these waterways. CNN's been granted incredibly rare access to a U.S. patrol ship in the Persian Gulf, the USS Boxer. We have our team covering this for you. Frederik Pleitgen is in Bonn, Germany. But we begin with Sam Kiley in Abu Dhabi, who's back from being embedded on the USS Boxer. Before we get to all that, Sam, we're hearing that a U.S. sailor is missing after going overboard a U.S. carrier. What can you tell us about that?</s>SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the carrier group has launched a search for this seaman who fell overboard from the Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln, of course, brought in earlier this year to augment the forces already in the gulf with regard to Iran. But this is a human tragedy. The name is, of course, being withheld until his family have been informed, and they're -- the whole (ph) flotilla, a number of ships, are now looking for the unfortunate sailor who went overboard in the Gulf of Oman. I was just south of that location in the Arabian Sea with the USS Boxer, another major ship of the line in the arsenal of the United States, as it was preparing to transit through the Straits of Hormuz, a transit that it has now completed. But it was a fascinating time and this is my report.</s>KILEY (voice-over): It's all entirely routine, until it's not. A U.S. Marine expeditionary force at the ready, while world leaders wrestle with a tangled (ph) question, what to do about Iran. At the center of events, the USS Boxer, on its way to the already-tense Straits of Hormuz.</s>CAPTAIN RONALD DOWDELL, COMMANDING OFFICER, USS BOXER: Anything that's asked of us, that can make the situation, the geopolitical situation, more stable, they're chomping at the bit to kind of get after it.</s>KILEY (voice-over): The U.S. has blamed Iran for alleged mine attacks on six oil tankers in this region, this year. Iran denies responsibility, but is furious at the U.S. withdrawal from a deal to lift sanctions in return for suspending its nuclear program. In June, President Trump called off air strikes in retaliation for the downing of a drone by Iran over the Straits of Hormuz.</s>KILEY: The USS Boxer is technically an amphibious assault ship. What that really means is that it's an aircraft carrier packed with U.S. Marines, a means by which the United States can project real muscle, real power, sending an unmistakable signal in this region right now.</s>KILEY (voice-over): And a routine transit to protect shipping lanes through the straits, that brings a ship this size, carrying 1,500 Marines within the sight of Iran's coast, will inevitably be seen as provocative in Tehran. A small error as the Boxer threads through the straits could spell disaster.</s>KILEY: When these sorts of operations are going on, I mean, there is a potential for a strategic effect from a small error.</s>BRIGADIER GENERAL MATTHEW G. TROLLINGER, COMMANDER, TASK FORCE 51/5:: : That's absolutely accurate. And all of the training that we do, all the education that we do is the express purpose of getting after that.</s>KILEY (voice-over): Iran's leaders say they want to keep the nuclear deal alive, and the U.S. to end trade sanctions that are crippling its economy. They see the U.S. presence here as potentially explosive.</s>MOHAMMAD JAVAD ZARIF, FOREIGN MINISTER OF IRAN: The United States is intervening in order to make these waters insecure for Iran. You cannot make these waters insecure for one country and secure for others. You cannot simply disregard a possibility of a disaster. But we all need to work in order to avoid one.</s>KILEY (voice-over): The Boxer's flotilla got through the straits without a hitch, its air squadron keeping watch overhead, has a nickname that, coincidentally, reveals how Iran and the U.S. see each other: "Evil eyes."</s>KILEY: Now, Bianca, this region, though that passage went off peacefully, does remain incendiary. And every small development now seems to have geopolitical consequences -- Bianca.</s>NOBILO: Thanks, Sam. Fred, let's go to you. Last time I spoke to you, you were in Tehran. You obviously spent a lot of time there. Based on what Sam just said in his embed with this huge amphibious assault vessel and its flotilla, how is the presence of something like that being received by Iran? And also to where you are right now, how is Europe trying to --</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT:  YES. NOBILO: -- respond to these rising tensions?</s>PLEITGEN: Well, I would certainly say, Bianca, that the USS Boxer, going through the Strait of Hormuz and going there, into the Persian Gulf, will be seen as a provocation by the Iranians, especially at this, of course, very tense period of time between the U.S. and Iran in that specific area. It's quite interesting, though, because over the past couple months, I've been speaking to a lot of members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is, of course, the unit that has the Navy that's first and foremost responsible for projecting Iranian power in that region. And they've been telling me, quite frankly, look, they've had aircraft carriers pass through the Strait of Hormuz in the past before. It's not something that is happening for the first time. So certainly, the Iranians do have a little bit of experience with all this. But on the other hand, if you see some of the things that the Iranians have been doing over the past couple of years, some of the military maneuvers, for instance, they've been conducting, where they've hit mock-up versions of American aircraft carriers with bombs and rockets, then certainly you could see that this is something that the Iranians would see as a provocation. At the same time, of course, you do have the international community that is trying to react to this very specific situation. Of course, we've been talking about the fact, Bianca, that the Iranians now, apparently, have taken control of a tanker, there in their territorial waters. Very interesting to see some of the things that the Iranians have been saying about that. Because they seem to be indicating that taking that tanker ship has nothing to do with trying to sow instability in the Strait of Hormuz. They say that ship was smuggling fuel from Iran. They say it was taking on fuel from Iranian dowels (ph), that they believe it was then trying to sell it somewhere else. Now, the Americans have condemned the fact that this happened. They say the Iranians are making things more insecure there. But then -- and that's where we get to Bonn, where I am right now. Because I did ask the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and also the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, how they felt about this recent incident. Neither of them wanted to comment about this incident in particular, but both said that they had had extensive talks about the situation in Iran, and that they had extensive talks also specifically about the situation in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Persian Gulf. And it's no secret that they don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on this. The Germans, a little more critical of the Iranians, saying they need to do their part to make sure things are secure there as well. The Russians, for their part, of course, full-on on the Iranian side, saying they believe that it is America that's sowing instability by, for instance, some of the things that Sam has been witnessing there, with the USS Boxer going there, through the Strait of Hormuz and in to the Persian Gulf -- Bianca.</s>NOBILO: Fred Pleitgen in Bonn and Sam Kiley in Abu Dhabi, thank you both for giving us the American, the European and Iranian perspectives. Appreciate it. Still to come tonight, stirring images of anger and defiance from Puerto Rico, all of it started by some leaked chat messages. A live report in just a moment.