CNN.com - Transcripts (2024)

[05:00:40]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, August 29.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

New polls show Kamala Harris in a dead heat with Donald Trump across the Sun Belt, making significant gains against President Biden's numbers ahead of his exit from the race.

Plus, --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are so confident in everything that you were doing and will continue to do for our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the ground trying to reach out to key voters in Georgia, as again, they hone in on the Sun Belt states where they're going to do their CNN interview tonight.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They wanted Donald Trump there and thank God that we have a president who stands with our veterans instead of one who runs away from 'em.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The Trump campaign on defense over the controversy at Arlington National Cemetery, shifting the blame or trying to shift the blame to the Biden-Harris White House.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: All right. Five a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the Capitol building on this Thursday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you

with us.

With just two months to go until the 2024 election tonight, right here on CNN, Kamala Harris will take part in her first major interviews since she ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America.

(CHEERS)

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HUNT: On the heels of the Democratic National Convention, Harris, alongside her vice presidential pick, Tim Walz, will sit down with CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, will be in the battleground state of Georgia.

Yesterday, Harris and Walz kicked off a bus tour in the Peach State, traveling through South Georgia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: You know, on election time, it's important to remind people that literally, this is the beauty of our country, and our democracy, everyone's vote actually matters, and we have to remind people of that. Don't listen to anyone who's suggesting otherwise. You never want to take yourself out of the game, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, of course, it's a state that Biden flipped in 2020. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock saw success during the 2022 runoff election. Democrats hoping to build on that. The Harris deputy campaign manager tells CNN, quote: It's a diverse coalition of voters, including rural, suburban, urban Georgians, a large population of African American voters that live there.

A new Fox poll shows us just how tight the race is in Georgia now. This is the way we frame it at CNN. We say there's no clear leader in a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump, but that is way different than the way it was when Biden was at the top of the ticket. We also see in this poll that is effectively tied right now in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina.

One area that Donald Trump was leading in was, of course, the economy. That's what they want to focus on, on the Trump-Vance side today, they're going to two other critical swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Joining me now, Washington reporter for New York 1, Kevin Frey and congressional reporter for "Politico", Ursula Perano.

Welcome to both of you. Thank you so much for being here this morning.

Kevin, let me start with you. I mean, basically, we're focusing in on the Sun Belt because if Kamala Harris can make some of those states competitive. She's going to open up new paths to 270 Electoral College votes because the Biden path was very limited, it ran through the blue wall, Pennsylvania, that one -- that one Electoral College vote in Omaha, Nebraska.

But if she can put Arizona on the map, if she can put Georgia potentially on the map, Nevada on the map, and I would say when I talk to sources in that order that they think she potentially could, what do you see in your reporting in terms of how she has changed the race at the top of the ticket and what she needs to do if she actually wants to put those states in play?

KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON REPORTER, NY1: Right. So I mean, this is kind of the question of can she re-litigate in some of these states that basically Barack Obama did very well in 2008? And so, the math that we've seen is that quite frankly, because she's now a top of the ticket, it has completely opened up this new potential avenue where she could maybe lose a blue wall state and still have Electoral College votes to spare.

And some of it comes down to, look, you're looking at some of these Sun Belt states where there's been a lot of net end migration. There's been a lot of movement in the states, big growth in some of those major cities in the suburbs around them.

[05:05:01]

And that opens up new opportunity.

We saw it in Atlanta. We saw it in Georgia in 2020. And now the question that some are looking at, for example, North Carolina, could you look at some of those votes where they haven't gone for Barack Obama since 2008?

The governor of that state last week told me on the convention floor that he's having that 2008 feeling now. That's obviously, you know, positive spin, but --

HUNT: Yes, everybody wants to be having the 2008 feeling I will say on the Democratic side.

FREY: They do want to have the 2008 feeling, but certainly, there's definitely the use the word of the day, the vibe that is heading in that direction.

HUNT: Ursula, what do you see here? I mean, let's -- let's put up Black voters across the Sun Belt in this -- in this poll, because you can see that Trump is at 19 percent among Black voters. This is, this is again across, it's Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina.

Seventy-nine percent of Black voters say they want to vote for Harris, 19 percent say for Trump. You can see it there. Smart strategists I've talked to say the over under here for Trump is 20 percent. If he is getting 20 percent with Black voters, it becomes very difficult to see how some of these states end up in play for Kamala Harris, 19 is just below that.

She really does need to be doing a little better than she is there. Can they get there?

URSULA PERANO, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: I mean, that's the difficulty of running a presidential race and literally three months which is so unusual. Usually, you have a year-and-a-half roughly give or take to play this out and --

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: Unusual, you mean unprecedented.

PERANO: Absolutely unprecedented, yes.

HUNT: Fair enough.

PERANO: No, she's got this momentum that she's obviously trying to pick up and we're seeing that in this polling here. We're seeing this excitement where Democrats are saying they've got that 2008 feeling. I've been hearing that from congressional Democrats over the last few weeks.

But whether its going to be able to hold until November and whether she's going to be able to hold off Trump from trickling back in with those critical groups for Democrats, including Black voters, is to be seen. I think things like the interview tonight are going to be a big test of whether she can hold her appeal and not lose this excitement thats become so signature to her bid right now.

And additionally, whether she defines maybe some of her more policy positions, that could be another tap into some of those demographics that she's hoping to increase turnout. We haven't heard a lot of specifics from her in policy yet. Again, it's a short campaign. She's getting a lot in very quickly, but it'll be interesting to see if that comes out.

HUNT: Yeah, Kevin, let's talk about the interview tonight, because this is a big high-stakes moment. It's always made more high-stakes by the fact that they waited as long as they did to do it. It's going to be a joint sit down. Republicans are -- have been critical of her for that.

But what does she need to do tonight beyond just not make a mistake?

FREY: Or -- I mean, you don't want to repeat of the Lester Holt interview that's now become so infamous, infamous for a few years ago.

I think you're very much correct. She needs to make the sort of policy in roads that might appeal to those voters that she seems to be hemorrhaging on where, for example, Black voters, what can she say to them? Maybe add a little more meat to the bone when it comes to some of the policies she's already fleshed out without offending someone along the way. And quite frankly, I mean, look, you just want to allow the vibe allow the excitement to continue without disrupting that. I mean, she's on a good trajectory right now. She's had an amazing month in terms of making sure that the enthusiasm is there. You just don't want to kill it when it's coming along so well.

HUNT: Right, one, Ursula, what role does the former president Donald Trump play here? Because we've obviously seen him struggle to stay on message and the way a lot of his supporters want him to.

Karl Rove put it this way: Mr. Trump is in a better position now than he was at this point in 2016 and 2020. But Ms. Harris is stronger than Mrs. Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Mr. Biden were. The former president will have to up his game.

And to this point, he's co-headlining a fundraise -- Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia is co headlining a fundraiser for the former president because apparently he was prompted to bury the hatchet there. That does seem to be a move in the right direction potentially, if you're the Trump campaign.

PERANO: Yeah, I think we are seeing Trump get a little antsy on the summer. He has been rather quiet throughout the Biden weeks whenever Republicans were hoping to run against Biden. But now that Harris has become the nominee, we're seeing him pop up a little more on Truth Social. We're seeing him target her a little more directly.

But at the end of the day, he is than his advisers are trying to push him to be a little more disciplines to not cause any chaos when it could be a direct juxtaposition to this sort of stability that Harris is trying to offer in this idea of we're not going back, we're going to be joyful, et cetera.

HUNT: All right. Kevin Frey, Ursula Perano, thank you very much for being here this morning. I really appreciate your time.

Don't forget tonight on CNN, so far, the most anticipated interview of this election season. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz will sit down with Dana Bash for the first interview. Harris and Walz, a CNN exclusive, that starts tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern.

And coming up right here on CNN THIS MORNING, Ukrainian officials set to make their push again on the U.S. to lift restrictions on American weapons in hopes of expanding there during offensive into Russia.

Plus, Kamala Harris is momentum showing up in Sun Belt states. We'll dig further into those inroads in Harris has made compared to where President Biden stood.

[05:10:07]

And the Trump campaign with harsh words as the controversy over his grave side photo off continues.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VANCE: If we're going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives, is that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up, she can -- she can go to hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[05:15:00]

HUNT: Two top Ukrainian officials preparing a list of potential targets inside Russia to present to the United States tomorrow. They want permission to strike and they need the Biden administration to lift restrictions on the use of long-range American weapons against Moscow.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the move is critical.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): We continue to insist that their determination now lifting the restrictions on long-range strikes for Ukraine, now, will help us to end the war, as soon as possible, in a fair way for Ukraine, and the world as a whole.

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HUNT: The request to ease restrictions on the use of long-range U.S. weapons comes after Ukraine launched a surprise offensive into Russian territory earlier this month. Ukraine is making the push now ahead of the November election because their leaders fear a Donald Trump victory could spell the end of U.S. support.

CNN's Max Foster joins us live now from London with more on this.

Max, good morning to you. What else do we know about what the Ukrainians want to do here? What's the target list and how far do they want to go?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDETN: We don't show the precise list. They have presented targets within Russia before to the U.S. but this seems like a more of a tailored list, if you like, perhaps to respond to some of the concerns in Washington about any sorts of attacks within Russia, and that leads to an escalation attention with Russia and the U.S. and NATO, for example.

And it's really, I think this is the West being spun by Ukraine is a large last-ditch effort really to convince the Americans that they should be able to use U.S. NATO weapons in order to attack targets within Russia.

So in many ways is seen by the Ukrainians are make or break, and it's another test really of how flexible Washington is on what were red lines that you shouldn't be going into Russia, you shouldn't be attacking within Russia as you that just be defending Ukraine. But as we've seen, Kasie, those red lines have moved and shifted as this war has gone on.

HUNT: So, Max, Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger was asked about this yesterday. She's also running for governor of Virginia. This how she frames -- she's Democrat. This is how she framed the question. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDSEO CLIP)

REP. ABIGAIL SPANBERGER (D-VA): So the ability of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian military to defend its citizens and its civilian populations is paramount. And so, during the conversations that are -- that are upcoming, I hope there will be clear delineation of what the purposes of the different requests that they might be making are, and the tactical and strategic plans that they are putting forth that that might require additional permissions in terms of the -- how it is that they're utilizing U.S. provided weapons.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Max, that's interesting to me because she's talking about and this is something you hear a lot from people who are skeptical of what the Ukrainians are doing. They want to -- they want a plan, right? They'll say we need to see a plan for this. We've been sending lots of money. We need you to tell us how you're actually going to do it.

Spanberger is a relatively moderate Democrat as things go, it seems to underscore to me why Zelenskyy is doing this now, because when they get farther in -- I mean, it's already a problem. Even if Kamala Harris were to win the election, there's still going to be a problem in Congress getting this money out the door. That has to factor in here, no?

FOSTER: Yeah, I mean, America has accepted that Ukraine has a right to defend itself. I think Ukraine is saying it can't defend itself just by battling within its own borders.

A good example is using U.S. defense -- missile defense systems. You know, we had this rain of missiles going across Ukraine over the weekend, didn't we? Or earlier this week, and Ukraine saying they couldn't defend themselves because they couldn't fire into Russian air space. They're firing too late in terms of defenses.

So that's one example. Maybe there would be some movement, perhaps they could argue to America that we need to go into Russian air space in order to defend ourselves. It's not an aggressive move into Russia per se, it's just about defense. I think that's where common ground can be.

But they have shown they can be aggressive in America allows him to do that by going into the Kursk region of Russia. So, we'll wait to see -- I mean, it's a really crucial meeting and it's a big test really of how America handles this and doesn't escalate things further. HUNT: Yeah, for sure.

All right. Max Foster for us this morning -- Max, very grateful to have you. Thank you so much.

All right. Coming up after the break here, new reporting on fake social media accounts and the impact that they're having on the presidential election.

Plus, Republicans targeting the daughter the judge in Trumps hush money trial with a subpoena. That and more coming up in the morning roundup.

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[05:24:25]

HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

A former Nevada politician sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an investigative reporter. Robert Telles waited at the home of Las Vegas reporter Jeff German in 2022 and stabbed him to death for writing critical articles about wrongdoing in his department. A jury found that the murder was deliberate and premeditated.

The Supreme Court declining to lift a block on President Biden's student loan repayment plan, which aims the cut monthly payments and speed the path to loan forgiveness. The White House responded that they will continue to defend the plan.

[05:25:02]

The decision has no impact on the 8 million people currently enrolled.

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan now targeting the daughter of the judge in Donald Trump's hush money trial. He's issued a subpoena for the company -- for the company that Judge Merchan's daughter runs, as Republicans say, her political work influenced the trial against Trump.

All right. Time now for weather. Apparently, the heat streak about to break in part of the country's -- parts of the country after several daily high temperature records were broken across the Eastern U.S. yesterday. Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam.

Derek, good morning. What do you got?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. Kasie.

You know, people in Boston and along the Eastern Seaboard are just jumping up for joy today, their first taste of fall and well call this false fall. We've probably heard that term before because what a difference a day makes. Yesterday, the mercury thermometer climbed to 91 in Boston. Today, your forecast high temperatures, 71, that's 20 degree temperature difference.

I'll take it. I love autumn. I love that first crisp morning. And this is it. So big difference for many locations, Philly, D.C., Pittsburgh, New York City, and Albany, not all super cool, but at least cooler than yesterday.

But we're talking about record highs the word breaking the triple- digit mark in the nations capital, try to knew that 100 degrees this as well. So there's still some areas of warmth across parts of the Carolinas, into Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and into the Ohio River Valley.

But will soon say goodbye to that as well as we head into the early parts of Labor Day weekend, it's this cold front that brought the relief a few showers and storms to start off the weekend along the East Coast, then another reinforcing shot of cooler air starts to settle in across the upper Midwest.

So you're going to see the oranges replaced with more blues. And that is just the general trend as we head into Labor Day, which is, of course, on Monday.

So the overall for the afternoon today, cooler air, hot across the south and a few showers and thunderstorms across the nation's midsection. Everybody planning their weekend around the whether we want to get one last taste of summer. And I think you'll get it here in Chicago, Atlanta, all the way to Miami and Dallas -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Derek Van Dam for us this morning -- Derek, always grateful to see you. Thank you so much.

Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING:

The Trump campaign pushing back on reports of an incident at Arlington National Cemetery, why some are accusing Trump officials for breaking the law during his visit this week.

Plus, new polling battleground states shows a race dramatically reshaped with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: Is it a good idea to give Kamala Harris that promotion?

CROWD: No.

VANCE: No, we're going to do what Donald Trump loves to do to people who don't do their jobs. You are fired Kamala Harris. You're out of there. It's done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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