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Secret Service Chief Expected To Acknowledge Agency "Failed"; Harris Vows To "Earn And Win" Nomination; World Leaders Praise Biden After He Exits Race. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 22, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:14]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the U.S. Secret Service steps into a glaring spotlight as the director of the agency is heading to Capitol Hill. The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, is preparing to testify before a House committee and is expected to tell lawmakers, "we failed."

This is her first testimony since a would-be assassin fired multiple shots at Donald Trump at his Pennsylvania rally on July 13, killing one man.

CNN's Evan Perez is tracking all of this for us. He's joining us now. Evan, what more are you learning about what Kimberly Cheatle is expected to say?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we expect that the Secret Service director is going to be at this hearing answering questions for six hours today. And this is the first time she's appearing before Congress. And meaningfully, I think for everyone who has been following the failures on the July 13, she is going to acknowledge for the first time that the Secret Service failed that day.

I'll read you just a part of here prepared remarks, which we obtained ahead of time. "The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders. On July 13th, we failed." She says, "As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse."

And look, just in the past week, we've learned so, so much about what happened that day. We know that the gunman -- it looks like -- you know, according to the investigation, had been preparing for this event for about a week. We also know that there were failures in sort of anticipating -- sort of imagining the vulnerabilities at the -- of the former president at that outdoor rally.

They failed to secure a rooftop of a building that is just outside the security perimeter, so she's going to be facing questions about that. About the number of assets. About where they posted people, including local law enforcement. We also know that the Trump team was not informed ahead of time that they were searching for someone who local police had spotted -- someone with a range finder. And they were looking for him for about 19 minutes. And the former president was still allowed to get on that stage while law enforcement was scrambling to try to find who -- what this -- what became -- obviously, the would-be assassin -- the attempted assassin.

So those are the questions you expect that the Secret Service is going to be facing for the next four -- sorry, six hours or so --

BOLDUAN: Wow.

PEREZ: -- once she does take the stand before the Homeland Security Committee -- I'm sorry, the Oversight Committee in the House -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, six hours -- wow.

All right, Evan, a lot to come. That hearing is going to start this morning. Evan's watching it for us. Thank you so much -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

So this morning, Republicans -- they're trying to make hay out of President Biden's announcement to leave the presidential race. Multiple House members are now calling for Biden to resign the presidency effective immediately, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.

CNN's Lauren Fox is with us this morning. So what's the latest, Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Republicans are really seizing on this moment arguing that if President Biden can't run for re-election then perhaps he should not remain in the Oval Office. You are hearing that directly from Speaker Mike Johnson who released a statement yesterday saying, "If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately."

You also have other Republicans looking to take action against the president. Rep. Nancy Mace, of South Carolina, writing yesterday on Twitter, "If Joe Biden does not have the cognitive ability to seek re- election, he does not have the cognitive ability to serve the remainder of his term. Tomorrow I will introduce a resolution calling on Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment and assume the duties of acting president."

[07:35:04]

Of course, the 25th Amendment would allow her to seize those powers.

But I just want to point out here that this is an argument that Republicans have been talking about making for the last several weeks. This is an argument that Republicans had been kind of quietly having conversations about for the last several days as they were waiting to see what, if anything, Joe Biden would do when it came to the decision to run for re-election. And it's something, obviously, Republicans were waiting for. Of course, they have very little power given the fact that they do only control one part of Congress, the House of Representatives -- John.

BERMAN: And, as well, there's no requirement that a president seek re-election. You're not automatically kicked out of office if you're not seeking re-election.

Lauren, what are Democrats on Capitol Hill saying this morning?

FOX: Yeah. I mean, very swiftly, last night, Democrats started moving to support Kamala Harris for this ticket. And they were really arguing that at this moment -- and this is something I've been hearing for days, John, leading into this announcement yesterday -- that they are ready to put fighting among Democrats aside. To unify as a party. To go into the Democratic Convention unified.

There are some voices who have yet to come out supporting Kamala Harris -- name among them, obviously, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate.

But as our colleague Dana Bash was reporting yesterday, part of that is because they want to give their membership and voters time to understand and to coalesce around Harris on their own. They don't want to be seen as forcing her as the heir apparent -- instead, arguing that she should be earning it, in part, because they want voters to feel very good about it going into November, and they want their members to feel really good about it.

But so many statements -- dozens of them coming in yesterday with Democrats saying they are ready to get behind Harris right now -- John.

BERMAN: Look, one thing that interesting after a couple of weeks of Democrats basically going dark and not wanting to talk to anybody. Yesterday, after about 1:30, there were Democrats falling out of the trees wanting to talk to you and talk about how they felt about the current situation.

Lauren Fox, great to see you. A lot of work to be done up there. Thanks -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Following on that, CNN has identified more than 500 endorsements for Vice President Kamala Harris from Democratic delegates. But some party leaders haven't gone that far.

Former President Obama said, in part, the Democratic Party "...will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead." He said he has extraordinary confidence that the party "will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges."

Here to discuss, Natasha Alford, senior correspondent for TheGrio. That's not me. But this is Democratic strategist -- and there's Natasha. And here's Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky. We're getting it straight. It's been an exciting morning, a chaotic morning -- all the things.

You know, John just alluded to this. For a few weeks now, Democrats have been wah-wah. And suddenly, you're seeing -- there was consternation, but excitement around all of this. You can feel it.

So I do want to get to the issue of delegates and how this works. I will talk to you first, Julie. How the heck do the delegates work when it comes to this? Because it's not guaranteed, right, that they are going to fall in line and stand behind Harris.

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: No, they're pledged to Joe Biden. But now that he's not in the race they could do whatever they want.

But look, the reality is these are not just random people who just showed up to become delegates. They're typically party insiders. They're typically people who are connected to either their governor or their congressperson or their senator, or people who are just very actively involved in their state politics and their federal politics.

And so, these are people who are going to -- they're not going to fall in line, but they understand the mission. They understand the assignment. They know what's at stake. And what's at stake right now is a unified party that has to be laser-focused -- and I mean laser- focused in this very short time -- in defeating Donald Trump. They now understand the assignment because they've been in politics a long time -- most of these delegates. They understand.

SIDNER: There is a very short amount of time. We're talking just a few months before the election. But you have to make sure that the names get on the ballots. I mean, there's a whole other trickle of things that has to happen.

I want to talk to you about endorsements. We saw President Biden and former President Clinton --

NATASHA ALFORD, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, THEGRIO, AUTHOR, "AMERICA NEGRA": Um-hum.

SIDNER: -- endorse Kamala Harris. Of course, President Biden endorsing Kamala Harris.

President Obama didn't. He didn't go that far. But to be fair, he sort of took the same stance when it was Sanders and Biden going at it.

ALFORD: That's right.

SIDNER: What do we -- is there anything to read into this?

ALFORD: I think he's always been seen as very strategic in terms of not wanting to allow his presidential influence to sway anything just yet.

I think this is a very careful situation, right? We know that Nancy Pelosi has signaled that she wants an open nomination process. They want this to be a situation where Kamala Harris has earned this moment. And, of course, her supporters believe she's earned it. Joe Biden says that she's earned it. But the appearance -- the optics of it is just as important as whether she's actually qualified.

[07:40:07]

So perhaps he's waiting to weigh in. We know that there are people who have critiqued him for not doing so in this moment, but there is -- I think there's a strategy behind the waiting.

SIDNER: We're in such a different moment though. This is a very different --

ALFORD: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- moment than anything that we have, in our lifetimes --

ALFORD: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- because we're so young, have seen.

ALFORD: Yes.

SIDNER: You know what I mean?

So in this -- in this moment, that is going to be one of the criticisms that you hear from Republicans. They've already started in on this. It's like, oh, the Democrats are crowning someone, and we let the voters decide or the delegates decide who gets to be the next nominee.

How do you deal with this?

ROGINSKY: Well look, I voted in the Democratic primary. I voted for Biden-Harris. I didn't vote just for Joe Biden. And I understood when voting for Biden-Harris that if he were unable to serve or he stepped aside, Kamala Harris was next up. She was next up, right?

So this whole notion of somehow that she's been --

SIDNER: She's the ticket.

ROGINSKY: -- coronated -- I voted for her.

SIDNER: Um, yeah.

ROGINSKY: And so did everybody else voted. Well, I wouldn't say everybody else but, sort of, the vast majority of Democrats voting in every primary in the state. And so -- in the country, excuse me. So this whole notion of somehow that she's getting coronated -- she's not. He stepped down. She's the person --

SIDNER: She's on the ticket.

ROGINSKY: She's on the ticket and she's who is stepping up, and that's the short and simple answer. It also happens to have the benefit of the truth. So I understand -- listen, I get what the Republicans are doing.

They're scrambling. This was not the election they planned for. They thought they had a glide path because of Joe Biden. They really didn't believe he was ever going to get out because somebody like Donald Trump would never give up power --

SIDNER: True.

ROGINSKY: -- voluntarily.

Look, the guy had to be essentially -- he sicced an entire movement on Congress to prevent the transfer of power. So he'd never --

SIDNER: You're talking about the Stop the Steal movement.

ROGINSKY: Of course. So he'd never understand that somebody would voluntarily step aside, so they didn't anticipate this happening. It happened and she's the person who is next in line and that's why she's most likely going to be the Democratic nominee.

ALFORD: And the energy is there.

ROGINSKY: Right.

SIDNER: Yeah.

ALFORD: A Zoom call --

SIDNER: Yeah.

ALFORD: -- with 44,000 Black women. At least 44,000. It was organized by Win With Black Women. But people who got on a phone on a Saturday night before Monday to organize -- $1.5 million raised just from that community, let alone the $50 million that was raised through ActBlue.

So all of a sudden, it's like this power -- this excitement has been unleashed and they're saying let her lead, right? Kamala Harris had moments where her strengths were on display, and they should have been on display from day one of her becoming vice president. But now, this is a time for her to really shine.

SIDNER: I want to ask you about who might be the vice president -- in the position she's in now. Let's put up the pictures of those. Jamie Gangel had some great reporting this morning showing the four people that probably are the ones that are really being looked at closely. Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona; Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky; Roy Cooper, North Carolina; and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

In -- I see in one of these -- you know, the Senate is very close between Democrats and Republicans, but when you look at that list of people, what -- who do you think might be the person that would ascend?

ALFORD: Well, Roy Cooper, being in a state like North Carolina, right -- this very important swing state -- a purple state. He's never lost an election. The fact that he and Kamala Harris have a relationship for decades and she was just in North Carolina stumping with him right there. I mean, those are the types of relationships that you can build on. So I think that there's something to look at there.

SIDNER: Go ahead.

ROGINSKY: Yeah, and I think that's absolutely right.

Look, I mean, somebody like a Josh Shapiro would be seismic in the sense that he's young. He's from Pennsylvania. And it would instantaneously flip the script to say look at Donald Trump. He's quite old.

SIDNER: Right, and we think he's too young.

ROGINSKY: And here you have a very young ticket, right?

Mark Kelly is a -- is a military hero, an astronaut -- obviously, married to woman who was a high-profile survivor of a shooting. So he obviously can talk about issues that are important to the Democratic base.

SIDNER: But you also have the numbers --

ROGINSKY: And the numbers.

SIDNER: Yeah.

ROGINSKY: Yeah.

SIDNER: The count. So --

ROGINSKY: Right.

SIDNER: -- you know. I'm sure all of these things are being thought about it.

I do want to ask you lastly -- Joe Manchin was on our air talking to Kasie Hunt and he made this strange, like, is he going to jump in the race or not going to jump in the race. It was a -- it was a little confusing. So, just curious what you think about him suddenly popping up and saying "I'm going through the process" whatever that is.

ALFORD: Well, first --

ROGINSKY: God grant me the confidence of a Joe Manchin. Here's a --

ALFORD: Right.

ROGINSKY: Here's a guy who has trashed the Democratic Party repeatedly.

SIDNER: Left the Democratic Party.

ROGINSKY: Left the Democratic Party and now says oh, wait a second, I want your support. I mean, listen, it's a free country. He's over 35. He's an American-born citizen. He can run -- constitutionally, he can run. But, I mean, come on.

ALFORD: My favorite moment is when Kasie asked him, you know, well, if you don't think that -- he didn't want to be Vice President Harris' VP.

SIDNER: Right.

ALFORD: He said he wouldn't be her VP --

SIDNER: Right.

ALFORD: -- because he's 76. Who needs a 70-something-year-old VP? And Kasie goes, "Well, do we need a 70-something-year-old president?" -- right. So he's willing to lead but he's not willing to be number two to Kamala Harris. I mean, I think that speaks volumes.

[07:45:10]

SIDNER: It does.

Thank you both so much. Appreciate it, Natasha Alford and Julie Roginsky.

All right, over to you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: I'll take it.

SIDNER: OK.

BOLDUAN: A dog in Utah may have earned the title of man's best, best friend. The chocolate lab helping save a woman with dementia who got lost in the mountains. The -- she's 80 years old.

She took her dog for a walk on the evening of June 24. She was near her family's cabin in Emery County, Utah. She was planning to be gone for 10 minutes. That turned into three days. Her dog never leaving her side throughout.

And it was the dog's barking that eventually helped rescuers find her. One of those first responders was working with his own search dog, and according to the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, that search dog Kip picked up an another -- on barking from another dog in the distance.

At times, temperatures while she was missing hovered around 100 degrees.

In the end, she was found extremely dehydrated but said to be in overall good condition with only scrapes and bruises. One of the rescuers saying that she's really lucky that she had her dog with her -- John.

BERMAN: All right, thank you so much.

And so glad you actually made it back from Milwaukee just seconds ago.

BOLDUAN: (Laughing).

BERMAN: And this morning, hundreds of flight delays and cancellations as airlines still struggle to recover from that tech outage that stranded Kate Bolduan. New reporting of the mishap that cost more than a billion dollars.

And Democratic donors feeling reinvigorated this morning now that President Biden has left the campaign. Why some say they are ready to go in big for the vice president, Kamala Harris.

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[07:51:08]

SIDNER: Already this morning there are hundreds of flight cancellations and delays on the fourth day since that software update caused a massive global outage. Airlines and businesses are still trying to recover. One estimate projects that costs related to this outage could exceed a billion dollars.

All right, we're five days from the start of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Gay Paree. You won't see the opening ceremony take place in a stadium. Instead, 80 boats will bring athletes down the River Siene towards the Eiffel Tower. It's going to be gorgeous.

Forty-five thousand people -- police officers will also be there lining the streets, and so will more than 100 heads of state and government. It's going to be something to see.

All right. This morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heading to Washington, D.C. where he will meet with President Biden tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: And I will tell my friends on both sides of the aisle that regardless who the American people choose as their next president, Israel remains America's indispensable and strong ally in the Middle East.

I plan to see President Biden, whom I've known for over 40 years. This will be an opportunity to thank him for the things he did for Israel in the war and during his long and distinguished career in public service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: The two men have been at odds for quite some time. It will be an interesting meeting. He was supposed to meet with Biden today, but it was rescheduled because Biden was recovering from COVID.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu is expected to address Congress -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Sara.

So nearly $50 million. That is how much the now-Kamala Harris campaign says has been raised in grassroots donations since just yesterday afternoon when President Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris. Democratic donors saying they are reinvigorated and ready to go big, which is a big turnaround from the threats of freezing further donations in the three weeks Biden's debate performance.

Joining us right now is a Democratic donor, Marty Dolan. It's good to see you, Marty. Thank you so much for coming back in.

You had joined the growing calls in conversation from Democratic officials and voters and donors alike saying that it was time for Joe Biden to step aside. Now that that has happened are you going to support Kamala Harris for president?

MARTY DOLAN, DEMOCRATIC DONOR: I am. I think there's going to be some type of process. They're still working that out. But I think our best bet is to go with Vice President Harris.

BOLDUAN: What about the talk we hear of that people don't want it to look like a coronation?

DOLAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And it looks like coronation and it's leaving people out of the process.

What are your thoughts and feelings on that?

DOLAN: Yeah, it is what it is. At this point, you've got a couple of weeks to go before the convention.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

DOLAN: There are limited options. You know, she's very well-known to the public already. You have the funding in place. And I think you have to do the best process you can with the time you have. This is -- this is what happens in everyone's life. You have reality come in -- and the reality is that this is the situation we're in and we have a great candidate.

BOLDUAN: The numbers -- the -- so the exact number put out from the campaign was $49.6 million in grassroots donations for the campaign since Sunday afternoon. When you hear that number -- I mean, what is that -- what are you thinking when you hear that number?

DOLAN: Well, we said all along that the money would be there whether it was for President Biden, or whether it was for Harris, or for another candidate.

The reality is that the Democratic Party has better policies than the Republican Party. And we're going to have an election now. We're not going to have the 2020 election --

BOLDUAN: Right.

DOLAN: -- again. We're going to have the 2024 election. We have great candidates and we have -- we're going to have a great ticket. There's a lot of great people to choose from. And so, it's just time to get it on.

BOLDUAN: What do you think of the great people to choose from, what's the pool or the feel that you're kind of looking at yourself in terms of who could be, would be her running mate?

[07:55:00]

DOLAN: I think you're spoiled for choice. I think you have -- you have great choices from Arizona, from Kentucky, to North Carolina, Chicago, Michigan. I hope I haven't left anybody out. I think there's a -- there -- you're going to be surprised now that the spotlight is moving off of the question about President Biden into the spotlight of potentially nominating Vice President Harris, and then who the vice presidential pick will be. It's fantastic, fantastic candidates out there.

BOLDUAN: Is the -- is the potential VP critical to your continued support or -- I'm trying to engage how critical is who is selected as her running mate versus she's at the top of the ticket?

DOLAN: If there's one thing about me as a donor that's remarkable it's that I'm not a super-big donor. I'm a medium-sized donor.

And I think that what -- it's really important for the voters that when you pick a vice presidential candidate that you pick somebody who is ready to serve.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

DOLAN: We saw that case.

Now, I don't think the Republicans have picked somebody who scores high on that scale. I think they've picked somebody who is kind of more like a Dan Quail or Sarah Palin type of -- type of candidate.

I think the Democrats have a great opportunity to showcase some of their talent by picking a vice president who compliments the presidential candidate and who is really 100 percent ready to serve. I think what we've all learned from this process is that the vice presidential pick is too important. You have to get it as right as you get for the presidential candidate.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

I was looking back. When you were running in the Dem primary here in New York for Congress against AOC, one issue that you had focused on was the migrant crisis.

DOLAN: Um-hum.

BOLDUAN: And we know that Harris had been tasked by Biden to get at the root causes of immigration. That has been widely interpreted as her becoming the country's border czar, which Republicans have already even before she had -- all of happened in the last 24 hours -- they were going after her about that.

Do you see that as a weakness for her?

DOLAN: I do see it as a weakness for the party as a whole. So I've said publicly I think the Democrats got immigration wrong, OK? It's not a game of being perfect. They did not get immigration right. I think the Republicans have been correct about that.

I think it needs to be corrected very quickly to win over the -- to win over the voters and also because it's the right thing to do not just for the United States but for the poor people who are wandering around Central America coming up here in harm's way. So we have to fix the immigration thing.

And I think as vice president, your ability to get things done is limited by what the president himself allows you to do and doesn't allow you to do. But I think as we're seeing here, we're in a period where, let's be honest, it's time to move on from Joe Biden. With full respect to his service, it's time to -- it's time to do this.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

DOLAN: It's also time to be honest with the voters and say look, we didn't get immigration right. Let's get in there and fix it. Let's change that. And I think that that's also going to be important in all of the policies of the Democratic Party. You have to go out and appeal to the voters.

BOLDUAN: Real quick, are you interested in Joe Manchin as a Democratic nominee? He's -- I don't even know if we can say dipped his toe in the waters. He's talking about dipping a toe in the waters as of this morning.

DOLAN: I think Joe has been great. He's been very honest. He's kind of -- he's kind of spoken for himself. But I think what you need here is you need Democratic candidates for a 2024 election, and then you're going to have a clear choice between the Democratic Party and what I call the Trump party.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

DOLAN: Because the Trump party is different than the Republican Party.

If at the convention you'd had George Bush, if you'd had Condoleezza Rice, if you'd had Mitt Romney, you really would have seen what I would call the true Republican Party.

What you've got is a Democratic Party now that's going to unify around these candidates --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

DOLAN: -- and run against a party that's really been taken over by one person. I think the Democrats have a great chance to win this election.

BOLDUAN: Great to see you. Thanks so much for coming in -- DOLAN: My pleasure.

BOLDUAN: -- on what a wild -- what a wild week it has been.

DOLAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: Weekend? What a wild year it's been. And it's safe to say that world leaders have been watching every twist and turn in this U.S. election. So after the last 20 hours or so, what are they saying now?

CNN senior international correspondent Frederik Pleitgen is in Berlin this morning. Good morning, Fred. What are you hearing?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, there, John. Yeah, I can tell you there's world leaders who are commenting on this pretty much from all over the place but, of course, especially here in Europe. And, of course, there is a lot of respect for the president's decision to drop out of the race, but also a lot of respect for the political legacy that he leaves behind.

One of the things, John, that we have to keep in mind is that President Biden is really credited with bringing transatlantic relations -- relations between the U.S. and Europe back on track after the Trump years -- nowhere more so than where I am right now in Germany. Very close relations with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

I want to read you what he had to say, and this is a quote. "My friend, Joe Biden, has achieved a lot for his country, for Europe, for the world. Thanks to him, transatlantic cooperation is close, NATO is strong, and the USA is a good and reliable partner for us."

Of course, all of this as Europe remains in massive turmoil with that invasion of Ukraine that Russia is conducting. And therefore, also, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine -- he also came out and he said the following. "Many strong decisions have been made in recent years and they will be remembered as bold steps taken by President Biden in response to challenging times. We will always be thankful."

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