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Soon, Harris, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Leave for Rallies in Key Swing States Wisconsin and Michigan; How the Trump Campaign Plans to Attack Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN); U.S. Working With Counterparts to De- Escalate Israel, Iran Friction. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the race for the White House hits high speed. Kamala Harris is taking her new V.P. pick, Tim Walz, on the campaign trail in a swing state blitz. As Democrats rush to introduce Walz to voters, Donald Trump and his allies are trying to paint him as dangerously liberal. Who's messaging will win out?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Millions of Americans under tropical storm warning. Already more than a foot of rain in some places with way more to come.

And on fire, new video every pet owner will want to see and make you want to get those lithium batteries far, far away.

I'm John Berman with Sarah Sidner. Kate is out today. And this is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: From hopeless to hopeful, excitement has been whipped up amongst Democrats after a rousing speech by Kamala Harris' brand new pick for vice president. With just 90 days to go to the election, Kamala Harris' whirlwind 2024 presidential run kicks into high gear today. She and running mate Tim Walz begin their blitz through several key battleground states.

As Politico puts it, this morning, Republicans are racing to define Tim Walz as the next liberal boogeyman. But if Walz's debut last night showed us anything, it's this. He is not scared to launch searing attacks against the Trump-Vance ticket, and Harris is eager for voters to get to know him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He's the kind of person who makes people feel like they belong and then inspires them to dream big. And that's the kind of vice president he will be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: CNN National Politics Correspondent Eva McKend is traveling with the Harris campaign today and leads us off from Wisconsin. We watched this last night and it's very hard to use this word, but joyful when it comes to politics is not something you normally put together. That is what people saw. You have some new reporting on the message that they have for Midwesterners today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Good morning to you, Sara. They are here to highlight the choice for blue wall voters. So, they'll make this argument that Trump and Vance would undermine unions. They'll argue that Trump and Vance are principally concerned about tax cuts for the wealthy. They'll also argue that a Harris administration would work to ensure that Americans not just get by but they get ahead. And so that is what the argument that we will hear.

I had the opportunity to speak to college students, this is a college town, and they told me that they think that Walz is a good strategic choice for Harris. That's because Wisconsin universities are not only Wisconsinites, they are students from across the region. So, many of the kids at the university actually are from Minnesota and they know their governor well.

Sara, we got a sense of how the governor is going to make the argument across the Midwest. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Like all regular people I grew up with in the heartland, J. D. studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a bestseller trashing that community. Come on. That's not what Middle America is. And I got to tell you, I can't wait to debate the guy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So, Sara, today we will hear a performance from the folk artist Bon Iver. We'll also -- we will also hear about the infrastructure that they have built up here in the Midwest. They have 400 field offices, 100 field offices, 400 staff. And then after here, they'll head on to Michigan, Arizona, and Las Vegas, as they continue to make their case.

SIDNER: Yes, this brand new ticket has just three months to do that.

[07:05:02]

Eva McKend, I know you'll be on the trail watching all that happens, and bring us anything new that you get as soon as you get it. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: Sarah Palin might say you can see Eau Claire, Wisconsin, from Minnesota so you can get a sense of why they're going there today.

We've got brand new reporting on how Tim Walz, Governor Walz, became the pick. CNN Senior Reporter Isaac Dovere is with us now. I knew you were at that rally last night. Look, everyone knows everything at this point. The Democrats and Tim Walz know what attacks were coming if he became the running mate pick, liberal, Minnesota, George Floyd riots there. What's the response? How is Tim Walz, how did he sell himself knowing that?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, look, he tried to introduce himself as much as he could. It's important to know that speech that he gave last night was actually written by Harris campaign aides before they knew whether he was going to be the pick. They had prepared speeches for all the prospective finalists there.

And it was about going through all of the reasons in his biography, why they feel like he is a choice that will set himself apart from most politicians, from most Democratic politicians, whether it's the IVF story that he told, about how his daughter was conceived, or something that came across to us in our reporting, where they said to us that he was -- it was a hunter. His experience as a hunter was really going to be part of the conversation that they wanted to have a way of talking.

He hunts, he fishes, you want to have a beer with him. He'll play in Michigan, Wisconsin, Western Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina. That's the campaign argument that the Harris folks have here, that he can be a messenger to the type of voters that Democrats have lost to Donald Trump over the years, including as he himself said, in his speech last night to the white guys out there, the older white guys that Harris would like to have more of in her column going into November.

BERMAN: It's interesting, and I've seen in your reporting here. One of the things that may have helped him is how he looked at the job of vice president itself, as opposed to maybe Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. What did you learn there?

DOVERE: Yes. Look, this was -- in that final weekend this, the last couple of days. Already it feels like longer than just a couple of days ago. But there were interviews and there were a lot of conversations between Harris and her staff. Shapiro and Walz were clearly the top two for a couple of days of it. But when Shapiro came in on Sunday to the Naval Observatory, what he was doing was talking about how he wanted to -- he was asking a lot of questions about how her job worked when she was vice president, how she wanted to think about what it would be that he would do, where he would fit in.

Walz came in and said, you should tell me how you want the job to be. How much time do I -- am I in the Oval Office? You tell me. Am I the last person in the room when you make decisions? Sometimes I will be, sometimes I won't be. It's up to you.

And for Harris, of course, this is a very interesting situation that she's in. Just four years ago, she was vetted to be running mate. Just a couple of weeks ago, she was the running mate still. She has been vice president, is being vice president day in, day out now, even as she's campaigning. She has a real sense of this job and what she wants it to be, how she wants it to be the same from what she's experienced, how she wants it to be different.

But what she was looking for a lot in these interviews was saying to them, what do you see this job as, and here's how I see this job, let's see how they match up.

BERMAN: Very interesting. Isaac, always great to see you, thanks so much for sharing your reporting, Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Well, Dems are trying to play up a joyful message, Donald Trump on the attack, calling the Harris and Walz team the most radical left duo in American history. How his campaign plans to make the case against them.

And another blow for the so-called squad. Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush becomes the latest member to lose a primary. How her stance on Gaza may have cost her the job.

And U.S. market futures on the rise this morning once again after Wall Street bounced back from those huge losses on Monday. How long will the rebound last? We're following it all. That and much more ahead.

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[07:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: Pointing out just an observation of mine that I made. I just have to say it. You know it, you feel it. These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell. That's what you. That's what you see.

BERMAN: That was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz explaining his view of the Republican ticket. But you know what? That Republican ticket, the Trump-Vance campaign, they have their own plans now for Governor Tim Walz, now that he has been picked as the running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris.

With us now is CNN's Alayna Treene. You've got new reporting on that front. What are you learning, Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, John, they are working very quickly to try and define him. They really wasted no time yesterday, even before Harris had actually formally announced that Governor Walz was her pick. They started rolling out new videos, different lines of attacks, getting Donald Trump's surrogates to go after him.

And part of this is because, look, I mean, ever since Biden ended his campaign last month and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee fairly quickly, they have struggled a bit with how to define her.

[07:15:04]

I think, when I talk to Donald Trump's senior advisers, they tell me that they recognize that whoever would have been the one to end up replacing Joe Biden and top the Democratic ticket would see some sort of early boost, but I don't think they had anticipated the momentum that Harris would have sustained and kind of the enthusiasm that she continues to see on the trail. And so what they're trying to do is they tell me that they actually see her picking Waltz as an opportunity for them to try and define them together.

Now, they say that they want to focus specifically on Walz's record over the last four years. He's been governor since 2018, but they really do think the last four years is what voters will care about the most. Part of that is because when Waltz spent 12 years in Congress, he was a little bit more moderate. We have this up here. He had a stance on they want to go after his stance on the border. They want to paint him as anti-gun and anti-cop. They're trying to link him to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a very progressive Congresswoman from his state of Minnesota, all of these different things. But the harder thing for them is when they go back to his record in Congress, where he was a little bit more moderate.

They say he's anti-gun. Well, when he was in Congress, he actually had the backing of the NRA until they later pulled that backing because they thought his stance was no longer in line with theirs. But he also -- he worked with people in Congress on several bipartisan bills. He pushed for there to be reductions to the national deficit. But as governor, he did become more progressive. And what they're going to point to is him signing these bills into law, including re- establishing and really enshrining abortion rights into law in Minnesota, affirming gender, affirming care, all of these things that they think paint him as more progressive. And that's really their goal, to paint him as a dangerous liberal, someone who is more radically liberal than both Harris and President Joe Biden.

And so this is where they're starting off. And I do think they're going to try as well to attack his character a bit. I mean, Walz has clearly tried to showcase that he is someone from a rural state and he came from a rural district when he was in Congress. He does have that small town energy. He grew up in a small rural town in Nebraska. They're going to try to chip away at that, particularly when you see them comparing him to Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and Donald Trump's running mate, who, of course, has his own background growing up in a small, rural town, a family that struggled with addiction. You're going to see a lot of those comparisons.

And so they're very much quickly moving to define him. We know that they have ads and are spending money already going after him. They've compiled a lot of opposition research over the last couple weeks or so aimed directly at him. And we're kind of seeing that all come together now. John?

BERMAN: We have dozens of Republican lawmakers and former lawmakers trying to get on the show to go after Governor Walz today and over the next few days.

Alayna, great to see you. Thank you very much.

This morning, U.S. officials are meeting with allies behind closed doors as an expected attack by Iran is looming. And a man is now in custody, federal custody, after being accused of a murder for hire plot against Donald Trump and U.S. officials.

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[07:20:00]

SIDNER: Fears of retaliatory strikes are mounting in the Middle East this morning. U.S. officials are working over time behind the scenes rallying allies to defend Israel against a possible retaliatory attack from Iran. They are also pushing other countries in the region to help send a message of de-escalation to both countries. This is all coming as Hamas has further fueled doubt around a potential ceasefire, naming Yayha Sinwar, one of the architects of the October 7th terror attack, as the new head of its political bureau.

CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward is in Tel Aviv for us this morning. You have been there sort of waiting on what is going to happen here with Iran in the next Still no word as to when that might happen, but it is coming, according to officials, correct?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, this is now every day we hear it's imminent. It may be imminent. It may not happen. Clearly, the Biden administration really working overtime to try to dissuade Iran from retaliating, but when we heard from Hezbollah's leader, Nasrallah, yesterday in a speech, he said that it will happen and that the waiting is part of the punishment because of the impact that that has psychologically and economically on Israel. The Biden administration, again, as we said, really pushing to get those ceasefire talks going again.

But the appointment of Yahya Sanwar, as you mentioned, Sara, really is casting doubts on hopes for those talks. Sinwar was always known to be the man kind of pulling the strings behind the scene, but nonetheless, many see this appointment as being very symbolic as a statement of intent. Essentially, if you assassinate the moderate within Hamas, you're going to have to deal with the hardliner.

And it's important to remember that Sinwar has really pushed to prolong this conflict. He has pushed to make it essentially a region wide conflagration. He has very close ties to Iran. Traditionally, within the context of Hamas, the political leader would be outside of Gaza. So, this does represent a departure. Hamas basically saying that that was because those who are outside of Gaza were facing too much pressure from the countries that they were living in, for example, Qatar.

So, certainly, fewer people remain optimistic about the capacity to get those talks back on the table.

[07:25:00]

And in the meantime, everyone wondering when this attack is going to happen. The OIC, that's regional leaders, meeting in Saudi Arabia today for an emergency session, trying to avert a retaliation before it takes place, Sara.

SIDNER: Yes. And as you mentioned, Sinwar is in Gaza, ostensibly in tunnels, very hard to negotiate with someone who is in that position and who is certainly a hard liner.

Thank you so much, Clarissa Ward, for being there for us in Tel Aviv this morning.

A major flooding threat this morning as Tropical Storm Debby churned along the East Coast, slowly dumping tons of rain.

And this video, it's going to give you pause. What you need to make sure is out of the reach of your pets left home alone. Oh my goodness.

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