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Presidential Candidate V.P. Kamala Harris Chooses MN Gov. Tim Walz as Her Vice Presidential Running Mate; Presidential Candidate Fmr. Pres. Donald Trump Attacks Walz as Too Liberal; Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) Interviewed on Likely Effectiveness of Harris-Walz Campaign; Four Charged with Felony Murder in D'Vontaye Mitchell's Death. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMONE BILES, OLYMPIC GYMNAST: Yes.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: He's been here supporting you. Are you going to be at his games being the hyper for him?

BILES: Yes, absolutely, I feel like I'm his biggest supporter besides some of the other family that we have, but it's always exciting watching him play on that field.

WIRE: OK, if they played the Falcons or my Bills this year, please don't show up. We don't need any more cheers for them.

BILES: They play the Bills this weekend, so good luck.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: All right, after a raucous rollout for her new running mate, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are on a battleground blitz today trying to win over swing state voters. But Republicans are hoping their new strategy can stop the Democrat duo and their momentum.

As fears of Iranian retaliation are growing in Israel, American officials are working behind the scenes to de-escalate the situation there. But the newly appointed leader of Hamas's political arm may be a huge setback.

And four hotel workers are now charged with murder in the death of a black man outside a Milwaukee hotel.

We'll discuss these stories and more. I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman. Kate Bolduan is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, brand new this morning, our first look at the new merch from the Harris-Walz campaign. A camouflage hat trying to highlight the Minnesota governor's love of hunting. He was once one of the best shots in Congress. And also, let's be honest, because there is no subtlety in politics anymore. They are leaning into the regular guy image that Walz radiates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're just getting to know Coach Walz's story. Coach Walz taught social studies, and to his former high school football players, he was Coach. It's like a matchup between the varsity team and the J.V. squad.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: Under those Friday night lights, Coach Walz --

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: Coach, Coach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So moments ago we got our first out loud response from Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would say my reaction is I can't believe it. I never thought this was going to be the one that was picked. He's a very, very liberal man, and he's a shocking pick. And I'm thrilled. I could not be more thrilled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Well, I could not be more thrilled to have CNN political director David Chalian with me this morning. First, let's start with the, like I said, no subtlety in politics, "Coach! Coach! Coach!" chants. I mean, they really want to make "Coach" happen here, David.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: They do. And notice there was not like a recitation of what Tim Walz accomplished in Congress or what Tim Walz accomplished in his years as governor of Minnesota. It was a leaning into the biography here -- the coach, the high school social studies teacher, the National Guardsman, of course. Far more you heard Kamala Harris painting this picture of somebody that they believe will be very relatable to a swath of America, particularly an electorally significant swath of America in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, John.

Of course, the complete flipside of that is what the Republicans are doing, which is to bring up his record as governor because they think it is a far more liberal than them where many Americans are. So they're doing an ideological frame around Tim Walz -- you just heard Donald Trump in that response -- while the Harris-Walz campaign is trying to paint a more biographical picture of this middle America, middle-class man.

BERMAN: Look, you just heard Donald Trump, Tom Emmer was on with Sara like six minutes ago. A lot of Republicans want to come on, and I expect to deliver the exact same message there. David, what do you anticipate the Harris-Walz response will be to it if there is anything other than just like me?

CHALIAN: Yes, there's that, but I also think we got a window of what the response will be on the specific policy pieces from Tim Walz himself when he was doing a lot of television interviews that were part of the public audition for getting this V.P. nod from Kamala Harris. And he said, he had that line where he's like, yes, I'm a monster, right? I want to make sure kids bellies are full so that they can learn. He has a line to push back on some of these progressive policies that he's put in place.

That's not going to stop the attacks from coming. It's just a matter of, John, I don't think we know right now if this electorate is in sort of an ideological mood and that's sort of how the election is going to be framed and decided. Or if it's going to be more on this notion of one ticket literally trying to return to a previous administration and one ticket trying to point the path forward having actually shed the current incumbent as a part of that effort.

[08:05:03]

BERMAN: Oh, what a segue, David, to my next question, because if we can, I want to play all the sound from the rally last night from Vice President Harris and Governor Walz talking about President Biden. Let's listen.

There's no sound, David, because they literally did not mention his name as far as I could tell, once, like not once.

CHALIAN: I love that you had the wipe effect to the no sound, as well. I mean, that is excellent. Yes, this isn't terribly surprising, right? President Biden is still rather unpopular. He just had to step down as the nominee of his party, the presumptive nominee humans party because he didn't have the unified support and energy of his party. And so it's not terribly surprising, I don't think, that as Kamala Harris is trying to roll out her vice presidential pick, that she's trying to paint a portrait separate and distinct from Joe Biden.

But John, trust me, Joe Biden will be out there on the campaign trail. He will be campaigning for Kamala Harris where they think he can be most helpful. I just don't think he's part of the story that they want to tell out of the gate here.

BERMAN: I promise we can get special effects for you every time you come on. Political Director David Chalian, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, with us now, Democratic Congressman from California, John Garamendi. All right the big question here that I think are on Democrats minds on voters' minds, is can the Democrats, can the Harris-Walz ticket keep this momentum going? There is no one that can say they don't have momentum right now. How do you see this playing out?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): I love it. I absolutely love where we are. Harris came on strong. She established herself and got the nomination. So that's right out of the box. And she's also describing herself and introducing herself across America as an extremely powerful, capable woman who could handle the job of presidency.

And then she went on to choose Tim Walz, a fellow I worked with for 10 years in Congress. He is an extraordinary choice because he provides the balance. I can just see this happening. We're going to see Harris working the cities, the suburbs, and we're going to see Walz working the Friday night lights out in the communities, working and showing that this ticket understands every part of America, not just the big east coast, west coast cities, but also the Midwest, the upper, upper Minnesota, Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania. It is the dream team. I am really, really excited about it.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about some of these attacks. We just had Tom Emmer on who is of Minnesota, a congressman there, attacking his fellow Minnesotan Tim Walz on several issues -- his supporting for gender affirming care, signing a law that allows Minnesotans to apply for a driver's license no matter what their immigration status, and really going after him, saying he's more liberal -- we heard that from Donald Trump as well -- than she is. How do they deal with that perception that Republicans are certainly trying to create? And they're looking at policy, not personality here.

GARAMENDI: Well, they're going to be looking at both, because those personalities are extremely different. Consider the felon and the prosecutor. Now, there's a difference. Consider J.D. Vance and his incredibly weird statements. And consider a very solid former school teacher, former high school coach, former member of Congress, all along the way serving the constituents in the rural areas of his state. And that's going to be replicated across the nation. We're going to make inroads into what were the red areas of the swing states. And Tim Walz will do that.

With regard to policy, gee, you mean to tell me that Republicans still want to talk about taking away a woman's right to choose? That'll fail. What part of America is that going to sell in? A very, very small part of America. Go ahead, Republicans, stay with your current policies that you're pushing in Congress, moving away on the international scene from support for our allies. Go back to the Trumpian days when our allies were trashed by the president. Go back to the issues of tax policy where the Republicans provided a $2 trillion tax break to the most wealthy Americans over a decade, see how that sells. No, we've got the exact policies that we need to move forward with, and we've got the team to drive the policies.

SIDNER: I do want to talk to you about the economy because this is one area where even though the economic indicators have been very good up until Monday, where things got a little rocky on Wall Street, Americans time and time again have said that they don't feel good about their own personal economies because of inflation, because of the high cost of things, even though inflation has come down.

[08:10:15]

There's still a feeling of a problem for Americans as they go about their daily life. How does Tim Walz and Kamala win over these voters, particularly the white working class voters that they lost to Donald Trump in particularly the swing states?

GARAMENDI: Well, certainly inflation is on the minds of the voters, no doubt about it. But also, the economy came out of a total shutdown when Biden came to office. And the American Rescue Plan was put in place, other pieces of legislation that are now driving the economy. The Inflation Reduction Act, the infrastructure, the Chips Act, all of these things are foundational to the economy. But it's about today. And today we've seen inflation going way down.

And one of the reasons for the jittery folks on Wall Street is that there's going to be a change. The interest rate policies will change in the next few days, and the unknown effect of that has caused jitters, has created jitters on Wall Street.

But we're going to -- we have a very strong 15 million jobs, the largest job growth ever in a three-and-a-half-year period has occurred in the Biden-Harris administration, and that will carry forward as we look at the days ahead. Yes, the job growth has slowed down. It was expected to slow down. That's precisely what the Federal -- what the Fed wanted to have happen. That's why they kept the interest rates high. And that effect is in place now.

However, it will stabilize. And that's what we are -- we will see in the days, and hopefully in the next 90 days, that stability is there, and it will present itself. But the need -- but what needs to be known, and this will be carried out in the cabin campaign, is that in place are the key infrastructure pieces for a growing economy, and the jobs will be out ahead of us.

And also, we'll have Tim Walz and Kamala talking about the issues of education and job preparation and moving people that the economy. I am very, very excited. In fact, I wore my Minnesota coat today.

SIDNER: I noticed that, in the great state of California, the golden state, you've got your Minnesota close on. Appreciate it, Congressman John Garamendi. Its going to be hot, though. Be careful with that. Thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: All right, we've got new reporting this morning on Donald Trump's planned new lines of attack against the freshly minted Democratic ticket.

And then new this morning, U.S. officials reporting that Iran and its proxies are preparing for retaliation against Israel as the White House races to deescalate tension.

And four hotel employees now charged with felony murder after the death of a black man. We have the new video of the fatal moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:44]

BERMAN: This morning four hotel workers are charged with murder in connection with the death of D'Vontaye Mitchell, a Black man outside of Milwaukee hotel in June. CNN's Stephanie Elam is here with the details. Stephanie, what have you learned?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, when you take a look at this video, it is a little bit hard to watch here, but this happening in June, John. When D'Vontaye Mitchell was dragged out of this hotel room. He was beaten, kicked, and punched. We know this because of the video that we have seen here.

What has now happened is that the Milwaukee District Attorney's Office has now charged these four hotel workers with felony murder in this case.

They say that they used various uses of force and then when you see this, that he was pulled out, dragged, punched, kicked, pinned to the ground against the cement there. All of this now leading to four people, a security manager, a front desk agent, a security guard, and a bellman that are now all -- there has been arrest warrants issued for those four individuals.

According to the medical examiner's report, Mitchell died of restraint asphyxia and toxic effects of cocaine and methamphetamine. The report also went on to say looking at what was included in the ME's report, that Mitchell was in a frantic state, that he was combative and hiding behind objects in the lobby, tried to detain himself, locked himself into the women's bathroom. All of this before they allegedly said that he was pulled out.

Now, of course, people are saying this video proves that this was too so much force. In fact, take a listen to what Mitchell's wife and the family's attorney had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEASIA HARMON, D'VONTAYE MITCHELL'S WIFE: They are charging them with the obvious. We all seen the videos. We've all heard the audio. There was nothing stopping them from charging these people from day one.

WILLIAM SULTON, MITCHELL FAMILY ATTORNEY: What caused his death was the fact that four people beat him to death on the sidewalk and jumped on top of him for 15 minutes. That is why he's dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ELAM: And in some of that video, you can hear him saying, "I'm sorry," Mitchell -- you can hear Mitchell saying "I'm sorry," it sounds like while you also hear some of those people that were on top of them saying "Stay down and stop fighting" and "This is what happens when you go into the ladies' room."

All in all, the charging documents, John, is saying that Mitchell was held down for eight to nine minutes and it looks like at one point they even had their knees on his neck. [08:20:13]

BERMAN: All right. Stephanie Elam, thanks so much for this reporting, appreciate it. All very troubling -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead. Donald Trump already on the attack against Kamala Harris' number two on the Democratic ticket. But will the Trump team's new campaign playbook painting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as a radical VP pay off for them at the polls? We'll discuss.

The EPA issuing an emergency ban for the first time in decades. Why it says a common weed killer could pose serious risks if pregnant are simply exposed to it.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[08:25:07]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Donald Trump would damn sure take us backwards. Let's be clear about that. And don't believe him when he plays dumb. He knows exactly what Project 2025 will do to restrict our freedom.

Violent crime was up under Donald Trump, that's not even counting the crimes he committed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: That was of course, Tim Walz attacking Donald Trump as this morning, we're getting a preview of what Donald Trump thinks of Tim Walz. CNN's Alayna Treene is joining us now with a look at that. The attacks are coming fast and furious now.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: They are, they're really racing to define Tim Walz before most of America can make up their minds about him themselves. This is partly because they have still been kind of surprised in my conversations with Trump's senior advisers, say, admit this privately, that they didn't expect the enthusiasm around Harris and kind of the momentum that she has been able to sustain last as long as it has.

And so, while they've tried to figure out how best to define Harris and which attacks stick the best with voters. Now they're trying to do that with Walz and really seeing how they can tie them together. Now, part of that goal is to try and paint Walz as someone who is even more liberal than both Harris and Joe Biden.

And what they really want to do is focus, I'm told, on the last four years specifically. Even though he was governor starting in 2019, they really want to focus on his last four years and part of that is because when Walz was in Congress for 12 years, he was actually more widely viewed as more of a moderate Democrat. He had voted with Republicans to strengthen the border. He had pushed for trillions of dollars in deficit reductions. He also had the backing of the NRA, although they later pulled to that support once he became governor. But, as governor, he was more progressive and some of the key things that the Trump campaign is planning to point to and seize on is how he enshrined abortion rights into law. He protected rights for gender affirming care. He expanded universal gun background checks. All things that they're going to try and use and paint him as being very liberal and being very progressive.

Now, one interesting thing as well that I was told yesterday from my conversations with Trump's team is that, they kind of breathed a sigh of relief that Harris did not choose Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Trump actually addressed that himself just moments ago on "Fox & Friends." Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: ... but when he didn't pick Shapiro and I don't think Shapiro was the second best person or the third. I think there were other people better than him. I know them all. And so -- but I was shocked when it came into the final two that she didn't pick Shapiro. I was very surprised.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So what Donald Trump just said right there is exactly what I've been hearing from Trump's advisers, which is, they were actually more concerned about someone like Shapiro.

Again, he's very popular in his State of Pennsylvania. That is a state that both of the Harris end Trump campaign sees vital to winning the election come November and so, you're going to see a lot of attacks over why Harris perhaps didn't select Shapiro.

The Trump campaign is arguing it's because Shapiro, who is Jewish, had received some criticism for the way that he was criticizing the tone of some protests of the Israel-Hamas war -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you for your reporting this morning, appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, the Republican Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum. Governor, thanks so much for being with us.

You know, it's interesting remembering back to when you were running for president, you were about to get into debate stage your competitors and Governor Walz said that he thought you were the most normal candidate on that debate stage, and that if he had a vote in the Republican primary, I think he said he would have voted for you. So how would you describe that? Is that the upper Midwest nice?

GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Well, I think it was a nice comment that our neighbor, Tim Walz said over a year ago. I'm sure you're going to show some clips that he shared when I was running -- when I was in contention for vice president that wouldn't be as complimentary. But I think it's interesting the positioning, but as a neighbor of Minnesota, we share about a 225 mile border with Minnesota. I can tell you that if Minnesota is the California of the Midwest, and that is just not a soundbite, when you look at the energy policies of that state, they're on the same track adopting California EV standards, trying to eliminate internal combustion in cars, passing laws that Tim has signed, that basically say we're going to rid of base load electricity that doesn't come from these intermittent sources of wind and solar.

And so, they're on a path there where their driving energy costs up, which is a huge tax on working class people and affordability. At the end of the day this election is going to be between Trump and Harris.

Ninety days from now, is when the election is coming. The honeymoon period of just talking and fawning over the bios is going to go away and this election is going to be about but inflation, the border, our wars overseas, and those are the issues where Trump is strong and Harris is weak.

[08:30:14]