Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Interview with Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI): Harris, Walz to Speak at Campaign Event in Detroit; Vance Rips Walz for Retiring From National Guard Before Iraq Deployment; New Video Shows Moment Police Officer Saw Trump Shooter Just Before Assassination Attempt. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 08, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: ... is on this in terms of UAW membership?

REP. DAN KILDEE (D-MI): Yes, I think so. Of course, UAW is a large organization. I've represented UAW members my whole life, and they have the whole range of political views.

But among those members of the union or any other group that are open to conversation, I think what they see are two completely different visions of the future of this country. And in that case, they're open to a Kamala Harris candidacy. I think we have to deliver the message.

Her selection, by the way, of Tim Walz, a good friend of mine, I think does indicate that she sees us and she wants to have an administration that includes everybody. Including the folks, you know, that you just described, those working class folks who often haven't felt like they had a seat at the table, that their voice were heard -- voices were heard. Some of them went with Donald Trump a few years ago. I think they know they've been burned by that. And so they're open to the conversation.

This is going to be a close race. We have to deliver the message. But what we saw yesterday, I think, was a really important step in doing that. And I think more of that and we'll bring those people back to the Democratic fold for sure.

DEAN: And in terms of continuing to bring her coalition together, we know that Harris and Walz met briefly backstage with two leaders of this uncommitted movement, of course, a group that voted and had a pretty sizable showing during the primary, voting uncommitted and not for the nominee or then for President Joe Biden, who has been running to be the nominee. What do you make of Harris and Walz meeting with them? Do you think something like that, that sort of outreach can make a difference in Michigan in November?

KILDEE: Yes, I think it'll help. I think it sends a message that everybody's voice matters. And the way you campaign is the best indication of how you might govern.

The fact that they want to listen to people who are not there yet and maybe consider their thoughts as we go forward is a pretty stark contrast to what we just saw with former President Donald Trump, a sick and dangerous man who's so focused on his own ego and so consumed by anger that he doesn't see anything except his own interests.

So, yes, it makes a difference to listen to people who aren't there yet because their voices do matter. I saw her deal with that yesterday, even when those protesters a handful of protesters spoke up.

She said, look, your voices do matter. But if you want Donald Trump, you should just say so. The difference between the joyful message of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in this sort of weird, sick, angry, venomous message of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance is one that I think will appeal to a broad spectrum of Americans, including a lot of those people who have yet to make a decision which candidate they'll choose. They don't just choose a candidate. They choose a path forward for the country. And I think in that case, in that frame, the differences could not be more stark and it'll help us.

DEAN: All right, Congressman Dan Kildee, thank you so much for your time. We sure do appreciate it.

KILDEE: Thank you.

DEAN: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Former President Trump and Senator J.D. Vance are reviving a controversy in Governor Tim Walz's military record to try to slow the momentum for the Democratic ticket. Vance accused Walz of ducking a deployment to Iraq in 2005 by retiring to avoid combat. Well, here is what we know.

After serving 24 years in the Army National Guard, Walz submitted paperwork to run for Congress in February of 2005. It was the next month in March that the Guard announced a possible deployment to Iraq in a large stretch of time after that being possible.

In May, Walz retired. Then in July of 2005, his former battalion received confirmation it was headed to Iraq. I did speak with veteran Joe Eustace, who served for over 10 years with the governor. Eustace does not support Walz's politics. That is maybe a generous way to put it. But he said this to me.

He said: From what I know of the situation, they're lying -- meaning some of the service members who have come out opposing Walz and saying that he dodged service. He said: He was as good a soldier as you'll find. I'm not trying to defend him. What I'm trying to do is defend someone who served his country. I'm not voting for him. I'll campaign against him, but I don't think it's fair to characterize his service the way they have.

And let me turn now to Dan Lamothe. He is the national security reporter for "The Washington Post." He wrote an in-depth piece on Walz's military service and also on his retirement. And you spoke to a lot of people who had served with him. What did you find?

DAN LAMOTHE, WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: That's right. We spoke to some of the people that first surfaced some of these complaints about Governor Walz back in 2018 and really even prior to that, and then others like Joe Eustace there who very much are defending him.

I think the important thing to note here is he had already served 24 years. He had the choice to retire. They had replacement options for him. So this is not simply like he's bailing with no alternative plan.

I do understand and I do take on board that for folks who did go on that deployment, it probably feels differently. And I think there are there are shades of gray here in a world where a lot of people are on one side or the other of a very black and white aisle.

KEILAR: Yes, and look, politically, this is something that can be used against him.

[15:40:00]

I also wonder what you think about a couple other things that he may have really left himself open to criticism on, which is this comment that he made about carrying a gun into war -- and he hasn't been to war. And also how he has represented his rank, which can be different upon what you attain and then what you retain upon retirement.

LAMOTHE: Yes, that's right. On the -- on the issue of being at war, those comments that he made at a campaign event, it read to me like he was speaking fast and said that he was at war with those weapons, those weapons of war, as he put it. He deployed to Italy. There is no dispute on that. So the question becomes, why did he say that? That appears to be a misstatement.

And then on the latter issue of his rank, he did serve for a time as a command sergeant major, a very senior enlisted leader within his unit. He did not hold that rank long enough before retiring and did not complete all of the necessary coursework to retire as a command sergeant major. So he reverts back to his previous rank.

So and when you -- so when you hear these things like, oh, he's a retired command sergeant major. The Minnesota National Guard is has pretty much put that the rest. He retired as a master sergeant. That's one rank down. It's still a very senior enlisted leader. But there is some gray there that we've also had to address.

KEILAR: The interesting thing is you have on both tickets veterans, which you don't often have. I mean, this is a pretty rare thing. No matter who goes in to the next administration, you'll have someone in there who has this reference point that past administrations may not have had so clearly.

LAMOTHE: That's right. I mean, we're at an inflection point. These wars that, you know, we've all watched, we've all witnessed. Some of us have covered them on the ground and some of us have participated as combat combatants. You know, in my case, just as a civilian journalist, I was there. We didn't have this before.

We had some folks running. Congressman Moulton comes to mind as one example. But either way, now you're going to see a modern recent veteran in office.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really interesting. Dan, thank you so much. Your reporting on this has been really clear and really helpful. And we thank you.

LAMOTHE: Thank you.

KEILAR: Let's discuss this now further with CNN senior political commentator Adam Kinzinger. He, of course, served six terms as a Republican congressman from Illinois, and he is currently a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard. After serving in the Air Force, he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Also, he was part of the launch of Republicans for Harris this week. Congressman, thanks for being with us. What did you make of J.D. Vance's attack on Tim Walz's military retirement and the timing of it?

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, it's ridiculous, Brianna. I mean, look, first off, veterans need to be supporting each other, even if you disagree with their politics.

The attack he made about so-called leaving his men behind and he goes off and retires, literally, it would be the same attack if I said J.D. Vance did not reenlist in the Marine Corps. Therefore, he left the Marine Corps without his skill set. And that would be an unfair attack, obviously, because all he's required to do is to serve his enlistment period.

For Tim Walz, all he's retired -- all he's required to do is serve his period as well. He had -- he could have retired from the National Guard after 20 years. 9-11 happened at that time. Eventually, the Iraq war happened and he stayed in the military.

At the point of 24 years and whatever months, he made the decision to retire. Again, as is his right, as is anybody's right that served more than 20 years. If he would have left his unit in a bad place, they could have stop-loss him, which a lot of people were stop loss at the time where they wanted to retire. And the military said, no, we need your position and they can force you to not retire.

That obviously wasn't the case. This is a completely unfair attack. And by the way, I know many people in the military that were getting ready to deploy again that were retirement eligible and they pulled the retirement handle instead of deploying again.

That was their right to do. And there was nobody in the military that faulted them for doing it. Now, we did fault people that still had time left on their contract and they avoided deployment even though they had time left on their contract.

It was very different when somebody says, I'm going to retire, as Walz had every right to do. And this is an unfair, terrible attack against him.

KEILAR: He was he had put in his papers basically for running for office. And then it was after that that we found out that they were put on notice that there would be a potential deployment to Iraq.

[15:45:00]

I -- it was interesting talking to Joe Eustace, who served with him, but does not see eye to eye with him, says he will not vote for him politically, but says that he served admirably.

And he said that he had a conversation with him where he'd said to him as he was thinking about retiring, you know, basically, why don't you stay in? Because some people are in office and also in the Guard. And that Walls, he said, said to him something to the effect of that he didn't really want that appearance because some people who stay in the Guard and then are in office kind of get a pass for deployments or assignments. And he thought it was a bad look. What do you think about that?

KINZINGER: No, I think it's a that's a very fair position to take. And, you know, especially when he's past his 20 year mark. I mean, you know, if he was at 14, 15 years, I could see staying in the Guard to get to your 20 years to get a retirement out of it because he put in so much time. That's a very fair position to take.

And honestly, probably if he would have stayed in the Guard, he would have been pulling some strings of favoritism since he's passed his 24 years. He has command responsibility as a command sergeant major. All of these are egregious attacks.

And by the way, I'd say probably upwards of a quarter of people that retire from the military revert to their previous rank because if you don't hold a rank for three years, you can't retire with that rank. I'm a lieutenant colonel. I've done over three years, lieutenant colonel. Had I not retired, I would revert to major. But that doesn't mean I was never a lieutenant colonel.

The other thing that concerns me about this is if you're a military veteran thinking about running for office, why would you run for office nowadays? Because what people are going to do is take honorable service. They're going to find a way to twist it to say, for instance, you absolutely abandoned your unit when you retired, when you had a right to retire.

KEILAR: Let me ask you, let me ask you about this, because Seth Moulton has taken aim at J.D. Vance saying he didn't see combat, which is something J.D. Vance said. He didn't see any real fighting. He said that in his book, Hillbilly Elegy.

I had said I wondered if J.D. Vance was an imperfect messenger for this because of that, not to question his service because he served honorably and he served in a combat zone. But I wonder what you think about getting into that debate where now you have service members questioning how dangerous each other's service was when the fact is so many service members, they are not seeing combat or they may not be in a combat zone. What does that mean?

KINZINGER: Yes, look, being in a combat zone or not does make does not make your service any more or less honorable. This reminds me of that scene in the movie "Civil War" that just came out. Where the dude's standing there and he's like, what kind of American are you? It's like, what kind of veteran are you?

Are we going to really start doing that? Pointing fingers at each other and saying you didn't get deployed. You got deployed. You got attacked by mortars. You didn't get attacked by mortars.

Look, J.D. Vance should not be attacking somebody's military service that served honorably. If Tim Walz had been dishonorably discharged from the military. Fair point. That's everything you can go after on that. But it was an honorable discharge. He served honorably.

J.D. Vance served honorably. It would be much better if instead of trying to score cheap political points, they just acknowledge each other's service and moved on. And maybe we'd encourage, Brianna, more veterans to actually get involved in politics, which we need.

Instead, now people are going to say I've done what 99 percent of the rest of the country didn't do. But I don't want to run for office because maybe one time I said something inaccurate about my service intentionally or unintentionally. And now they're going to use that and hang that around my neck by the 99 percent of people who never served.

Donald Trump avoided the draft, claiming he had bone spurs. Nobody on his ticket and especially him have any right to attack anybody's service to the United States of America when he was unwilling to even lift a finger when his country needed him. He abandoned his country.

KEILAR: Yes, we see how helpful this knowledge being a veteran can be. Certainly, if you're the commander in chief or your second. Adam Kinzinger, great to have you. Thank you so much.

KINZINGER: You bet.

KEILAR: We'll be right back.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We do have breaking news. CNN has just obtained dramatic new video from former President Trump's failed assassination attempt. The video seen for the first time now was recorded by body cameras worn by Butler Township police officers.

DEAN: CNN's Zach Cohen is with us. And Zach, you have looked through this footage. What does it reveal?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, guys, this is the first time we're really seeing what a police officer saw when he was hoisted up to that roof overlooking Trump's July 13th rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and came face to face with Trump's would-be assassin.

Now, we don't see the shooter, Thomas Crooks, in this video, but we do see the officer from the moment he's picked up and lifted up onto that roof until he quickly drops down. It's about 40 seconds before Crooks opened fire on Donald Trump, eventually killing one rally goer and injuring another, obviously injuring Donald Trump as well.

And this is a really dramatic moment. It's a moment that's really been scrutinized in all of the hearings on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have asked this question of when was the shooter first recognized? When did you first recognize that he was a threat? And when did somebody first come into contact with the shooter?

This appears to be that moment. One of the officers later in this clip can be heard saying, quote, Dude, he turned around on me -- talking about the shooter and what prompted him to drop down from the roof and not engage further.

And obviously, this was not -- they did not react quick enough to stop the shooter from getting off eight rounds at the former president.

DEAN: And there's body camera footage from a different officer, and it shows some other key details.

COHEN: Absolutely. It shows these officers talking about how they had warned Secret Service to place somebody at this building. This building with a clean line of sight at the former president. Before earlier in the week, they had made that warning to Secret Service.

[15:55:02]

Obviously, according to what we hear in this video, Secret Service did not listen. Prompted confusion in the aftermath as to how the shooter was able to get up on that roof, why nobody was covering it and why ultimately the shooter was able to get off that many shots before he was eventually taken out by a U.S. Secret Service sniper.

KEILAR: Well, it is certainly informative to see something that we've heard about here. Zach, thank you for the reporting. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: And some breaking news out of Paris where U.S. Olympic sprinter Noah Lyles was taken off the track in a wheelchair after a bronze medal finish in today's 200 meter final in Paris.

KEILAR: Lyles then revealed that he had actually tested positive for Covid-19 two days ago. He told NBC that he never considered not running today's race and that he was even more proud of himself to earn a bronze medal, adding that the diagnosis had taken its toll for sure.

[16:00:00]

The 100 meter champion says his status for future relays in Paris is unclear.

DEAN: And there was wearing a mask.

KEILAR: Yes, he's wearing a mask on the sidelines of the race. But that is certainly raising a lot of eyebrows.

DEAN: Raising a lot of eyebrows. And, you know, it's a lung -- it's in your lungs, Covid. I can't imagine having to run while battling that. Yes.

KEILAR: Unbelievable.

DEAN: It's interesting. OK, well, thanks for having me today.

KEILAR: It's been great.

DEAN: I'll be back with you tomorrow.

KEILAR: I'll see you tomorrow.

All right, and "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

END