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Trump And Musk To Have Live Conversation Tonight; Trump Falsely Claims Harris Posted Fake Pic Of Detroit Rally Crowd; Russia Orders Evacuations As Ukraine Pushes Into Territory. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 12, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:35]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: It is getting personal on the campaign trail, as Vice President Kamala Harris focuses her economic pitch to voters, former President Donald Trump sharpening his attacks on her, and occasionally dragging the conversation back to one of his favorite topics.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Ukraine, taking the fight to Russia. A new offensive, putting the military in control of 28 Russian settlements, forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate in Russia, and leading to new questions about the Kremlin's plan in this war.

And a warning for parents, if you are letting your toddlers use tablets or other screens, you may end up paying for it later. We are following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

DEAN: We are now just one week away from the start of the Democratic National Convention, and Donald Trump is scrambling to slow the momentum of his new Democratic rival.

This week, Vice President Harris will make her first joint campaign appearance with President Biden since he bowed out of the race. Former President Trump also hitting the campaign trail. He is hosting a rare mid-week rally in the swing state of North Carolina,

KEILAR: And as Harris surges, Trump continues to be obsessed with crowd size, now falsely pushing claims that a photo of Harris's rally crowd in Detroit was A.I. generated.

And tonight, Trump returns to X, formerly Twitter, with an interview with X owner and fellow billionaire, Elon Musk. The interview is being billed as unscripted and with no limits on the subject matter -- we shall see. All of this happening as new polls show Harris now ahead of Donald Trump among likely voters in three key battleground states, but still within the margin of error.

We're joined now by CNN Kristen Holmes, Eva McKend, and Phil Mattingly.

Kristen, let's start with you, and this Trump interview with Elon Musk. Told everything -- they are going to cover everything.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, we know that Elon Musk is one to pedal in conspiracy theories. So, this should be interesting, particularly given, as you said, Donald Trump himself has been doing the same.

Now, this comes as a time where the campaign says that it is trying to go outside of the box. Their excuse for not holding as many campaign rallies has been that they believe there is a small group of voters who they want to reach, and they believe that this election is going to be decided by a small group of voters, who don't get their news in the traditional sense, who are not going to be necessarily engaged in politics, and they might be engaged with Elon Musk.

That might be a demographic that he could reach. So, that's why you've seen Donald Trump, instead of stumping in all of these swing states, or at least this is what the campaign says. That's why you've seen him doing streaming interviews with Adin Ross, sitting for podcasts, doing stuff with MMA, and now doing this with Elon Musk. They believe that this is an opportunity for him to reach a different demographic.

And obviously, as we've talked about, this is a very high risk, but possibly high reward type of campaigning, but that's what they are looking at. They want to reach these people who might not be traditional voters, but they want to get them out.

DEAN: And Chris, over the weekend, the Trump campaign claimed that it had been hacked by Iran, but there have been scant details since then. There is -- there is kind of a lot at play here. What do we know?

HOLMES: Yes, the details around those are very murky. So, here is what we do know. We know that on Saturday, the Trump campaign said that it had been hacked and they blamed Iran.

Now, this was on a direct response to POLITICO, saying that it had obtained a series of documents that included vetting documents for J.D. Vance, among other V.P. contenders.

Now, one thing that you should know is that Microsoft did put out a report the day before saying that Iran was ramping up, trying to be involved in the 2024 election. That they actually had tried to hack into a 2024 presidential campaign, but they did not say that, that was actually successful or not.

Now, we don't have a lot of answers around whether or not this was that hack, other than the campaign's word. We've reached out to the FBI, it says they are aware of the media reports. We've obviously reached out the campaign to see if they're in touch with law enforcement. They have been very vague about that. We've not really seen the extent of what this is, other than this reporting from POLITICO, saying that they got these J.D. Vance e-mails.

KEILAR: Yes, it is really interesting, because it's not unusual that law enforcement wouldn't met --

(CROSSTALK) HOLMES: Of course.

KEILAR: -- wouldn't talk about this.

[14:05:00]

But then, you have also had Trump be very critical of these law enforcement entities that he would need to enlist for help on this. So, there is all kinds of things that worry all kinds of dynamics here.

HOLMES: (INAUDIBLE)

KEILAR: Vice President Harris, she's got a pretty big week before the convention. What does she have on her agenda?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: She does, Brianna. She is laying out her economic policy vision for America this week. I don't know how much this will quell the criticisms that we hear from Republicans that she's running a policy thin campaign, but this is going to be the first major roll out.

And it makes a lot of sense, because when you speak to voters, they often cite their economy as their number one concern.

So, in Nevada, on Saturday, before culinary union workers, vital group that endorsed her, she did announce eliminating taxes on tips for hospitality workers. That, of course, got a lot of attention because the former president also endorsed that policy and has been talking about it for weeks.

But other things we can suspect to hear from her, based on what she is been saying on the campaign trail, is tackling high prices, take on price gouging, and banning hidden fees and surprise late charges, as well as pledging to take on corporate landlords, and capping unfair rent increases.

When you speak to voters in Nevada, you know, they would often say, you know, having one job should be enough. They lamented that in that part of the country, it used to be affordable. Used to be able to afford things, but now, the prices are comparable to, you know, major cities and living on the coast. So, those are all things that she has to speak to.

DEAN: And Phil, we, unfortunately would not have modern day politics without conspiracy theories that run rampant.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

DEAN: And the former president now trafficking in those as he has previously. He continues to do, this time, falsely asserting that there was A.I. used to create a crowd at one of Kamala Harris's rallies.

MATTINGLY: Yes, I can give you a lot of depth and explanation when it comes to economic policy questions. On this one, not going to ascribe the specific motivations behind it, because I learned long ago, don't necessarily do that with the former president.

Look, and I think the reality is, and this is very well known at this point, so much so that you see Democrats, including, Vice President Harris and Tim Walz, get to the governor of Minnesota talking about it publicly. They know how to needle Donald Trump, and it's on crowd sizes. And this is clearly something that bothers him. It's clearly something Democrats know bothers him, and they have sought to continue to throw it in his face.

Look, the reality is, Donald Trump has gotten crowds for the past nine years that any politician would dream of. That is very true. His frustration has long appeared to be that he doesn't a, get credit for them, and when anybody else gets big crowds, as the vice president is unequivocally getting, at this point in time, to a point Democrats say we've haven't seen this since 2008 with the Barack Obama.

It is frustrating to him. If you needed any evidence, you could just watch the press conference Mar-a-Lago that Kristen attended, where he spent a good portion of that hour-long journey that we all went on with him, talking about crowd sizes, talking about Martin Luther King and how his January 6th crowd, compared to it.

I think the question right now that you hear from Republicans constantly is, what is this going to help us? One Republican texted me yesterday evening saying, this is how we lose. Kevin McCarthy, former Speaker of the House has been allied with Donald Trump for a long time said this.

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REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): You've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds, and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime.

Question, what did she do when she's supposed to take care of the border as a czar. Question that they brought inflation. And she was the tie breaking vote when it came to inflation, when it came to IRS agents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And think, look, the reality is, Kevin McCarthy in that clip is every Republican who wants Trump to win, every down ballot Republican who wants to focus on these issues, every Republican who's watched the last three or four weeks as the campaign has said, these are the issues we want to talk about, economy, immigration, inflation. And Trump says, yes, that. But also, these 13 other things that have nothing to do with anything that will help me. That's the reality.

The other reality is, this is something that Trump is always going to care about, and Democrats are going to seek to push him on it as much as much as they can.

DEAN: Totally and distract him as much as they can. I had Shermichael Singleton, one of our Republican analysts on yesterday, and I asked him about this, and he said, this is where we're glad he's on Truth Social because we hope no one pays attention to these sorts of things. This is not helpful. Of course, now he is going to be on X.

MATTINGLY: Like on X.

HOLMES: And he goes to -- back on X.

DEAN: Yes, and did it back on X. Yes.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HOLMES: Which is part of the reason campaign advisers didn't want him on X, in the first place. So, it existed in a vacuum of "Truth Social" but --

DEAN: Here we are.

HOLMES: Yes.

DEAN: All right. Well, Phil Mattingly, Eva McKend, Kristen Holmes, our thanks to all of you. More to come in the 80-some-odd days. And to be treasure that.

KEILAR: And let more -- and we'll all be together. It's going to be -- it's going to be great.

So, just how much, if at all, does crowd size actually matter?

DEAN: CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten, is here to talk about this. And Harry -- look at this enthusiastic face you have.

KEILAR: He face -- spooky loves this story.

DEAN: You do. I can tell.

KEILAR: He loves this.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE) they.

DEAN: Just tell me what you know, Harry, you're going to do, what you're going to do.

ENTEN: I'm going to do. I'm going to do.

[14:10:00]

Where are we right now? What is going on that we're arguing about A.I. generated crowd sizes.

Dear President Trump, (INAUDIBLE). My goodness, gracious. All right.

Do crowd sizes actually matter? I think that's the real thing that's cooking here, right? You know, President Trump likes to argue that crowd sizes matter. But candidates who had big crowd size, it's a mixed record. Yes, Trump won in 2016 Barack Obama won in 2008-2012. But remember, Trump had huge crowd sizes in 2020 he lost Bernie Sanders. Remember those huge crowd sizes in 2016 and 2020? He couldn't even win a Democratic nomination. So, the fact is, when you're looking at these crowd sizes, no, it doesn't necessarily equal winning. So, when Donald Trump is arguing about this, I have to go, what are you talking about?

I think Kevin McCarthy is on the right path. Talk about policy. Don't talk about crowd sizes.

KEILAR: Yes, it just matters to him, though, I don't think, Harry, you're going to dissuade him of that. I'm so sorry. I'm just sorry to let you know.

ENTEN: I -- I'm trying. I'm trying.

KEILAR: OK. So, crowd size, mixed bag. Momentum, how much does momentum matter?

ENTEN: Yes, you know, we're talking about enthusiasm, right? I think that's what we're really talking about with crowd sizes, right? He thinks that, oh my God, Harris has enthusiasm. There is an enthusiasm gap potentially building. And you know what? Crowd sizes are one thing.

But let's just talk about the polls, right? Let's talk about the polls, and we'll talk about them in those great lake battleground states, right? Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Look at this, enthusiastic about voting for Harris. Look at this, 86 percent of her voters say yes. They are enthusiastic about voting for her. That is way up from where Joe Biden wasn't an average in these states last year, when it was just 72 percent.

And take a look at Trump. This, I think, is the key nugget, because now what we see is we see that only 80 percent of Trump voters say they are enthusiastic about voting for him in these three states. So, Harris is leading on that metric.

You go back to last year, it was, in fact, Trump that was leading on the enthusiasm metric. So, yes, we're talking about crowd sizes, and those don't necessarily mean anything, but in this particular case, what we're seeing is it's backed up by the polling data, which shows that democratic enthusiasm is way up, while Trump level enthusiasm is just kind of steady. It's pretty good, but it's steady, and Harris is passing him by on the train tracks.

And is there any indication that Trump's kind of obsession over crowd size could actually hurt him?

ENTEN: Yes. So, I think this goes back to temperament, right? That's what we're really talking about. Has the right temperament to be president. And I think that this kind of gets at it. Right? The right temperament to be president. And again, among likely voters, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Harris, look at this, the majority of voters say yes, she has the right temperament to be president. What we see with Donald Trump is 54 percent the majority say no he does not have the right temperament to be president.

And I think when he's talking about these crowd sizes and these ridiculous conspiracy theories, he only feeds the idea that he doesn't have the right temperament to be president. And so, if I were advising him as a political analyst, I would say, stop it. Just stop it.

KEILAR: Very interesting. Fascinating, Harry Enten.

So, I mean, I think that was really --

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ENTEN: I tried.

KEILAR: That was really worth your while in the end, Harry. So, I'm glad that, you know, you evade --

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ENTEN: I -- no. I --

KEILAR: Evade your way through it, but we did it.

ENTEN: No, I'm always happy to be with you, and I'm always happy to go through the numbers. I'm just watching this as a political analyst and going to myself, my goodness gracious, a campaign that was doing everything right up until about a month ago, now, seems to be doing almost everything wrong, and it's being led by the guy who should be running that campaign and putting his face forward, and he is doing it in the completely wrong fashion, if I were advising him.

KEILAR: Yes. No, it's a good point. Harry Enten, thank you for taking us through that. We do appreciate it.

And just ahead, Ukraine is ramping up its offensive against Russia, as Russian authorities tell tens of thousands of people to evacuate. We're going to have the latest developments on Kyiv, surprise cross border attack into Russian territory.

DEAN: Plus, realtors across the U.S. are preparing for a seismic shift in the way they do business. What it means if you're looking for a house?

KEILAR: And if you're a parent, you're probably very familiar with toddler tantrums. But a new study is revealing what could be making those meltdowns more frequent?

[14:14:20]

It's try -- it's a rectangular shape, it glows, they shouldn't be looking at it so much. Just some hints there.

DEAN: Yes.

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DEAN: Today, Ukraine's top military commander says his forces now control about 600 square miles in Russia's Kursk region. A Russian official acknowledging the Ukraine -- the Ukrainians have taken over 28 settlements in that area.

And as that stunning offensive appears to be gathering momentum, evacuations now underway in the neighboring Belgorod region.

CNN's senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is following all of this for us. And Fred, evacuations now in two regions along the Russian border there. This is all happening in the past seven days. What's the latest?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, along the Russian border, but actually pretty deep into Russian territory, Jessica. You already mentioned those around 600 square miles of the Ukrainians say that they now control there. That significant amount of territory, and it inches also closer to actually some of Russia's main military and logistics hubs that they are using for their war in Ukraine, namely the city of Kursk and also the city of Belgorod as well.

[14:20:03]

Ukrainians still pretty far away from there, but they do say that their forces are still on the move.

The interesting thing about it is that the Ukrainians are using a fairly small force, but one that's extremely mobile, and the Russians right now don't seem to have the number of troops that they would need to try and hold all of this up.

So, really difficult situation for them. Seems as though the Russians were caught off guard by what the Ukrainians are doing.

As you can imagine, Russian President Vladimir Putin, absolutely irate about this situation, has said that there would be retaliation by Russia against the Ukrainians also ripped into Ukraine's Western allies.

I want to listen into some of what he had to say.

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VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): It appears that the enemy, with the help of the Western masters, is fulfilling their will, and the West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians. So, looks like the enemy seeks to improve its negotiating position in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So, the Russians think the Ukrainians want to improve their negotiating position in the future. It really is unclear what the eventual aim of this operation is going to be. Whether the Ukrainians believe they can hold that territory? Certainly, will be difficult if they don't put more troops on the ground there.

But one of the things that the Ukrainians, of course, have wanted to do is try and divert some of those Russian forces that are putting a lot of pressure on the Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine. There are signs that that's happening, but of course, right now we are still very much in the early stages. Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Fred Pleitgen for us. Thank you so much for that reporting. We appreciate it. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Let's talk more about this now with retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, what is Ukraine's end game here, do you think?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Brianna, it's -- there are several possibilities, but I think the most likely one is to really increase their negotiating power.

It kind of what Putin just said in the piece that we just saw, because what they need is territory to exchange for the territory they have that has been taken from them in the Donbas region, and, of course, Crimea.

So, that's, I think, the most likely reason for Ukraine to do this. But they are also putting pressure on the Russians in a military sense, and they are doing this in a very unexpected way for the Russians, which is a major achievement for them, at least so far.

KEILAR: Is this an area they can hold?

LEIGHTON: Well, that's a good question. Because when you look at the map, they are kind of put in in an area where between Belarus and other Russian units that are in like the Belgorod region. So, it's going to be difficult for the Ukrainians to hold this. But, right now, the Russians are scrambling to try to get reinforcements into the -- this area around Kursk, and that's going to, I think, take some time for the Russians to do this. So, the Ukrainians can hold this for a bit.

Of course, remains to be seen what the Russians are going to bring in terms of firepower, in terms of troops, things of that nature. So, it's going to take a while to really sort this out.

KEILAR: Does this snarl any Russian efforts to advance on Kharkiv?

LEIGHTON: Yes, absolutely. Because the Russians who have been trying to get well right now, they are not really threatening Kharkiv as much as they used to, but Kharkiv could very well be a place where they could go. And if they did that, if they did take -- if they moved toward Kharkiv, they would find it a lot more difficult to do that because of the Ukrainian pressure on them west of this area.

KEILAR: I wonder how Much of this is about inflicting a psychological toll on Vladimir Putin, on Russians too, also, as they -- the war might not really be on their mind. It's kind of happening over there sometimes, right? LEIGHTON: Yes.

KEILAR: I mean, they, of course, are paying the price. They have lost a lot of Russian soldiers, and yet, there hasn't been a huge mobilization of public opinion in Russia against the Ukraine war. Do you think that this is something that embarrasses Putin?

LEIGHTON: Yes, I think it most certainly does. And from a psychological standpoint, I think we can see that it's already taking its toll on Putin, and it may mean that he makes more irrational decisions the longer this type of pressure lasts.

But in terms of Russian public opinion, I think it's going to be take a little bit of time, but the more reports that they hear through the grapevine that Russian territory has been lost, those kinds of things happening to Russian civilians, they are going to take another look at what is happening in Ukraine. And the other thing is, we see a lot of Russian troops, a lot of Russian conscripts who are surrendering on mass to Ukrainians. That is a significant development, and that could portend some really grave dangers for the Russian military.

KEILAR: Zelenskyy is claiming credit for this. He is -- he is out there, you know, we did this. That's we should know. That's not always the case when you have Ukrainian forces doing things, for instance, with special forces. Why is he being so out there about this?

LEIGHTON: I think there is several reasons. At first, he didn't take any credit for this. In fact, there was a lot of operational security, shall we say, a lot of silence around this particular military move. But what we are seeing now is the Ukrainians are owning it, because it's successful.

[14:25:00]

The other thing to keep in mind, these are not Special Operations units in the sense of, let's say, Russians who are fighting for Ukraine or Belarusians who are fighting for Ukraine. These are regular Ukrainian units coupled with Ukrainian special forces doing a lot of damage to Russia's ability to hold its border.

KEILAR: Cedric, thank you so much. It's a really interesting time. So, we appreciate you taking us through it.

Still to come, real estate agents facing a major shakeup that will overhaul the way they get paid for helping people buy and sell homes. We'll have more on the new changes set to roll out this week.

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