Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Trump Selects Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as Running Mate; Electoral Estimates Favor Trump in Rematch with Biden; How a Trump-Vance Ticket Could Impact Foreign Relations; Judge Dismisses Trump's Classified Documents Case. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired July 16, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think what we will be able to determine is whether he was motivated by a single idea. This is not your typical sort of lone wolf case. There's no manifesto. There's no sort of -- people aren't saying, well, he was clearly this or he was clearly that there's we're getting a better understanding of him. But it is not -- it is not at all clear cut. It may be, like you said, that we never quite know what was going on in his head that would have tied whatever it was he was thinking to assassinating or trying to assassinate Donald Trump.

And it may be only he knew. Right. And that is that is the challenge right now.

I think what's clear is he was not part of any large network that was planning to bring down the former president. He wasn't radicalized into a group. This was what we, you know, a loner, someone who didn't have a community, someone who clearly didn't have support, who then use that status, use that those characteristics to, for whatever reason, try to kill Donald Trump.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Juliette Kayyem, I am always appreciate you joining us. Many thanks.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

CHURCH: Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will now be receiving Secret Service protection. President Joe Biden extended the protection following the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. And Kennedy thanked Mr. Biden over social media for the help.

Former President Donald Trump had also called for Kennedy to receive Secret Service protection, saying it is the right thing to do, given the Kennedy family history.

Still to come, the race to 270. President Biden had more than enough electoral votes to clinch the 2020 election. But do the numbers still favor him in 2024?

We'll take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.

J.D. Vance is Donald Trump's running mate. The former U.S. president announced the Ohio senator as his VP pick via social media on Monday.

[04:35:02]

And he wrote this.

After lengthy deliberation and thought and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of vice president of the United States is Senator J.D. Vance of the great state of Ohio.

Trump and Vance appeared together at the Republican National Convention Monday night. CNN's Phil Mattingly has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF U.S. DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Well, for delegates here on the floor, the first day of the Republican National Convention was news-wise, by far the most important issue was J.D. Vance, the senator from Ohio, is now the vice presidential running mate for former President Donald Trump. That was the big breaking news of the day.

The big breaking moment of the night, without any question at all, was the appearance of the former president for the first time in front of a major crowd since the assassination attempt, the attempt on his life that left him with a bandage over his ear. Joining several top allies and family members in the VIP box to watch several of the speeches tonight, also getting a roaring, roaring welcome from a Republican Party that I don't think without any question was unified going into this first night of the Republican convention, even before the assassination attempt.

Now, there's no question about it, they believe that Donald Trump is not only going to be the next president of the United States, they also believe that he is the party, and there's no question about that. You saw it every single moment of that first day. We're certainly going to be seeing it in the days ahead.

Phil Mattingly, CNN, from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: J.D. Vance has cultivated strong ties with Silicon Valley's tech industry leaders. It could help the Republicans immensely in fundraising, but as CNN political commentator Van Jones notes, Vance's position on abortion rights could be a serious liability for the ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: When you see the stuff that J.D. Vance is on record for in these sort of fever swamps you're talking about, that's not a campaigning choice, it's a governing choice. Except in one possible area, which is that he does have this tech bro background, and people like Peter Thiel, people have mentioned Elon Musk, there is -- I don't know if you'll understand, there's something that's happening in Silicon Valley where there is this sort of right- wing libertarian backlash to the so-called woke agenda, and those folks have been bubbling and bubbling trying to find a champion and a horse to ride.

If they see J.D. Vance as that horse, there could be money behind it. But if you're trying to win an election where suburban women are still up for grabs, this is one of the worst choices you can make, given the feel.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Although if, I mean, if it's key for Biden to win in, you know, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, does J.D. Vance help with that?

JONES: Well, I think it's hard for Biden to win in Ohio anyway at this point, but Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, yes, that might be somewhat helpful, but I just think that there are other people can help you with that that don't have all this other baggage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: But Vance's effect on voters might not matter at this point. Right now, the polling suggests Donald Trump has numerous paths to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win this November. And for Joe Biden, it is much tougher.

Earlier, CNN's chief national correspondent John King spoke with Jake Tapper to break down the numbers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Take a look between the then and now. This is the then. This is the 2020 presidential election.

This is Joe Biden's overwhelming and convincing win in the electoral college. Yes, the former president was in the room here tonight. Others in the room here tonight still say this was a rigged or unfair election. That's not true. It's just not true. Joe Biden won and he won big.

That was then, 306 to 232. But this is our current CNN projection of where we are now. And look at this.

If Donald Trump won, what we have here, dark red states, solid Republican, light red states, leaning Republican. If he won just those right there, he would already have the path to 270. He would have 272 electoral votes.

Look what is different. We have Wisconsin as a toss-up. We have Pennsylvania as a toss-up. Two critical states for Joe Biden. Michigan right now, another critical state for leaning Republican. Georgia, a state Biden flipped, leaning Republican.

Arizona, a toss-up state. That was a state Biden flipped. Nevada, a state he won, leaning Republican.

This is the dire straight for Joe Biden right now on the first night of the Republican convention. Tomorrow is 16 weeks to election day. Sixteen weeks from tomorrow, we count the votes. It is tough to change a map like this in that amount of time.

And here's why Democrats are so worried, why so many Democrats are saying, Mr. President, please reconsider and get out of this race. Because right now, Trump is leading here. And Trump is leading here. Narrowly, but he's ahead in those states. Trump is leading here.

That's 312 electoral votes. Trump is leading in this Nebraska congressional district. Let me change it that way. Nebraska does it by congressional district. That's 313 electoral votes.

And Democrats are warning that Trump may not be well ahead.

[04:40:00]

It may still be margin of error. It might be a tie. But right now, Trump is competitive here. That's blue Virginia. That's blue New Hampshire. So the warnings to the White House are, Donald Trump could conceivably, if the current dynamics in the race hold, get 330 or more electoral votes. That's what they believe.

Now, if you're a Democrat, if you're in the Biden White House, yes, there are 16 weeks to Election Day. So can it be done? Come back to this.

Can it be done? Yes. But it's a very narrow path for Joe Biden.

He must win this. He must change this. Michigan has to go blue, and he must win this.

Look at that number. Even if he did that, won the three blue wall states, he's at 269. So he either has to get Arizona or Nevada back or get Georgia back and win the Nebraska Congressional District.

So Joe Biden has essentially one, maybe two narrow paths to 270. Donald Trump has so many. There are viable paths to get him as high as 330, which means you can take some states away, Jake, and he would still get to 270.

Donald Trump, on the first night of his convention, and Democratic people who are studying the data closely say it keeps getting worse for the president. Donald Trump opened his convention tonight in a commanding position in this race, period.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: John King reporting there. J.D. Vance subscribes to a similar America-first foreign policy agenda

as former President Donald Trump. The Ohio senator has been a vocal opponent of sending aid to Ukraine and has said previously that Israel needs to, quote, finish the job in its war with Hamas.

To discuss how a Trump-Vance ticket could impact foreign relations, let's turn now to CNN's international diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson. He joins us now live from London. So, Nic, what has -- what's being said, if anything, at this juncture about a Trump-Vance ticket and the impact on foreign policy? And what's been the overall reaction to that first day of the RNC?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, we're not seeing too much reaction yet to the pick of J.D. Vance, but I think it's probably becoming absolutely clear to leaders here, whether it's the U.K., whether it's European Union leaders who gather in Brussels on occasion, that Donald Trump's pick here telegraphs perhaps the worst of scenarios that they might have imagined from a new Republican president at the beginning of next year because he reinforces those isolationist views and would not appear to want to hold Donald Trump back.

You know, Europeans heard J.D. Vance when he was among them at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, February this year, and he was speaking very clearly. And he said, look, I'm telling you, you Europeans here because we're friends, not because, you know, I'm against you, but I'm saying this very, very clearly, we're not intending to pull out of NATO per se, we're not intending to abandon friends in Europe, but we are saying very clearly that we're going to pivot away towards Asia.

And I think in context of everything else that he's had to say about Ukraine and the views on Russia, that this is looking much more like a scenario that is a worry for NATO and a worry for European leaders who really got all their support behind Ukraine and can see that dropping away.

Vance has spoken about, you know, the amount of arms and ammunition that's needed to be manufactured to compete with Russia and Ukraine. Europe and the U.S. just isn't there. He's talked about throwing money into Ukraine, implying that it's essentially lost money.

So that's the warning. When President Zelenskyy spoke about a Donald Trump presidency yesterday, he said, obviously, you know, this is all up to the people of the United States to choose. He said, it's something that we're not afraid of.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I think that if Mr. Donald Trump becomes president, we will work. I'm not afraid of this. Ukraine, we are in a war, we are emotional. And when there is uncertainty, and indeed, the Republican Party is different. I want to tell you that the majority of the Republican Party supports Ukraine and the people of Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So this, I think, is the sort of emerging reality. There's an acceptance of, you know, what John King was speaking about there, that Trump at the moment has the clearest way to victory, that his foreign policies would be isolationist.

You know, you have the U.K. today just embarking on what they're calling a root and branch review of the defense spending in the U.K., and what's going to be required going forward.

And the person who's heading that independent review is the former defense minister here, former Secretary General of NATO, Baron Robertson, as he's now titled. That will be his job.

[04:45:00]

And he's already spoken about, you know, the U.K. needing to be ready to face sort of a quadruple threat, if you will, from Russia, from China, from Iran, and from North Korea, all working together.

So the view from Europe is that Russia remains a very significant challenge. And the view it was seen from J.D. Vance is, maybe that's something that Europe needs to focus on for themselves as the United States focuses more towards China.

CHURCH: All right, our thanks to Nic Robertson bringing us a live report from London.

In a stunning ruling, a Florida judge has dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump. The legal wrangling is not over. We will explain what happens next when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Republicans will gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin today for day two of their national political convention. Their presidential nominee Donald Trump made a surprise appearance Monday night, his first public outing since that assassination attempt on Saturday. The crowd cheered and chanted as Trump took his seat alongside his vice presidential running mate Senator J.D. Vance.

Well, Trump wore a white bandage where the would-be assassin's bullet grazed his ear on Saturday. The former president will address the convention on Thursday.

An astonishing decision in the classified documents case against Donald Trump. A federal judge dismissed the case on Monday saying the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional. CNN's Evan Perez explains the decision and what might happen next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR U.S. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: A federal judge in Florida on Monday dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump. It's a surprising ruling that for now clears away one of the major legal challenges facing the former president. It was a 93 page ruling from judge Aileen Cannon. And she said that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution because he was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

She didn't rule on the specifics of the charges that Trump faces for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Now it's a ruling that goes against rulings by multiple other judges in other similar cases which have upheld the legality of special counsels.

Now Cannon wrote quote: In the end it seems the executive's growing comfort in appointing regulatory special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny.

A special counsel's office says that the Justice Department has approved plans to appeal Cannon's ruling. They said quote: The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the attorney general is statutorily authorized to appoint a special counsel.

[04:50:00]

Now Smith had charged Trump last year with taking classified documents from the White House and for obstruction the government's attempts to retrieve those materials. He's pleaded not guilty.

The former president also faces charges brought by Smith in Washington D.C. for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. A judge there had rejected the same Trump claims over Smith's appointment.

Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Earlier I spoke with former judge and professor at Cooley Law School Jeff Swartz and I asked him what this ruling means for other cases against Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEFF SWARTZ, FORMER MIAMI-DADE COUNTY COURT JUDGE: Well there's one other federal case and that's the one that's in front of Judge Chutkan in Washington D.C. It's referred to as the election interference case in federal court. It has four accounts that include conspiracy and three others. In that particular instance Judge Chutkan has already entered an order denying this same motion. I don't see her changing her mind.

Judge Cannon's opinion and her ruling holds no precedential value whatsoever to any other court. It doesn't have to be obeyed by anybody even within the Southern District of Florida. It's her opinion and her opinion alone.

There have been circuit opinions, those are appellate court opinions, that have in fact upheld the appointment of special prosecutor and in fact the Supreme Court has allowed the special prosecutor to appear several times in front of them. Resultantly they have basically approved of the appointment and the standing and jurisdiction of Mr. Smith to represent the United States of America in this litigation. So it really doesn't mean anything for any other case.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Still to come, prayers for Donald Trump and calls from his supporters to tone down the political rhetoric as they gather in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: CNN is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where some Donald Trump supporters are warning their fellow Americans against descending into deeper political division after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday. Our Donie O'Sullivan went to a vigil outside the Republican National Convention the day after the shooting where Trump supporters were praying and discussing the state of political rhetoric in America.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was actually in the airport when the news broke.

CHRIS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I was at home sitting on my couch. I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean, this is America.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We are here for a prayer vigil just outside the main security perimeter of the RNC in Milwaukee. This event was put together at last-minute after the attempted assassination of former President Trump last night.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe the Lord Almighty was with Donald Trump yesterday. God's hands of protection was around him as we have prayed for him many, many times before.

MAGGIE SANDROCK, RNC DELEGATE: I've worked elections for 18 years. Side-by-side some of my best friends for over the last 18 years are Democratic voters and poll workers. And they are as appalled as we are about this.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

SANDROCK: This shouldn't happen in America.

O'SULLIVAN: Of course.

SANDROCK: -- shouldn't. This is not a third world country.

CHRIS: It's because of the rhetoric. Look, everybody is so divided.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

[04:55:00]

CHRIS: No one likes extreme left and no one likes extreme right. We got to find some consensus in the middle and people might talk about that but, you know, both sides do it, they vilify each other. It's ridiculous. It's just got to stop.

O'SULLIVAN: Is that on both sides?

SANDROCK: On both sides. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. How can we call each other names and then have Republicans and Democrats win and have them sit at the same table and negotiate when you've called each other morons and idiots --

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

SANDROCK: -- and Nazis? It's not conducive to having a real dialog and getting things done.

O'SULLIVAN: What do you think has happened for, I mean, I know you're holding this sign that says fight, fight, fight. I take it, you obviously don't want to see more violence or what not?

CHRIS SLINKER, RNC DELEGATE: No. No, no. I don't think it's a violent fight.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

SLINKER: I think this is a fight that can be won intelligently. I think it's about fighting to restore decency to this country.

O'SULLIVAN: There has been pretty universal -- on the part of Democratic leaders, elected officials, Biden --

CHRIS: Yes.

O'SULLIVAN: -- there's been pretty unanimous condemnation of the attempted assassination of Trump.

CHRIS: And there should be, yep.

O'SULLIVAN: I've seen some Democrats make the point --

CHRIS: Yep.

O'SULLIVAN: -- that when it came to Paul Pelosi and other things, that Republicans were not as straightforward saying, we condemn this, that there was people joking about it. There was --

CHRIS: Oh, yes, you don't joke about when somebody gets hurt. I don't care what their --

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

CHRIS: -- political feelings or what side they lean.

O'SULLIVAN: Yes.

CHRIS: You don't joke about that.

O'SULLIVAN: How do you think the temperature can be turned down a bit? SLINKER: I'm not interested in toning it down. They've almost just killed our president. They almost just murdered him. This isn't a time to tone down; this is a time to turn up.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A GoFundMe set up to support the family of Corey Comperatore, the father and firefighter killed at Saturday's Trump rally, has surpassed $1 million in just one day. In a memorial to Comperatore, the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company hung his uniform outside the fire station on Sunday. His widow, Helen, told the "New York Post" his last words would get down when the shooting began.

She says President Joe Biden tried to call her, but she didn't want to speak to him, because her devout Republican husband would not have wanted that.

Two men injured at the rally, 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver, are both in stable condition in hospital. A colleague of Dutch says he underwent two surgeries after being shot in the chest and liver.

And I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. I'm Rosemary Church. CNN "THIS MORNING" is up next after a quick break.

[05:00:00]