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Is VP Nominee J.D. Vance the Future Leader of MAGA?; Fact- Checking False or Misleading Claims at Day Three of RNC; Biden Under New Pressure to Drop Out of Presidential Race; Biden Tests Positive for COVID-19 at Key Moment in Campaign; Study: Mediterranean Heavily Polluted by Plastic, Chemicals. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired July 18, 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]
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN ANCHOR: That was certainly a forceful speech. But there are still some who question what Vance himself brings to the ticket and whether he will be able to hold together the loose coalition of voters that make up Trump's base. Our own Jeff Zeleny has more on the man that many MAGA supporters will hope to be the future leader of their movement.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He's the new heir to the MAGA movement. J.D. Vance takes center stage as Donald Trump's running mate, a young Ohio senator chosen to reinforce the Trump brand and help carry it forward.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We have got to reelect President Donald J. Trump to the White House, right?
ZELENY (voice-over): The Republican convention and the campaign is still the Trump show, but Vance is now written into the script and settling into his new partnership with the former president.
His journey is a remarkable arc. From ferocious Trump critic --
VANCE: I'm definitely not going to vote for Trump because I think that he's projecting very complex problems onto simple villains.
ZELENY (voice-over): -- to ardent Trump loyalist.
VANCE: The president is right, I wasn't always nice, but the simple fact is he's the best president of my lifetime and he revealed the corruption in this country like nobody else.
ZELENY (voice-over): An economic populist at home and an isolationist abroad, whose views are at odds with some Republican orthodoxy of old, but he's squarely in the mold of Trump.
VANCE: It ain't the death of the America First agenda.
ZELENY (voice-over): The ascension of Vance has been astonishingly swift, elected to the Senate less than two years ago with the help of Trump's endorsement.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: J.D. Vance is your guy, he will do a tremendous job when you cast your vote.
ZELENY (voice-over): At 39, Vance is the first millennial on a major party's presidential ticket.
Born in 1984, three months before Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term, Vance served in the Marines, graduated from Yale Law School, and rose to fame with a bestselling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," a book about his troubled upbringing on the edge of Appalachia.
VANCE: You can't do this without your family's support and especially my beautiful wife, Usha. Thank you so much.
ZELENY (voice-over): His wife, Usha Vance, will introduce him, giving the country a first look at her too. They met at Yale Law School, married a decade ago, and have three young children.
USHA VANCE, WIFE OF J.D. VANCE: I'm not raring to change anything about our lives right now, but I really, you know, I believe in J.D. and I really love him, and so we'll just sort of see what happens with our life.
ZELENY (voice-over): The daughter of Indian immigrants, she was raised near San Diego, a registered Democrat until 2014. She clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh before he joined the Supreme Court. Many Republican delegates here say they don't know much about him, but like what they see.
ZELENY: What do you think of J.D. Vance?
BARBARA CARLSON, MISSOURI DELEGATE TO THE RNC: I'm really excited about him. I think it's a great choice. I think it's a younger look. I think it's somebody who can carry the torch. I think that he can carry this message. When Donald Trump hands it over, J.D. Vance can take us the next eight years.
ZELENY (voice-over): Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Milwaukee.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: Now, night three of the Republican National Convention saw numerous false or misleading claims throughout the evening from speakers, including Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, and of course, others as well. Our own Daniel Dale separates fact from fiction.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: There were a whole lot of false or misleading claims on night three of this convention. Vice presidential pick J.D. Vance strongly suggested that Donald Trump opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq that Joe Biden supported. In reality, Trump expressed at least tentative support for that invasion before it happened. When Trump was asked by radio host Howard Stern six months before the war whether he was for an invasion, he said, quote, yes, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly.
And then two months before the invasion, Trump said on TV that then- President Bush, a direct quote, has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps.
Now, that's waffly, sure, but it's not the words of an opponent of the invasion. Now, Trump did become an opponent of the war explicitly in 2004. But Vance's suggestion that Trump was on the opposite side of Biden on the question of starting the war, of the invasion, and that's not true.
There were other false or misleading claims as well. A former Trump adviser, Peter Navarro, falsely claimed that special counsel Jack Smith prosecuted him. Smith did not.
A Florida congressman, Mike Waltz, blasted Biden for allegedly being focused on building electric military tanks. That's fiction. Biden has made no push for electric tanks, though the U.S. Army is moving toward some other kinds of electric vehicles.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich claimed no U.S. soldier was killed in Afghanistan in the nearly two-year period under Trump. There was not a single two-year period under Trump where no U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan.
Various other speakers depicted a country with rampant crime, rampant violence. They didn't acknowledge that violent crime in the U.S. today is lower than it was in Trump's last year in office.
Conservative commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancee, declared that Trump handed Biden a booming economy. You might remember what things were like in January 2021 when Biden was sworn in. The unemployment rate was 6.4 percent.
And similarly, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley claimed the economy was stronger four years ago than it is today. There's just no reasonable basis for that claim.
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Four years ago, amid the pandemic, of course, there was 11 percent unemployment, nearly triple the current rate. The economy had just contracted, shrunk by an all-time record for a quarter, an annual rate of more than 30 percent.
Daniel Dale, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: And Donald Trump will get his chance to speak to Republican delegates tonight. On Wednesday, they heard from his 17-year-old granddaughter, Kai. Her father is Donald Trump Jr., and she talked about what kind of grandfather Donald Trump is. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAI TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S GRANDDAUGHTER: He calls me during the middle of the school day to ask how my golf game is going and tells me all about his. But then I have to remind him that I'm in school and I'll have to call him back later. When we play golf together, if I'm not on his team, he'll try to get inside of my head.
I know. And he's always surprised that I don't let him get to me. But I have to remind him I'm with Trump, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: Looking forward to tonight, Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and former First Lady Melania Trump are expected to appear at the convention tonight.
While Donald Trump is riding high, President Biden is facing new calls to drop out of the race. California Congressman Adam Schiff is the latest Democrat to publicly make that call on Wednesday.
And ABC News is reporting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has privately advised Biden to bow out, though Schumer's spokesperson said that was, quote, speculation.
As MJ Lee reports, another high-profile Democrat is working behind the scenes to convince President Biden that the numbers just aren't looking good for him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: CNN has learned that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spoken again with President Biden in recent days and that Nancy Pelosi told President Biden that polling shows the president cannot defeat Donald Trump and that the president would destroy Democrats' chances of winning the House in November if he were to continue seeking a second term. The president responded, we are told by our sources, by being defensive about the polling and told Pelosi he has seen polling that shows that he can, in fact, win. At one point, we're told that Pelosi asked Mike Donilon, the president's senior adviser, to join the call to talk over all of the data.
Now, none of our sources would say whether Pelosi in this conversation explicitly told the president that she believes that he needs to leave the race.
This would mark the second known conversation between Nancy Pelosi and President Biden since the debate at the end of June. The White House would not comment on the contents of this conversation, as CNN is reporting. They only said that President Biden is the nominee of the party he plans to win. And a Pelosi spokesperson told CNN that the former House speaker has been in California since Friday and that she has not spoken to President Biden since.
It is impossible almost to overstate the importance of Nancy Pelosi in the entire conversation that is happening right now about President Biden and his future. She is somebody that has incredible sway within her party and probably has the best pulse of what her colleagues in the House are thinking right now than almost anybody else.
MJ Lee, CNN, at the White House.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is exactly what we were doing today on the call.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stonewalling.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This was an assassination attempt. You owe the people answers. You owe President Trump answers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: Look at that, a pretty stunning scene there at the Republican National Convention where several Republican senators confronted the Secret Service director over the assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life. Senator Marsha Blackburn, you heard her there shouting, quote, you owe the people answers. And all this comes after Senate Republicans were briefed Wednesday on the shooting investigation by the Secret Service and FBI officials.
A briefing some criticized as, quote, uninformative. Several Republican lawmakers are now calling for the Secret Service director to resign.
New video obtained by our affiliate WTAE shows someone resembling the shooter right outside the very building he would later climb to try to kill the former president.
And that video was taken about an hour before the incident. Law enforcement tells CNN the shooter's phone contained photos of U.S. President Joe Biden, Donald Trump, as well as other officials and political figures. And sources in that Secret Service briefing say the gunman visited the rally site at least twice after the event was announced.
And we have this just into CNN right now. Israel's far right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, entered the al-Aqsa complex in Jerusalem early today to pray for the hostages and their return from Gaza.
[04:40:00]
What a provocative move since religious observance there is reserved only for Muslims. The Temple Mount is, as it's also known, is the holiest site for Jews. Ben-Gvir has entered the site a number of times, repeatedly saying Jews should be allowed to pray there.
And remaining in the region, the U.S. military is ending its temporary pier mission off Gaza's coast after just a little more than 20 days of operational use. The U.S. military says the floating pier, quote, has achieved its intended effect of increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Now aid will be brought in through the Israeli port of Ashdod or through land crossings. The pier has been used to deliver more than 19 million pounds of aid into the enclave since May but was plagued with issues due to heavy seas and bad weather.
And still to come right here, U.S. President Biden tests positive for COVID-19 at a critical juncture in his reelection bid. What this might mean for his campaign. That is coming up next.
And piles of sugar hiding somewhere dangerous and illegal, ahead on CNN. Details on Paraguay's biggest drug bust in history. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PLEITGEN: U.S. President Joe Biden is at home in Delaware today. He's self-isolating after testing positive for COVID-19 at a key moment in his re-election campaign. The news about his health came after Mr. Biden said in an interview with BET News that he might re-evaluate his candidacy if he's diagnosed with a, quote, medical condition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I understand why people say, look, look, I'm only three years older than Trump, OK? And I think I'm a little better physical shape than he is. The point is, though, that it's not unreasonable for people to say, wait a minute, you're 81 years old.
And so I think it's a legitimate thing for the race. And as long as I can demonstrate that it's not affecting my ability to compete, my ability to get things done, my ability to literally lead the world, lead the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: Now, that interview was taped on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, President Biden had to cut short a key campaign event with Latino voters after testing positive for coronavirus. CNN's Jenn Sullivan has those details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENN SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): President Joe Biden in Las Vegas Wednesday, now back in his home in Delaware after testing positive for COVID. Telling reporters he feels fine and giving a thumbs up before boarding Air Force One. The White House says Biden is experiencing mild symptoms, will self-isolate, and continue to carry out his duties.
Biden tested positive just hours after being seen here mingling with patrons at a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He just tested positive for COVID.
[04:45:00]
SULLIVAN (voice-over): Then he was supposed to speak at the Unidos U.S. annual conference, but he wasn't feeling well.
The president's doctor says Biden was experiencing upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose, nonproductive cough, and general malaise. That's when they tested him for COVID.
His doctors say he's received his first dose of the antiviral drug Paxlovid. This is the president's third time getting COVID. He tested positive in July of 2022 and suffered a second rebound case in the following days.
I'm Jenn Sullivan reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: And joining me now from Hawaii, Dr. Scott Miscovich, president and CEO of the Premier Medical Group in the United States. And Dr. Miskovich, I mean, a huge setback again for President Biden, but what does this mean in terms of his health?
DR. SCOTT MISCOVICH, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PREMIER MEDICAL GROUP USA: You know, Fred, in general, when we have a patient that's 81 years old, we, you know, you have to treat everybody differently and assess them as an individual.
Dr. O'Connor released the president's general health report back February 28th of this year, which was in the news for other reasons. And I would tell you when I would be talking to a family of someone like him, that I would assess him as being in very good health. That's the first thing.
He has suffers from what's called atrial fibrillation, which is an irregular heartbeat. That's common in approximately 10 percent of men over 80. And he has something called sleep apnea, which causes him to wake up at night with lower oxygen. So he wears a CPAP device. And then he has some high cholesterol, some stomach acid reflux, and we all know about his arthritis and stiffness.
And, you know, at 81, those aren't really major issues that put you at any type of significant risk for COVID. So that's my overall assessment right now is he's not at significant risk. And the other good news is they immediately put him on Paxlovid, which really works.
PLEITGEN: One of the things that he is, he is obviously still 81 years old. And as you've mentioned, any sort of medical issue for an 81- year-old can obviously turn into something worse. And at the same time, though, COVID has changed, hasn't it?
It's not the potent respiratory disease that it was maybe two years ago, but it can still be dangerous. What do you think his doctors are looking at in terms of how all this could develop? MISCOVICH: Well, you know, right now we still see, even though things have changed, as you've mentioned, we look for the respiratory change. You know, people who are still being hospitalized, the majority progress onto a pneumonia. They get a severe cough. They have difficulty breathing. They still get the liquefaction in the lungs when the virus attacks the lungs. They can get heart attack. They can get stroke. They can have blood clots in the legs. Some get amputations. Those things are changing.
But Fred, what you alluded to, what has changed across the country is the fact that right now it's estimated with CDC data and sampling over 97 percent of the population or more has either been vaccinated or has contracted COVID or both. And when you see an individual like the President, who is now going through his third episode, he's carrying a lot of natural immunity. That's very, very important.
Plus his last vaccination was September of 2023. And that also, although it wanes, that will still carry some protection for him.
So that's why there should be some optimism that he's not going to have a severe disease, because he should, even though he's older and our immune system declines, should have fairly robust immunity right now.
PLEITGEN: As you've noted, he is in fairly robust health for his age. At the same time, he is obviously running a grinding political campaign right now for re-election. And of course, at the same time, being the most powerful man in the world.
What would your advice be to him? And I know every individual is different as to how long he should actually rest and stay away from public engagements.
MISCOVICH: It would be a minimum of seven days, in my perspective, which is longer than the general CDC recommendation that talks about symptomatology. But I would feel that he needs to be getting adequate sleep. He needs to be hydrating, doing the standard things you do when you're ill.
And basically, they need to be aggressively following his symptoms. And if he starts developing other symptoms, he'd need other diagnostics. The other good news is, there are so many medications, because COVID has been with us for over four years, that can be added on to his Paxlovid to prevent complications and to prevent problems from occurring or to prevent this from progressing.
So minimum of seven days. But as you noted with this campaign, I don't think he's going to be sitting down too long for seven days.
[04:50:03]
PLEITGEN: Yes, he certainly isn't going to be sitting down too long. And he's obviously still running of the United States. Thank you so much, Dr. Scott Miscovich, to Hawaii.
And the Russian trial of American journalist Evan Gershkovich has just resumed. Today's hearing in the case against "The Wall Street Journal" reporter was initially slated for August but was moved forward at his attorney's request.
Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors last month on espionage charges, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors allege the 32-year-old American journalist was spying for the CIA. Gershkovich, his newspaper, and the U.S. government all reject those allegations and say he was just doing his job as an accredited journalist in Russia.
And when we come back, a study on ocean waste has a stark warning about the Mediterranean Sea and the plastic pollution accumulating there. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PLEITGEN: A study by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature finds that the Mediterranean Sea is heavily polluted by plastic waste and by chemicals. Conservationists say the Mediterranean is particularly vulnerable to pollution because the sea is, of course, semi-enclosed. CNN's Barbie Nadeau has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): The Mediterranean Sea evokes dreams of luxurious vacations and total relaxation. But your perfect holiday comes at a price. This seemingly idyllic sea is 87 percent polluted, according to a new study by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.
PIERLUIGI CAPOZZI, BUSINESS OWNER (through translator): I still see that young people without any problems throw plastic bottles into the sea, throw rubbish on the ground, leave the rubbish, abandon it everywhere, cigarettes, garbage.
NADEAU (voice-over): Under and often above the surface is a deadly cocktail of toxic metals, industrial chemicals and plastic waste. This enormous body of water, which stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to Asia and from Europe to Africa, has the highest concentration of microplastics ever recorded, about 1.9 million fragments per square meter, experts say.
NADEAU: The Mediterranean Sea is incredibly popular for beachgoers who come here to enjoy these crystal clear turquoise waters, but they're not exactly clean. Every single day, 730 tons of plastic waste are polluting these seas.
NADEAU (voice-over): A hundred and fifty million people live on the shores of the heavily polluted Mediterranean and a further 270 million tourists visit each year.
In 2019, water pollution was connected to about 1.4 million premature deaths globally each year, according to "The Lancet," underscoring the risks involved with exposure to polluted water.
The fishing industry is also at risk, since microplastics and the toxic contaminants that attach to them are starting to show worrying health consequences for those who catch fish and those who consume it.
Plastic is a forever pollutant, according to climate crisis experts, meaning once it becomes invasive, it's here to stay. For now, holidaymakers who enjoy this peaceful paradise hope others will do their part to stop spreading the scourge.
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FRANCESCO PACELL, TOURIST (through translator): It is so important to keep the beach, the water clean. It's more beautiful. In my opinion, it is very important, especially for fish, animals, with all the plastic that floats around.
NADEAU (voice-over): If humans don't do their part to stop the pollution, the dream Mediterranean vacation will soon turn into a nightmare.
Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, reporting from the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: China's state news says 16 people are dead after a fire tore through a shopping mall on Wednesday. Smoke was seen billowing from the 14-story building in central China. You can see it on your screen there.
An initial report said there were people trapped inside, but rescue operations are now over, and everybody has gotten out. State news says early indications are the fire was caused by construction work.
Meanwhile, authorities in Paraguay have made the biggest cocaine bust in the country's history, seasoning more than four tons of coke worth $240 million. The drugs were inside a shipment of sugar headed for Belgium. The bust, named Operation Sweetness, was carried out in Paraguay's capital city. The country's anti-drug agency says it believes organized crime was behind the massive shipment.
Specialized personnel using a helicopter recovered a downed aircraft from a mountain in Argentina. You're looking at a time lapse showing the salvage operation which took place on Wednesday. The plane made an emergency landing back on June 29th. This operator rescued a day later. The recovery took about 10 hours according to the company in charge of the aircraft removal, which provides services like mountain rescues and heli-skiing.
And a record-setting auction in New York, 150 million years in the making.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sold!
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PLEITGEN: Meet Apex, the Stegosaurus. She just sold at an auction for a whopping $44.6 million. She's among the largest Stegosaurus skeletons ever found. Apex is also well preserved. Out of almost 320 bones, around 250 are real fossils. The rest were 3D printed or sculpted.
And finally, a Wisconsin native has become something of a celebrity at the Republican National Convention, but he doesn't want to talk politics. Meet Lambo, the English Labrador. He's a service dog who's been by his owner's side during the convention.
Wisconsin Republican delegate Terence Wall says hundreds of photos have been taken of his sidekick, and he's even made the big screen inside the convention hall.
Thank you for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Fred Pleitgen in London. CNN "THIS MORNING" is up next after a quick break.
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