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Trump Returns to False Claims During Acceptance Speech; Trump Calls Undocumented Immigrants "Criminal and Murderers"; Biden Campaign Co-Chair: Biden Staying in the Race, 100 Percent"; Biden Isolated by COVID and His Own Party; Investigators Dig Into Trump Rally Shooter's Search History; Russia Sentences Evan Gershkovich to 16 Years in Prison; Global Tech Outage Shuts Down Flights, Banks, Businesses. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 19, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Let's discuss with CNN Political Commentator Paul Begala and former senior adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign, Jason Osborne. Paul, you know, if I had a nickel for every time they were talking about Donald Trump taking on a new tone I would have a lot of nickels, a lot of nickels.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, Jim.

ACOSTA: What happened to that message of unity that we were supposed to hear?

BEGALA: Well, that speech last night -- excuse me. Wait. I'm getting a report. He's just about to wrap up, Jim. He's got a few more minutes. We're only 12 hours into it. Oh, my God. It was flabby and windy and flat 92 minutes. Somewhere in hell Fidel Castro is jealous. OK. It -- and I say this, I hope I have some credibility. I have been very rough in my criticisms of Joe Biden's performances. OK.

So, it was stylistically flat, but worse than that, it was strategically dumb, except for that near death experience. The only thing we've been talking about for three weeks is this, is Biden too old? Trump never mentioned that. He changed the subject. As a Democrat I want to thank him.

Somewhere in Biden headquarters in Wilmington they were thrilled with that speech. Why? Because for 92 very long boring minutes, we stopped asking whether Biden was too old and we started to ask, do we really want to go back to this nuttiness and weirdness and narcissism and chaos and hate? Let's call it what it is.

So, Trump's set back -- the convention itself was great, except for the speeches by the vice presidential candidate and the presidential candidate. But other than that, it was a terrific convention.

ACOSTA: Yes, Jason, what do you think? Was this a missed opportunity? I mean, do you think all of this talk of Hannibal Lecter and stolen elections might have been ill-advised? Does he think that the movie was the silence of the Dems? What's going on here?

JASON OSBORNE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN AND FORMER SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST, BEN CARSON 2016 CAMPAIGN: Well, you know, I understand what y'all are trying to accomplish here, right? In the sense that, you know, we want to nitpick and figure out like, did Donald Trump change his tone? And I would say that I think he did. I don't think you saw a lot of the red meat. You didn't hear Crooked Joe. You didn't hear a lot of those type of descriptions.

And, you know, I take exception to what Paul said about, you know, bringing up Joe Biden's age. I mean, I think that is something that may -- Trump may have done pre last Saturday. I do see your point in terms of, you know, the beginning of the speech was pretty emotional and you could tell that certainly what happened last Saturday had an impact on him.

But to say that he was going to change his tone completely and forget what has happened in the past, I think was a mistake, you know, on many people's parts and probably mine as well. But I think near the end of the speech too, I think you saw a different side of Donald Trump where he talked about bringing together both sides of the aisle and every walk of life here in the U.S. and that we have to accept the fact that in order to get things done, we're going to have to come to agreement.

ACOSTA: Well, he was saying crazy -- he was saying -- yes, but, Jason, he was saying crazy Nancy Pelosi. He was -- I think he mentioned an invasion at the border. I can't count how many times. That was not a unifying speech, right? That was not unity.

OSBORNE: Well, I think -- just because you point out the things that pre last Saturday, doesn't mean that you're going to now change your tone and forget in the past. I don't think he was as harsh as he has been over the last couple years on some of those issues, but he's not going to forget those things, and I think he does have to address them in a certain respect, but I don't think you're going to see -- moving forward, I don't think you're going to see Donald Trump sitting there and going on the attack and being vicious like maybe he had been in the past.

I mean, I think in my lifetime, professional lifetime, I mean, there's been four campaigns, I think, that have really kind of set the stage of being really great campaigns. And, Paul, yours was the first in '92 with the Clinton campaign and then again with Obama in '08 and then Trump in '16. I think, you know, we're dealing with an organization here that's playing chess while the rest of the folks are playing checkers. And we're seeing it play out on the Democrat side.

And I think Donald Trump, certainly his tone and his -- you know, it's volume certainly was a lot less than it had been. And the interactions that you saw with him in the crowd and actually, you know, I had an opportunity to go backstage last night after the speech, and how he resonated or communicated with people was much different than I think we've seen in the past.

ACOSTA: Paul, I do want to ask you about what's happening on the Democratic side. I talked to Congresswoman Veronica Escobar at the top of the hour. She was insisting up and down and Jen O'Malley Dillon was also doing it on one of the other shows this morning that President Biden is staying in this race. Is that a good idea?

BEGALA: The president has to make a very difficult decision. And it's been three weeks since that debate and things have only gotten worse for him in the polling. Yesterday, Emerson College put out all their swing state polls. Biden is trailing in every single swing state, including the one he won. Take Arizona for example, which he won very narrowly. He's behind by 10 in Arizona. Now, he has outspent Trump in Arizona, 20 to one, and he's still trailing. That's the bad news.

[10:35:00]

Here's the good news. This is because Biden has moved down, but Trump has not moved up. So, far, even -- and thank God he's OK. I mean that. Thank God he's OK. But even that assassination attempt has not boosted Trump. Now, Zeleny, I heard earlier say that Trump may get (INAUDIBLE). But the point is, before the faceplant and the debate, Trump was at 46. Today, he's still at 46.

I watched that speech last night and I thought, we can beat this guy. But it's Biden's collapse that is just killing Democrats right now. But Trump has not taken maximum advantage of that.

ACOSTA: All right. So, we'll be watching the coming days. Paul and Jason, thanks very much guys. Appreciate it.

OSBORNE: Thank you.

BEGALA: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: A long time. Biden aid says the president's last act will not be getting knocked down as pressure mounts for him to step aside. Is it game over? New CNN reporting coming up on that next.

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ACOSTA: This morning, President Biden's campaign chair is insisting he's staying in the race and will beat Donald Trump. But new reporting reveals the struggle facing Democrats as calls for Biden to exit the presidential race continue to grow. One Democrat tells CNN that no matter what the party does, it will hurt their chances at beating Donald Trump this fall, describing the situation as being caught in what they call a "doom loop."

With us now, the reporter on that story, Isaac Dovere. And also, sharing her insights, CNN political analyst and PBS NewsHour White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez. We love the news hour over there at PBS. Love our friends over there.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Thank you. ACOSTA: Isaac, let me start with you. We were just having a conversation about all of this and we had to cut it short because we were coming back on the air. But during the commercial break, you know, you and I were talking about, I mean, people should not be surprised if Joe Biden stays in this race. Despite all of this pressure, everything that's building around him, he might just stay in.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes. Look, there are some people who are under the impression that he is just living on a different planet, not taking this in. He is taking the information in, he is considering it, but he is also seeing information that points in the direction that maybe even for all of it, he could end up being the better bet for Democrats. Obviously, people have very different opinions of that.

What is going on around him, though, is that even people who work for him in the White House and on the campaign, people who after the debate, for weeks after the debate, were saying, we're good, we're going to keep going, have, in the last week, started to feel the weight of this on them. Feeling like, even if they could try to make a case, it just is too much.

One person said to me, it feels like it's game over at this point. That person said that to me yesterday. That person was not someone who was in that place even a couple of days ago.

ACOSTA: Yes.

DOVERE: So, that is what they are dealing with here. And while that is going on, the campaign, by the way, is looking at information like, for example, some of the donors who have said, we're boycotting Joe Biden, Abigail Disney, Mike Novogratz. Those people didn't give to Joe Biden in this race already.

ACOSTA: Yes.

DOVERE: So, they're looking at that, and they're saying, well, what does this mean that you're standing against us? We don't know how it's all going to come out on the wash.

ACOSTA: And, Laura, I mean, just this morning Congressman Sean Casten became the 23rd Democrat to call for the president to lead the race. But I was talking to Congressman Veronica Escobar, national campaign co-chair for the Biden campaign. She makes a pretty good point. She made a good point on this program. And that is, you know, there's a lot of Democrats who are saying the president should get out of the race, they're not doing it publicly.

We have 23. There are some 200 Democrats in the House. There are only two Senators who are publicly calling on the president to get out of the race. Does she have a point?

BARRON-LOPEZ: She does. I mean, the majority of lawmakers have not weighed in here yet. They are privately. I mean, a lot of the Democratic lawmakers that I've talked to do think that he should get out of the race, but they're not willing to go public just yet.

One thing that I'm hearing from them, though, is some are saying that if they don't see a change from President Biden that they will go public by Monday. A lot of them feel as though Monday is kind of a key date for them, because the closer we get to the potential roll call vote on -- which would happen around August 1st for the Democratic National Convention, that nominating vote, they think that the soon -- something needs to change sooner rather than later.

A lot of the Democrats that I talked to say that they feel as though, you know, it's doom and gloom, which I know that someone told you it was a doom loop, and I was like, a Democrat called it doom and gloom to me. And they -- even the ones that are supportive of Biden privately say they don't know if he is going to ultimately be able to survive all of this swirling, especially from Democratic leaders.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Isaac, I mean, if the president bows out, a new CBS poll shows Trump, and we show this to our viewers, beating Vice President Harris by three percentage points, should she become the nominee? And I have to assume that they're consuming all of this data pretty voraciously inside the Biden campaign and saying -- and I'm sure there are some who want the president to stay and think the president should stay in and say, listen, the president could get out, but that doesn't necessarily mean that if Kamala Harris gets in, that she's going to win.

DOVERE: Right.

ACOSTA: And there are all these challenges that come with, you know, swapping out nominees at this stage.

DOVERE: And there are people who seem to have forgotten that there are going to be questions of whether Harris should just inherit the nomination, whether it should be open, what that would look like over the course of the next couple weeks, what it would look like for everything to be dug into from her past and her statements before.

I was talking to a member of Congress last week who said to me, it was only a couple months ago that the stories were that she should be dropped from the ticket. She was such a dragon. Now, that switch, that is all part of this too. And that's what you hear from Democrats who are just worried about all of this to say, you know, what is the process that goes forward from the day that Joe Biden drops out if he does?

[10:45:00]

And the thing for them that they are always thinking is, the point here is to win, they would like to beat Donald Trump and they do not think that any of this is moving them closer to accomplishing that goal.

ACOSTA: And, Laura, a reminder to Democrats last night as to what the stakes are was Trump's speech at the convention last night. They said there was going to be unifying, they said there would be a new tone. And he talked about immigration at the border for a good chunk of it, just demonizing immigrants using invasion rhetoric and so on. I have to think, the president and his team inside the campaign are saying, no, we want to stay in and beat that guy.

BARRON-LOPEZ: They are. A Democrat I was texting with this morning said that the campaign felt emboldened by that Trump speech last night. And I think you've seen it in their response this morning because they've been coming out in full force, whether it was the campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon on MSNBC this morning saying he is in it. They also sent talking points out to Democrats last night saying President Biden has not talked to congressional leadership. He is the nominee and he is going to beat Donald Trump.

So, there's a rallying effect right now. Also, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Dems, their political campaign arm formally endorsed Biden just this morning. So, he's getting some key backing from different parts of the party.

ACOSTA: AOC was on Instagram last night.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Right, she was.

ACOSTA: And Bernie Sanders has come out and so on.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes.

ACOSTA: You're absolutely right. It does seem like they are coming to his defense at a pretty critical moment. Isaac and Laura, guys, thank you very much.

Still to come, it's been nearly a week since a 20-year-old man nearly assassinated Former President Donald Trump. We still don't have a clear motive. Ahead, I'll speak to a former FBI profiler about the case, coming up.

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[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: This just in, the White House just responded to Russia's sentencing of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, President Biden saying in a statement, "We are pushing hard for Evan's release and will continue to do so."

This morning, Russia has sentenced Gershkovich to 16 years in prison on espionage charges. Gershkovich was on a reporting trip last year when he was arrested and later accused of spying for the CIA, but Russian authorities never presented any public evidence to support their claims. Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. government have all vehemently denied those charges. In a statement, The Journal slammed the "sham conviction" and vowed to keep fighting for their reporter's release.

Nearly a week after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, we have new reporting this morning. The gunman's online trail is giving officials a sense of his mindset before the attack. Thomas Crooks looked up information on Michigan mass shooter Ethan Crumbley and his parents and checked out websites detailing how to build explosives.

Plus, moments before firing his AR-15 style weapon, he took a screenshot on his phone of the Trump rally live stream, despite law enforcement flagging him as suspicious then losing track of him for 19 minutes. Trump staffers had no idea of the threat perched on the rooftop yards away from the stage.

I'm joined now by former FBI senior profiler and special agent Mary Ellen O'Toole. Mary Ellen, great to see you. It's been a while. Good to catch up with you. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on this case because many mass shooters leave behind manifestos or writings to explain what they're going to do. Yet, Crooks left behind very few clues. What do you think?

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER SENIOR FBI PROFILER AND FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: He did apparently leave behind fewer clues, but that probably is really part of his personality. He seems like a loner. He seems like someone that is very, very careful about what he leaves in as far as his footprint on social media. So, that may be the best that we have once the investigation starts to wind up.

Hopefully not. Hopefully, they'll uncover more. And what happens with a lot of crimes, not just these mass shootings, the law enforcement and especially FBI profilers, we're really used to making inferences about motivation. So, you have violent offenders that commit terrible crimes, but they never tell you exactly why.

So, from the forensics and the crime scene behavior, you infer why they did it. And there's a lot there right now that allows investigators to make those inferences. And certainly, one of them is this is a young man who was extremely mission oriented and he picked a very -- he couldn't have picked a more high-profile target. Just not even possible.

So, when you combine those two, that really does suggest that he wanted a lot of attention brought to his behavior, even though he was -- he had to risk his life to do that.

ACOSTA: And what do you make of the fact that he was doing some online research on Ethan Crumbley, the school shooter out of Michigan? I do know in some of these cases, and feel free to clarify if I'm botching this at any way, that sometimes these mass shooters become interested in other mass shooters. Sometimes serial killers become interested in other serial killers.

O'TOOLE: No, you're absolutely correct. And I've seen that in both kinds of cases. We saw that since Columbine. So, that's been 25 years of looking at these cases where these shooters will look at other shooters and they'll aspire to be like them or aspire to be better than them. And it certainly also exists with serial killers as well.

So, they can really get a lot of intelligence from other shootings. And looking at the Michigan shooting case that was very recent, the mother and the father were prosecuted because of their involvement in it. So, what they encountered was their own prosecution. So, maybe the shooter was concerned about that. Maybe he wanted to find out exactly why were the parents prosecuted in that case. But he was --

[10:55:00]

ACOSTA: Would his parents get in trouble for what he was going to do --

O'TOOLE: -- conducting his own intelligence.

ACOSTA: -- potentially.

O'TOOLE: Exactly. Yes.

ACOSTA: Yes.

O'TOOLE: Exactly. So, this is a kid that does research, and he does research before he wants to commit his crime even better.

ACOSTA: Fascinating. All right. Mary Ellen O'Toole, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We'll, of course, hope to have you back as soon as possible as this case develops. Always appreciate your insights. Thank you so much.

O'TOOLE: You're welcome.

ACOSTA: All right. We're also following the chaos this morning around the world after a global software outage, grounded planes, impacted banks, businesses, hospitals. The latest on what caused these major disruptions and how soon things could be back up and running. That's next.

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