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Day 3 of RNC Kicks Off After Ex-Rivals Resoundingly Embrace Trump; Internal Democratic Polls Show Biden Losing Ground to Trump in 14 Key States; Secret Service Director Says, Agency was Solely Responsible for Security at Trump Rally Site. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm Kate Bolduan back once again inside the Republican National Convention hall where things will be kicking up once again very soon. It is day three, also known as Veep Day here at the convention. J.D. Vance, stepping into a spotlight brighter than he's ever faced before, about to deliver a speech more important than he's ever given before.

The Ohio senator has been Donald Trump's vice presidential pick for just over 40 hours now. Who's counting? Tonight, all the reporting points to him leaning heavily on his life story, growing up poor in the Rust Belt as he introduces himself to Republican and Trump faithfuls, a story and background that Vance himself says that Trump hopes help them win in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

J.D. Vance's big day follows a night that can be summed up as burying the hatchet. Five of Trump's former Republican rivals taking to the stage to give him their full embrace, including Nikki Haley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.

You don't have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump has been demonized, he's been sued, he's been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Together, we will make our country safe again. Together, we will make Donald Trump our president again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: A show of unity among Republicans on full display. But also on display clear signs that Trump's calls for toning down the rhetoric, bringing down the temperature may have already passed its expiration date. Joe Biden will be back on the campaign trail today out west, just as there's new internal Democratic funded polling that has come out showing that the current president is losing ground to Donald Trump in 14 key states, including the five states that Biden flipped to win in 2020.

CNN's Alayna Treene is here with me now with much more on this. And, Alayna, you have new reporting on J.D. Vance's big night and what is going into this speech. What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right. So -- and as you mentioned, he's going to be focusing very heavily on his life story. And I don't think anyone will question that it is a pretty remarkable journey from him growing up in a very unstable childhood. His family struggled with opioid addiction. And then he went on to go to Yale Law School, he wrote the bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, detailing his childhood. He was a Marine. He was a venture capitalist. He was only in the Senate for a year-and-a-half until Donald Trump tapped him to become his vice president.

So, that's really what we're told he's going to be focusing on tonight. And that's according to someone I know who is helping work on that speech with him.

Now, I do want to read for you what someone told me, because I think this kind of encapsulates it perfectly. They wrote, quote, if you want to crack suburban women, get them to watch the screen adaptation of Vance's memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. His life story is so powerful. Expect a lot of focus on his bio and his life story, the source said.

And it is interesting as well, we saw in recent days that the screen adaptation and the book of Hillbilly Elegy has actually spiked. It's true (ph). We have the numbers here, about 1,179 percent in viewership of the screen adaptation, and it's obviously a number one and number two bestseller on Amazon, and so all of that in the aftermath of him becoming the vice presidential pick.

But, look, I also think you can hear J.D. Vance. He's very smart when it comes to policy. I think you'll hear him walk through some of that as well, touch on foreign policy, something that he talks about often in the Senate.

BOLDUAN: Strong views on foreign policy.

TREENE: Very strong. But everything he's going to be saying is all things that, of course, the Trump campaign will have looked at very closely themselves, make sure that aligns with what the former president feels as he gets on stage.

[07:05:08]

BOLDUAN: So, the appeal to suburban women. I've also heard Don Trump Jr. say they appeal to young voters. And then you've got the appeal to working class voters. I mean, they're putting a lot on J.D. Vance to appeal, appeal, appeal, that I'm just hearing in the first 40-plus hours. But also about last night, the evening of rival and others, but the evening of hearing from Donald Trump's former rivals and the big embrace that they gave, especially Nikki Haley's speech. What are you hearing from Trump's team about the view from last night?

TREENE: I mean, they loved it. They loved every moment of it. Even Donald Trump, you could see him kind of sitting there smugly watching all of his former political foes get up on stage and praise him and call for, you know, this is the man that we all need to support, despite all of the attacks that we saw both sides lob at each other when it was during the primary.

I think Nikki Haley in particular was fascinating to watch, especially just given how much they had broken in the last few weeks of the primary. I want you to take a listen to what she said. I think it was very striking. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY: For those who have some doubts about President Trump, I want to tell you a few things about the commander-in-chief I know and worked with. As ambassador to the United Nations, I had a front row seat to his national security policies. We sure could use those again.

I was proud to serve America in President Trump's cabinet. And I'll tell you something you won't hear from the critics. He appreciated advice and input. Americans were well served by his presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Kate, it's fascinating as well, because we both know from covering Donald Trump for so long, he has ruined careers, he's pushed people aside, he's very thoroughly attacked Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, the works of some of the people we saw last night. But he didn't have to feel threatened. None of them are a threat anymore to him. They're all lining up behind him. And it really does show that the Republican Party is the party of Donald Trump, even though, of course, we know many of these people have political aspirations of their own and need to bend the knee for their own political survivability.

BOLDUAN: Make no mistake, this wasn't just goodwill that was happening on this convention stage, but also when you talk about the -- if you needed a reminder of the evolution of the Republican Party. I think Ted Cruz ala 2016 convention and Ted Cruz then tonight. It's just two different Ted Cruzes, but we've seen that evolution.

TREENE: Yes, a total 180.

BOLDUAN: Great reporting, Alayna. It's great to see you.

TREENE: You too.

BOLDUAN: John, Sara?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you so very much.

With us now, CNN Political Commentator and former Communications Director for Vice President Kamala Harris Jamal Simmons and CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Special Assistant to President George W. Bush Scott Jennings.

And I just want to stipulate that one of the reasons I will never run for president, besides all the skeletons, is because I could never do what Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis did on stage, right? I want my grudges. I can't just say bygones. Unbelievable to see that, but leave that there. I want to talk about the future.

Scott, what's left to do in this convention? You've got two nights left. J.D. Vance, who will be the vice president and the national nominee officially tonight, will take that stage. Will we see him as the new right J.D. Vance? Will we see him as the against the Ukraine war J.D. Vance or something else?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Most people don't know J.D. Vance. He's a two-year senator from Ohio, and so this will be the first time that most Americans really see him, unless they've seen the movie, or unless they've read the book, which is really about his story. And that's what I would expect him to lean into tonight.

How did I get here? I'm 39 years old. You know, how did I get here? What life experiences shaped my world view? And why do I think the Republican Party is best equipped to handle some of the issues that I've faced and that my family has faced and that the people I grew up with have faced? That's what I'm looking for.

Now, do I think you'll have policy ideas? Yes. But to me, it's more narrative tonight. And then tomorrow night, we'll see what Donald Trump has to say about the agenda of the Republican Party.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: He speaks to some of the people that Donald Trump really wants to capture, which is sort of those who have gone through hard times and want a chance to do better.

Jamal, when Democrats see what happened on the stage last night, where you have Marco Rubio, you have Nikki Haley, you have Ron DeSantis, all of whom he have gone up against Donald Trump, when you see them coming together and you look at the Democratic Party and the infighting that's happening there, do they have any chance at this point to have Joe Biden at the top of the ticket and win this election?

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, Democrats have a chance to win because character is always on the ballot. I think the direction of the country is on the ballot. These issues are on the ballot.

[07:10:00]

And one thing that we've seen from Nikki Haley and from Vance and from Ron DeSantis is that they're malleable. They are willing. They said pretty bad things, not just about Donald Trump's policies, but about Donald Trump as a human being. And they said that he was a bad person and odious and he couldn't win. And now they're all changing their tune. You know, when I, when I think about J.D. Vance, the thing about J.D. Vance that always enchanted me because I liked him in 2016 when I read Hillbilly Elegy, which by the way has soared in people buying it, the movie on Netflix and the book, so people are checking him out, is he seemed like he was for the white working class, but not against the black or Latino working class.

And that was the part that I thought was enchanting, because so many people who talked about the white working class sort of pit people against each other. But now it seems that he's moved away from this idea of everybody being able to participate in inclusion, and he's against diversity and inclusion, and he's coming out and saying, no, it's not just about all of us being able to participate together. It's about one group of people, one kind of American culture that is centered on a particular experience and doesn't include people of color and women and all the stories that it is that have made America a rich tapestry over the last a hundred years.

SIDNER: There's no doubt that Vance has changed his rhetoric and he has changed some of his stances.

SIMMONS: And he's now endorsing a man and running with a man that he one time wondered was an American Hitler, right? And now he's saying that he actually is the person who should lead the country. We've seen Vance change now. The question is will he change again and can America trust him in any way to stand up for beliefs and will those beliefs hold true going forward?

BERMAN: I think there are some huge connections with the trends that are happening in both parties right now. We have this Blue Labs polling out last night which shows, we were joking before we came to air, Donald Trump leading in 14 of the 5 swing states. I mean, literally every state he's not leading, but he's picked up ground or gained important ground, all those states.

SIMMONS: Certainly Biden has lost.

BERMAN: Biden has a lot ground. That's a lot of states. And when you're talking about states like Colorado and Minnesota and New Hampshire, that's a problem for the Democrats, period, full stop. And I posit that that is one reason why last night on the stage at the convention, we saw so many speakers use the name Kamala Harris whenever they could. Just listen a little bit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): Kamala Harris encouraged and enabled the criminals and the rioters.

REP. STEVE SCALISE (R-LA): Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have spent your tax dollars trashing America's finances.

RANDY SUTTON, RETIRED POLICE LIEUTENANT: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, well, they stand with the criminals.

HALEY: A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris. Kamala had one job, one job, and that was to fix the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that feels like a just in case by Republicans on stage last night.

JENNINGS: Well, it's not new though. I mean, there's always been this sense from Republicans that Biden just can't make it for another term. That obviously has ramped up and been dramatically amplified since the debate and since every other Democrat in the country is now huddled in dark corners trying to figure out a way to overthrow him from the nomination. But that's always been there. Now, it's front and center because, I mean, look at the polling. Virtually nobody thinks Biden has it in him to serve another four year term. So, what they're saying is objectively true. A vote for Biden is probably a vote for Harris at some point.

SIMMONS: We know it's true in the Blue Lab study that you just talked about is Kamala Harris does better than Joe Biden when put into these contests against Donald Trump. So, this idea of taking Harris on hasn't really -- even though they've been doing it, Republicans have been doing this, Republicans have been doing this now for three years. They've been taking her on in a pretty aggressive way. It doesn't seem to really have worked because he's still polling pretty well and inside the margin of error.

And you know what the Democrats haven't done? The Democrats haven't aired one single advertisement that promotes Kamala Harris, and it had a coordinated strategy to defend her. So, that tells me that she has room to grow. If, if the Republicans have been attacking her, the Democrats haven't really been defending her, and she's still in the margin of error with Donald Trump, if she happened to be the nominee, she would probably do much better against the president than people think.

JENNINGS: I do think we should console Jamal, though, because I know the 14 states are bad. There's still 36 other states that Joe Biden --

SIDNER: Shots fired. I feel like your response is -- it's a big country.

SIMMONS: I think the Democrats will do fine in this election, again, because character matters.

SIDNER: Okay. All right, Jamal Simmons, Scott Jennings, I'm glad y'all are separated right now and my grudge-holding anchor friend as well.

All right, coming up CNN's one on one interview with the Secret Service director about the investigation into the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. What she said when asked if any resources had been diverted from his detail.

And plus, new details about the gunman's movements in the hours leading up to the shooting, including how exactly he got onto the roof.

[07:15:04]

And Democratic Senator Bob Menendez guilty on all counts in his corruption trial. Now, several of his Democratic colleagues say they're ready to expel him from Congress.

All that and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: In a new one-on-one interview with CNN, the director of the Secret Service now says her agency was solely responsible for security at the Donald Trump rally, where a gunman tried to assassinate the former president.

[07:20:03]

And this is a shift the director, Kimberly Cheatle, has previously said that local law enforcement was responsible for securing the building where the gunman climbed onto the roof and shot Donald Trump, wounding two others and killing one man.

There is also new reporting exclusive to CNN that Secret Service had ramped up security around Donald Trump after U.S. officials obtained intelligence pointing to an unrelated plot by Iran to try to assassinate him.

CNN's Whitney Wilde is tracking all of this for us. And, Whitney, let's talk about your interview with the director of the Secret Service. She has a lot of scrutiny coming at her right now. Tell us more about what she said.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, we were able to speak with her and she wanted to make very clear that she was not laying blame on local law enforcement. And what is key here, Kate, is to remember that the building where the shooter perched was outside of the perimeter. And that means that the Secret Service didn't post people there. But she wanted to make very clear she was not trying to blame local law enforcement for being inside that building that the shooter eventually climbed up onto and then shot former president and now presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

As we move forward here, the big question is whether or not he had enough security around him, given that credible threat from Iran. Again, Secret Service taking very tough questions today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILD: When you said that local law enforcement was responsible for that building, what did you mean by that?

KIMBERLY CHEATLE, SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: So, Secret Service respects local law enforcement, and we could not do our job, either investigatively or on our protective mission, without them. In Pennsylvania, in fact, on that same day, they were also working the first lady trip and the vice presidential trip. So, I understand the constraints that they're under, and as I said earlier, we couldn't do our job without them.

At that particular site, we divided up areas of responsibility, but the Secret Service is solely responsible for the design and the implementation and the execution of the site, and that's what I was trying to stress, was that we just divided up areas of responsibility, and they provided support to those areas of responsibility.

WILD: And you mentioned the first lady has been to Pittsburgh, you guys have a lot of areas to cover. Were any assets diverted from the former president's rally to her detail?

CHEATLE: No, there were no assets from the Secret Service that were diverted at all.

WILD: Okay. So, no one swapped out any of the posts?

CHEATLE: No.

WILD: Okay. CNN of course has reporting that the Secret Service increased security for former President Trump because of a credible threat from Iran. You know, I've spoken with several people who look at the perimeter, hearing that news, look at the perimeter and say, how, knowing that there was a credible threat against the former president, how could that perimeter be so small that it excluded a building just 150 yards away from the podium?

CHEATLE: I can't get into the specifics of any threats, but obviously with all of our protectees, we're constantly monitoring the threats that are out there, and we design our security plans based on that also depending on the venue and the environment that we're in. And on that particular day a full advance had been completed. But this is also why we are doing an internal review and we look forward to the external review as well. And obviously if there are things that we need to change about our policies or our procedures or our methods, we are certainly going to do so.

WILD: Was that perimeter too small?

CHEATLE: The perimeter encompassed the area that we needed to secure for the event that we had on that day. What happened is a terrible incident and should never happen, and we are obviously going to make sure that, moving forward, we take whatever lessons we that come out of this and adjust accordingly.

WILD: Was every element, every part of his, from the intelligence to the counterassault team, to the detail agents, to the shift agents, I mean, every element, top to bottom of the advance in the operation was every element increased after you learned of this credible threat?

CHEATLE: What we increased was what we felt was appropriate for the former president and for that particular event on that day. We have been increasing the assets and the resources and the staffing that we have been providing to the former president since he was a presidential candidate and then the presumptive nominee. That's what I can tell you.

WILD: That sounds like a no.

CHEATLE: I am not saying a no at all. I'm saying that we have continued to increase the resources that we've been providing to the former president.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WILD: So many more details to nail down, Kate. The Secret Service director did tell me that she spoke with the agents who responded, and she didn't go into details about those conversations, but she did as their leader tried to seek to reassure them that they did their job, and they did it flawlessly that day. Kate, back to you.

BOLDUAN: All right, much more to come, congressional scrutiny coming at them and an expectation that she could be appearing before them soon. Whitney, great reporting, thank you so much for bringing that to us. John?

BERMAN: Yes, Whitney really has been doing incredible reporting on the Secret Service side of this story.

We've got new information on the investigation into the shooter as well. CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller is with us now.

[07:25:02]

Great to see you this morning, John. What are you learning? What's the latest here?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So, the investigation moves forward a little bit every day. Let's kind of go through where they are as of right now. Interesting facts, the suspect late last week told his employers at the assisted care place where he works as a dietary specialist, I need Saturday off.

BERMAN: Premeditation?

MILLER: That's right. I have something to do that day, but I'll be in on Sunday. I don't know if that was just to cover not take attention away from that, I'll be in on Sunday, or now we look at mindset, did he expect to survive and escape?

The other question that was swirling around for so long, and we've all heard this, even on our own air, is how did he get on that rooftop? We know he purchased a five-foot ladder that morning, Saturday, at 9:00 A.M., at Home Depot near his house. That ladder has never been found to date, but the investigation has developed that he climbed up onto an air conditioner handler, and you can see that they're all around these buildings, and then hoisted himself onto a very low roof that's in the center of that complex, almost kind of in a courtyard, which would have been away from the view of a lot of people.

Before that, and this is interesting, he had already attracted the attention of security people at the screening area for the rally. He had been walking by the magnetometers with a rangefinder in his hand.

Now, a rangefinder is something that shooters use to measure the distance in long shots. Golfers use them, too. It looks like a small pair of binoculars. But if you're a police officer or someone who knows about firearms, you'll know what that is when you see it. He was carrying it in his hand and kind of circling around the mag area.

There's conflicting information as to whether he went through the mags, which means he was unarmed, but he had this in his hand and had to go through screening or whether he just stayed outside, but they started looking at him, but then he leaves the area and, you know, goes out of view from that inner perimeter. So, that is just interesting that he was already on the radar a little bit, which happens often in these things. They look at somebody, then they leave the secure area.

The rangefinder comes up again, though, because as he gets to that roof, they see him looking through the range finder and one sniper team is looking at him looking at them through the range finder but this all now starts to happen very quickly because now a police officer is coming up the ladder behind him. We know about that confrontation with the firearm, then he comes up and fires that shot those sniper teams are trying to determine and talking to each other about who is this guy? Is he law enforcement? Is he part of one of the other sniper teams that's supposed to be in that building? And then that first shot fires and then everything goes very quickly.

So, we're learning kind of a lot about those moments leading up to it.

BERMAN: And every second there counts. John Miller, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: It's fascinating reporting. Thank you, John.

All right, the man who was shot and killed at Saturday's rally, Corey Comperatore, was honored at the RNC with a standing ovation last night. He died trying to shield his family from the bullets.

Comperatore's private funeral is set for tomorrow in Sarver, Pennsylvania.

We're also learning more about the two other men at the rally who were shot and injured. They are both now in stable condition. James Copenhaver's family is thanking everyone for their support as the 74- year-old recovers from what they're calling life threatening injuries. And the Marine Corps League of Pennsylvania says 57-year-old David Dutch needed two surgeries after being shot in the liver and the chest. Both men in stable condition this morning.

All right, just ahead, President Biden has his eyes on the Supreme Court, the major changes he's considering that could have an impact on the justices and future presidents.

And also a strange case, six people found dead in a hotel room in Bangkok. Among the victims, two Vietnamese Americans. Strange details emerging their dinner left untouched, but their tea not. Why investigators say drinking the tea may have killed them.

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