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Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic Presidential Candidate, Campaigns With Gov. Tim Walz, D-MN, Vice Presidential Candidate, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired August 07, 2024 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:00]
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: We're watching Vice President Kamala Harris helm a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Let's listen in.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And as you just heard, and the Minnesotans here know, Tim has an incredible record as governor of the great state of Minnesota.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And to those who know him best, Tim is more than a governor. To his wife, Gwen, he is a husband. To his kids, Hope and Gus, he is dad. To his fellow veterans, he is Sergeant Major Walz.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: To the people of Southern Minnesota, for 12 years, he was a congressman.
(APPLAUSE)
To his former high school students, he was Mr. Walz.
(APPLAUSE)
[15:35:00]
HARRIS: And to his former high school football players, he was coach.
(APPLAUSE)
Coach.
CROWD: VP Walz! VP Walz!
HARRIS: And in 90 days, the nation will know Coach Walz by a new title.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: Vice President of the United States of America. CROWD: VP Walz! VP Walz! VP Walz! HARRIS: Oh, it really is good to be back in Wisconsin. So listen, let me tell you, I am clear. The path to the White House runs right through this state.
And with your help, we will win in November. We are going to win. We are going to win.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And I've been here many times, as you all know, recently and even before. And many of you know then, before I was elected vice president, before I was elected United States senator, I was an elected attorney general, and before that, an elected district attorney.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And before that, and before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor.
(APPLAUSE)
So in those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, scammers who broke the rules for personal gain, so hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's tight.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: In fact, I've been dealing with people like him my whole career.
For example, as attorney general of California, well hold on, you know what, the courts are going to handle that part of it. What we're going to do is beat him in November.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: So I'll tell you, as attorney general, I took on one of our country's largest for-profit colleges that scammed students.
Well, Donald Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students.
(BOOING)
As a prosecutor, I specialized in cases of sexual abuse. Well, Donald Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse.
(BOOING)
As attorney general, I held the big Wall Street banks accountable for fraud. Well, Donald Trump was just found guilty of fraud -- 34 counts.
(BOOING)
So in this campaign, I'll tell you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: Any day of the week. But let's make no mistake, this campaign is not just about us versus Donald Trump. It's about two very different visions for our nation. Two very different visions.
One for us focused on the future. The other focused on the past. And Wisconsin, we, we here, we fight for the future. We fight for a future where every worker has the freedom to join a union.
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: Union strong! Union strong! Union strong! Union strong! Union strong!
HARRIS: We fight for a future where every senior can retire with dignity.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: A future where we build a broad-based economy and one where every American has the opportunity to own a home, to start a business, to build wealth.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And understand, in this fight, as Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors. Joyful warriors.
(APPLAUSE)
[15:40:00]
Because we know that while fighting for a brighter future may be hard work, hard work is good work. Hard work is good work. And so, we will continue to fight for a brighter future.
JIMENEZ: Now we've been listening to Vice President Kamala Harris. We're going to continue to monitor her rally in Eau Claire. We're going to squeeze in a quick break.
More of her rally on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JIMENEZ: All right, we're continuing to watch Vice President Kamala Harris lead a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Let's listen in.
[15:45:00]
HARRIS: And now then, as they would expect, the baton is in our hands. The baton is in our hands, each and every one of us. So we then, who believe in the sacred freedom to vote, will finally pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: We, who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence, will finally pass universal background checks, red flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.
(APPLAUSE)
We, who believe in reproductive freedom, will fight for a woman's right to choose.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And we remember that when he was president, Donald Trump handpicked three members of the United States Supreme Court, the court of Thurgood and RBG, because he intended for them to overturn Roe v. Wade. And as he intended, they did.
(BOOING)
HARRIS: And now more than 20 states in our country have a Trump abortion ban. Many with no exceptions, even for rape and incest. And if he wins, we all know he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every state, even in Wisconsin.
(BOOING)
HARRIS: But we are not going to let that happen. Because we trust women.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And when I am president of the United States and when Congress passes a bill to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade, I will sign it into law.
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: Kamala! Kamala! Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!
[15:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JIMENEZ: All right, welcome back. We're continuing to monitor some of what Vice President Kamala Harris is saying at a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. But we've also heard a lot talked today on both sides of the political aisle.
So joining us to talk about all of it are Republican strategists Lauren Tomlinson and Doug Heye as well. So, Lauren, I want to start with you because, look, both of the candidates are in Eau Claire. I should say J.D. Vance, a vice presidential candidate, is in Eau Claire, is on the other side of Vice President Harris here. What do you make of the two sort of speaking to similar audiences in a similar place and how their messaging has landed so far? LAUREN TOMLINSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, it's so interesting how striking it is that both campaigns chose Midwesterners to go take this message to the forgotten people, right? They're speaking to the exact same group of undeciders, undecided in these in these states, and it just shows how important that group of people are.
But what's great is that you can see the role that Trump envisioned for J.D. Vance through this, that he's going to be just trolling the Harris campaign and making the policy arguments of why, you know, they were better off under Trump than Biden, which is what I think that they wish that Trump would go out and do. But they're using Vance to go do it.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Is it enough for Vance to bracket Harris and Walz, or does Trump really need to be out there, Doug?
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, look, ultimately, this race is not J.D. versus Tim. It's Trump, very identifiable, well-known person versus Kamala, very identifiable, well-known person. Vice presidential nominees can help and they can hurt.
But, you know when Lloyd Benson absolutely took down Dan Quayle, nothing really happened. I was at the first North Carolina rally for John Edwards when he joined with John Kerry. He didn't put North Carolina in play for a minute.
This is going to be about Donald versus Kamala. And yes, you can help and you can bracket and do all that. But this is the main event, those two.
JIMENEZ: And, Doug, I want to follow up there because, look, I think we've already, I think it's fair to say we've seen a difference sort of in framing. The Trump campaign seems to say, look, everything will go to hell if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are elected. They're trying to say, well, let's look to the future and create a better future.
I mean, we've got messaging with the Texas reporters saying Walz will unleash hell on Earth. I mean, that's the quote there. Does that type of apocalyptic messaging, sure, it might inspire the base. How does it land with some of the independent voters who are ultimately going to decide this?
HEYE: I think it depends on what you're talking about. And if you're talking about what you pay every day -- and I don't want to describe to you how much I spent on a stupid sandwich this afternoon -- voters get mad about that. And they think all hell is breaking loose.
And when they see the images of the fires in Minnesota, they get mad about that. And so that's part of what Trump and Vance are talking to. Yes, they're going to talk about weird issues, not to use the new nominee's term, but they're going to talk about these sort of things that only sort of Trump and Vance will talk about.
And you have the same thing on the other side. If you listen to what Kamala is saying, she may be smiling when she says it, but she's telling her voters, be scared of another term by Donald Trump. KEILAR: Look, to quote a fabulous Sandra Bullock movie, Hope Floats, right? You love that movie. You missed that? Come on, Doug.
OK, but however, I do wonder, Lauren, at a certain point, and look, a positive message does sell. We saw Obama run with that.
But at what point does, you know, the Harris-Walz ticket give the Trump-Vance ticket an opening to say, you're disconnected from reality with all this sort of like kumbaya, hunky-dory stuff?
TOMLINSON: Yes, they run the risk of what Biden fell into with Bidenomics. You can't keep telling people that everything's great and it's going to be great when they're feeling like it's not. And especially, like, this is great for a base play.
[15:55:00]
And I think this is closing the gap in those polls because now we had enthusiasm on the Republican side and now there's matching enthusiasm on the Democratic side. Now they have got to pivot and both campaigns have to really aggressively start messaging to those undecideds. And those undecideds are disgruntled.
Like you were saying, the cost of things is really weighing on people. And so there has to be an acknowledgment of that. And so hope and, you know, the future and all those things, they don't address where people are right now.
And I think that's, you know, whatever candidate actually goes in and addresses the present moment and what people are feeling and reflects that back to them will win those votes.
HEYE: And I'd say, you know, to that, when you look at what you've seen at the rally last night and today, Democrats are on a super sugar high, right? They're the kid that has come home. They're your kids have come home after Halloween. They've ripped open the bag and they're having every bit of candy that they can.
Mike Tyson said everybody has a plan until they get punched. The Harris campaign is going to get punched in the face at some point. And we haven't seen Vice President Harris do an interview yet. We haven't seen Tim Walz do interviews.
So when they do those and there are mistakes, how do they react? When Donald Trump punches them, how do they react?
And that's why I think ultimately this race is still unknown and is going to go down to the wire.
JIMENEZ: And why I think we'd all like to see a debate between the two actually happen. Doug Heye, Lauren, both of you. Great to see you.
HEYE: Thank you.
JIMENEZ: And great show. Great to see you.
KEILAR: Yes, so great to be with you.
JIMENEZ: So much more news ahead. "THE LEAD" with Jay Tapper starts after a short break.
END
