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Biden "Not Confident" Of Peaceful Transition If Trump Loses; Sources: Hezbollah Poised To Strike Israel Independent Of Iran; GOP Attacks Walz's Response To Protests After George Floyd Murder. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 08, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:50]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, President Biden sitting down for his first interview since announcing that he was not going to be seeking re-election and in part, in this interview, expressing fresh concern about what Donald Trump will do if he loses in November.

Here is what he told CBS News.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT COSTA, CBS NEWS CHIEF ELECTION AND CAMPAIGN CORRESPONDENT: Are you confident that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Trump wins, no, I'm not confident at all. I mean, if Trump loses, I'm not confident at all. He means what he says. We don't take him seriously. He means it -- all the stuff about if we lose, it'll be a bloodbath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I'm joined now by Matt Gorman, Republican strategist and former senior adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. And Rachel Palermo, former deputy communications director and associate counsel to Vice President Harris. It's good to see you, guys.

Matt, Trump and some of his allies -- they have repeatedly dodged questions or refused to commit to accepting results when asked over and over again about this. It becomes kind of a frustrating refrain in speaking with some of his surrogates.

What impact do you think that has on how Trump and/or Harris are operating this -- in this campaign now that we see what -- we hear from Biden?

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. I think the biggest thing that is a tell for me is when Biden and Harris -- when that switch happened suddenly that democracy argument -- and it was one -- look, I think it had a dubious effect electorally as and issue when Biden raised it -- has kind of been jettisoned by Harris. I think that tells you a lot of the efficacy of this.

Now look, Joe Biden is going to say what he wants to say. I think he might be a little bit remiss that he's not getting headlines and he's not part of the excitement for the Democratic Party. But the telling thing for me is how Harris kind of really dropped that line of attack when she became the nominee.

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

Rachel, what do you think? I mean, the bloodbath comment as Biden is painting it is taken out of context for one, but it is true that Donald Trump continues to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

I mean, do you think this kind of, I don't know, doubt being added into the mix from Biden somehow gets in the way of Harris' message?

RACHEL PALERMO, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR AND ASSOCIATE COUNSEL TO VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: I think that President Biden's message here is a -- is a real concern. And Vice President Harris has made very clear that democracy is on the ballot here.

Donald Trump has persistently denied the results of election. He incited the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. And there's a lot at stake here in November.

And I think that something that really paints the picture here is the way that Republicans for Harris launched this past weekend. Their whole theme of why they're supporting the vice president is because of democracy.

And there was one person, in particular, who was really compelling in the reason why she said she was standing for Harris, and that was Trump's former White House press secretary. And she stated that she saw the lengths he was going to stay in power, and she saw the lies that Donald Trump told the American people the entirety of the time that he was in office.

And so these are real concerns here. And I think that another compelling thing that President Biden has said is that you can't only love your country when you win. And so, these are real concerns.

[07:35:00]

BOLDUAN: Rachel, I just want to bring up something else we're hearing from Kamala Harris right now, which is -- so the "lock her up" chant was a favorite chant amongst the crowd at Trump rallies past and honestly, you still hear it at Trump rallies present. Now "lock him up" has started at Harris rallies, or just begun, and she's shutting it down.

Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RALLYGOERS: Lock him up! Lock him up!

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hold on.

RALLYGOERS: Lock him up?

HARRIS: Hold on. Hold on. You know what? Here -- hold on. Here's the thing. The courts are going to handle that. We're going to beat him in November. We're going to beat him in November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of that, Rachel? Why do you think she's -- why do you think she's shutting it down?

PALERMO: I think this is really smart of Vice President Harris and it shows the kind of leader that she is. She's a career prosecutor and she has a great respect for the rule of law.

Donald Trump is trying to make it seem like these cases against him are political prosecutions. That is not what they are.

And by interrupting the protesters and moving on to talking about her vision during this speech, she is saying she has great respect for rule of law and she also as respect for due process. And that's how I see her response.

BOLDUAN: Matt, Politico is highlighting this morning that Cook Political Report just moved three states in Harris' direction. Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia now back to toss-up after moving to lean Republican last month.

You see that and you think what?

GORMAN: I think it's a little bit of political catharsis, right? Where we were a month ago is never where this election was going to be. No, there's no way Donald Trump's won by six points with Kamala Harris the nominee and had Joe Biden almost acting as a dam on Democratic enthusiasm, expectations, money. Now that dam has been lifted, you're getting back to the race we all thought we were going to have on June 26, right, the day before that fateful CNN debate.

No one expects this to be more than a two-point race either way. You're going to have the Sun Belt versus the Upper Midwest. And I think it's back to where it very much was. I'm not terribly surprised.

BOLDUAN: Rachel, just a thought on where things -- kind of where I started the show this morning, which is it's kind of what's old is coming back to be new in terms of campaign attacks with J.D. Vance and Trump surrogates hitting Tim Walz on his military service. It worked -- it worked in 2004 when we talk about swift voting, but is it going to work in -- how effective do you think it works in 2024?

PALERMO: I don't think that these attacks on Gov. Tim Walz are effective, and I think that they are disingenuous. Tim Walz, my home state governor from the state of Minnesota, served

in the National Guard for 24 years, and then he served as a member of Congress where he was a fierce defender of servicemembers and of veterans. And the reality is that he retired from the National Guard months before his unit got the order to deploy.

And so what we're hearing here is a lie from J.D. Vance, and that's because they can't attack -- they can't attack Tim Walz or Vice President Harris on the substance, and so they're resorting to comments like these, and the American people are going to see through it.

BOLDUAN: I think one thing the American people all can do is to honor both Tim Walz's military service and J.D. Vance's military service. You could just -- you could also -- we could all just do that as well.

It's good to see you, Rachel. Matt, great to see you. Thank you so much -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Kate, great point.

All right. The militant group Hezbollah looks increasingly like it may strike Israel and not wait for Iran, according to what two sources familiar with the intelligence are telling CNN. At the same time, U.S. officials are calling for de-escalation in the Middle East.

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward is joining us now from Tel Aviv. Clarissa, for a while now there has been a real fear in Israel that they were going to have to deal with attacks on two fronts at the same time.

What do you make of what these sources are saying?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's interesting because when you've listened to speeches Sara from Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, he's sort of left it open as to whether Iran would act on its own, whether it would act in coordination with its proxies, whether Hezbollah would act on its own.

Now, we don't know what's been going on behind the scenes -- whether Iran and Hezbollah have reached some kind of an agreement or consensus that Hezbollah is free to pursue unilateral action against Israel and that Iran may or may not join in with that at some point in the future. But what we do know for sure is that a strike from Hezbollah now appears to the primary concern.

We haven't seen any change in the posture of Israel's home command front. There hasn't been any directives in terms of being more circumspect about your actions and your day-to-day routines other than those people living in Northern Israel.

[07:40:00]

We have seen -- definitely, I would say -- an uptick in senior leaders, both political and military, visiting troops around the country. Yesterday, we saw the IDF's chief of staff visit an air base. We also saw Netanyahu, the prime minister, visit another base near Tel

Aviv. And so there's clearly an attempt on behalf of the Israelis to sort of project an image of we're ready, we're strong. We're poised to counter any threat. We're poised also to go on the offense.

And then underscoring this you have the sort of flurry of diplomacy in the background where you've heard from the White House time and time again. They are trying to say that they believe a ceasefire deal is as close as it has ever been before, and really trying to push that through to avert any kind of retaliatory strike, though particularly from Iran. Though I would just say, Sara, it's really not clear at this stage whether there's truth to that or whether, in fact, a ceasefire agreement is still quite a long way off.

SIDNER: Yeah. We'll be watching and waiting, and I know there is deep nervousness in the region right now as to what's going to happen going forward.

Clarissa Ward, thank you so much for being there for us in Tel Aviv this morning -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: It is day 13 of the Summer Olympic Games and there is a ton of exciting events ahead.

Noah Lyles, one of them, will be going for another gold in the men's 200-meter final. It's already been a huge week for him. He won gold in the 100 meter sprint by fractions of a second.

CNN's Coy Wire joining us live once again from Paris. What's all of the excitement we should be looking out for today?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: There's a whole bunch of it and you touched on one. We'll get to that in a second. We'll get to talk about that men's 400-meter final last night. Talk about digging deep, Kate, into the depths of the human will. And what a story about never giving up.

Quincy Hall, men's 400-meter final -- the race of his life. He looked like he was done. Round in the final turn in fourth place, about five meters behind the leader, face full-on stream, gold grilling on. It looked like he was going to fall flat on his face for the last 100. But when the other runners ran out of gas, Quincy Hall was running on fumes full-throttle over the line for the win -- 43.40 seconds.

Now the 26-year old first-time Olympian from Kansas City has a gold medal to match that gold grill -- epic.

And coming up tonight, as Kate mentioned, the newly crowned 100-meter champ Noah Lyles will put it all on the line for a chance at the elusive and dreamy double. If he can claim gold in the 200 as well, he'd be the first person since Usain Bolt to do it -- the legend. Only nine men have ever done it.

I caught up with Noah ahead of these games and asked him just how big he dreams -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOAH LYLES, MEN'S 100-METER GOLD MEDALIST: The impossible. Truly, in my head, it's like I think of something and it's like OK, has somebody done this? OK, if somebody hasn't done this, why haven't they do it? Why can't I be the first to do it? That mentality goes to the idea of if I shoot for the stars, if I fall, I land on the clouds.

WIRE: Three words to describe Noah Lyles.

LYLES: Creative, inspirational, icon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right. Now, the weirdest thing yesterday up here on the roof of our WBD studios. We had a GOAT up here -- yeah, Katie Ledecky. Nine gold medals now -- the most dominant female swimmer we've ever seen, Kate. And not having family around in Tokyo, she was feeling on top of the world because they could be here with her this time in Paris.

Here's part of our chat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE LEDECKY, 9-TIME OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: And it's great to have family and friends back at the Olympics after not being there in Tokyo. It's just been a great environment and great atmosphere, and very special to share the moments after the competition with all of them and get to celebrate and soak in a little bit of Paris.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right, 14 medals in all -- now the most decorated American female Olympic of all time. And it was just announced a bit ago that she will be the closing ceremony flagbearer.

And she talked about those sacrifices her family made, Kate -- waking up at 4:00 a.m. during middle school and high school. Make a quick breakfast. Drive her to the pool. Saying they definitely sacrificed a lot of sleep, but they never made her feel like it was a sacrifice to them. It's so cool.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, with so many athletes, their parents have put in as much sacrifice as they have to get them to the pool, or get them to the track, or get them to the hockey, or whatever it is. It's such a huge win --

WIRE: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- for all of them. It's so awesome.

And with Katie -- thank you so much, Coy. Again, with the best assignment for the next two weeks.

She's just amazing.

SIDNER: She's so --

BOLDUAN: Like, some of those images of her -- like, here's Katie Ledecky swimming in a pool all by herself. Oh, no, she's 10 seconds ahead of everybody else. It's like crazy.

SIDNER: That is true. And I have trouble rolling out of bed at 4:00 and she's going into the pool doing her thing.

BOLDUAN: My doggie paddle is nasty.

SIDNER: You could beat anyone with that doggie paddle. I know it, Kate.

All right. Coming up, several homes and middle school damaged overnight by a possible tornado spun out of the second landfall by Tropical Storm Debby. We're tracking where the threat is at this hour.

[07:45:00]

And a dramatic rescue caught on camera. A deputy wading into a murky pond to save a little boy only five years old.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY WES BROUGH, VOLUSIA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARMENT: You're OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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SIDNER: Right now, our meteorologist tracking a developing situation in North Carolina for millions of people. More tornadoes possible this morning after a twister ripped through the state's Wilson County. It happened as Tropical Storm Debby roared through the area after making landfall again. Nobody was hurt but a school, a church, and several homes have been damaged.

This is not the only tornado to hit North Carolina in the past 24 hours, by the way. Another hit Sampson County as well.

There have been at least 10 confirmed tornadoes from Debby across the Southeast.

With us now, CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar. This damage is awful and it's terribly scary. Tornadoes are so hard to predict as to where they're going. What can you tell us about what to expect going forward?

[07:50:05]

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah. Again, and as you mentioned, not the only one. We actually had, in total, three tornado reports in the state of North Carolina yesterday. This, another one right here on the Pender-Sampson County border. Again, you can see that storm as it rolls through. But, yes, the potential is there for today as well. You can see this tornado watch in effect for portions of Virginia as well as North Carolina. That is valid until 1:00 p.m. Eastern time today as more of those outer bands really start to stretch. You can even see a couple of the tornado warnings still popping up. We've had them off and on throughout the day mostly along the extreme eastern portion of North Carolina. But that could spread farther north as this system, as a whole, continues.

The greater threat though in terms of more widespread is going to be the flooding still. Look at all of these counties in red. That indicates a flash flood warning. This one right here with a white outline, a flash flood emergency. They've had up to eight inches of rain fall in this area in just the last few hours. Unfortunately, more is on the way.

Again, you look at this, the estimated rainfall. Just in the last 24 hours this area has taken a lot of rain, not to mention the days leading up to it getting some of those outer bands.

So there's still the concern for a high risk of flooding today across portions of North Carolina and stretching into Virginia. Tomorrow the threat shifts a little bit farther into the Northeast, so areas of New York, Vermont, and stretching down into Pennsylvania under a moderate risk. Because that's where this system is going to hit.

We finally are going to start to see this thing make some actual progress moving away from the Southeast and giving those folks a break. But it's going to take all that heavy rain right along with it through the mid-Atlantic and up through the Northeast. So you're talking widespread. A lot of these areas up to four inches. Some spots could still pick up six, seven, maybe even as much as eight inches of rain before it finally heads out to sea.

So here's a look at Thursday. The good news is by the time we get to tomorrow morning, just 24 hours from now, it's hovered over the mid- Atlantic. And then by Friday night and Saturday morning, out to sea.

SIDNER: All right, Allison Chinchar. Thank you so much for that report -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, some Delta passengers are going from the sky to the courtroom to get what they say they are owed, bringing a major lawsuit now against Delta Airlines, saying the airline refused or put conditions on refunds during the CrowdStrike meltdown. You'll remember, while most airlines recovered pretty quickly from the outages, Delta struggled and struggled again with delays and cancellations that stretched on for multiple days.

Delta, CrowdStrike, and Microsoft are all now kind of blaming each other. While Delta's CEO claims CrowdStrike ditched them in their time of need, CrowdStrike and Microsoft say Delta refused repeated offers for help and also did not update its I.T. systems. Stand by, stand by.

The family of one of the Titan submersible implosion victims is seeking more than $50 million now following a wrongful death lawsuit against its operator OceanGate. They're accusing the company of gross negligence and claim that the crews were aware that they were going to die before dying.

According to the lawsuit, the Titan dropped weights about 90 minutes into its dive indicating that the team had aborted or attempted to abort the dive. Experts cited in the lawsuit say they would have continued to descend though feeling -- and this is a quote from the lawsuit -- "the terror and mental anguish of their fate," according to the filing.

All five people on board died during that dive. They were trying to head to the Titanic wreck site back in June of 2023.

Police body camera video shows really the desperate search for a missing 5-year-old Florida boy -- a boy with autism. The boy had left his home from a second-story window and wandered off before his family realized what happened and called 911. Deputies learned that the boy liked the water, so they began checking ponds in the neighborhood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROUGH: You're OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: You see that deputy? You see that stranglehold that little boy has on his neck. The deputy, now being hailed a hero, heard the boy's faint voice in the woods and followed his voice, eventually pulling the child out of the water. Rescued and back with his family.

SIDNER: Oh, that filled my whole heart. That was so sweet.

BOLDUAN: I know.

SIDNER: Oh, all right.

Here is something that's not so sweet. Republicans attacking vice presidential running mate Tim Walz for his response to the protests that turned destructive in Minneapolis in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. The attack line -- it is what he waited too long to bring in the National Guard. The murder of Floyd happened on May 25. Walz called in the Guard on May 28, two days after protests turned violent.

Faatemah Ampey was there. She is one of the hundreds of business owners who say their property damaged and their community torn apart with grief and frustration. She joins us now live. Thank you so much for joining us this morning, Faatemah.

First, can you give us a sense of what happened to your business? What did you experience during this time when the protests turned destructive?

[07:55:00]

FAATEMAH AMPEY, MINNEAPOLIS BUSINESS OWNER, WORKED WITH GOV. WALZ TO REVITALIZE AREA AFTER GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS (via Webex by Cisco): Well, at that time, we experienced a lot of vandalism, social unrest.

And also, one of the things that I didn't feel was covered nationally -- I kept going on social media trying to calm people in our city and ask for peace. But we had a lot of outside agitators, which I thought was interesting. So my employees and myself noticed lots of black trucks with no license plates. Individuals that were in the area. You know, it's a -- it's a big city but it's a small town is how I like to describe Minnesota.

And so I'm not sure if it made it to the national press that there were definitely outside instigators and agitators that made us nervous. We had people walking around asking questions about business, in particular, to my staff. And so it was just a time of unease and extreme -- man, it was so sad. I mean, I cried every day after his death.

SIDNER: We're looking at some of the pictures of some of the destruction. Things were burned. There was some 1,500 businesses that had some kind of damage or were completely destroyed.

I do want to ask you about this attack on Gov. Walz. He was the governor at the time and is now a vice presidential candidate.

But how do you see how he handled this from your perspective? And did your perspective change over time?

AMPEY: My perspective definitely changed. You know, as a mother and a business owner, I was -- and a person that has a lot of civic responsibility -- I'm looked at as a leader in that community and in my city. I spoke out very loudly and very publicly. And I would say within 24 hours of me saying who is going to help us and how are you going to help us, I received a call from the mayor's office and then the governor.

And very quickly after they figured out the National Guard, I began to start initiatives -- food drives. Because what people have to understand is it wasn't just the unrest, it was -- it was COVID. And so there was no public transportation. There was no -- after the protests, there were no -- Targets was destroyed. It was -- it was so strategic I felt. The gas stations were simultaneously all within a five-mile radius -- all destroyed. It felt almost like war.

And I didn't feel personally as someone from this community that citizens would be that organized to blow up gas stations, to rob banks, to -- so I was concerned about just giving people what they needed at that time. And so I used my business as a hub to become whatever it needed to be.

And after the food situation, the mayor's office called me, the governor called me, and I said listen, we need to re-beautify this neighborhood and here's my idea. And so I did feel support after that call.

I will say --

SIDNER: So initially, you felt this frustration -- AMPEY: -- it's very easy for me --

SIDNER: -- and now, you know --

AMPEY: Yes, absolutely.

SIDNER: -- they worked with you.

AMPEY: They did. And I think outside looking in it's easy to say the National Guard should have been called immediately. You have to understand that mothers were marching, children were marching. My teenager wanted to go out and I didn't let him.

And I think the caution was when you bring in military and when you have people of color -- and it wasn't all people of color. It was everyone together. But how many lives I think could have been lost with bringing in police of National Guard too soon at a time of great grievance and frustration. So I think it was handled as best as it could be at that time.

SIDNER: Faatemah Ampey, thank you so much for coming on and sort of explaining what it felt like to be there and what the relationship is and why you believe that the governor was re-elected in 2022 after this conflagration there in Minneapolis. Appreciate your time this morning.

AMPEY: Thank you.

SIDNER: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Also new overnight, strokes are already the fifth-leading cause of death in the United States and new research shows that more and more middle-aged adults are dying now from this very thing.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard has the new data. She's joining us right now. Jacqueline, what are you learning?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Yeah. Well, we know that there was previously a decline in these types of deaths.

But in recent years, from 2012 to 2019, we saw a seven percent increase in the rate of people dying from stroke. This is among ages 45 to 64. And then there was an additional increase of 12 percent from the years 2019 to 2021. And this might be because we are seeing more middle-aged adults with comorbidities raising their risk of having a stroke, like high blood pressure, like diabetes.

And Black adults are the most impacted here, Kate. When you look at this age group of 45 to 64, the rate of dying from a stroke was about 133 percent higher among Black adults than their white peers.