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Today: Harris, Walz Take Battleground Blitz To Arizona; Next Week: Biden, Harris Hold First Joint Event Since He Exited Race; Today: Trump Returns To Campaign Trail With Stop In Montana; Judge Grants Special Counsel Request To Delay Deadlines In Trump Election Interference Case. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 09, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

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[13:00:27]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The race goes West. Kamala Harris and Tim Walls in Arizona, a Sunbelt State that both parties see as winnable in November. While former President Donald Trump is in Montana, a state that could decide control of the Senate.

And major developments in Trump's legal cases today. In Georgia, Fani Willis arguing her office should be allowed to continue its case against Trump in a new filing.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, Prosecutor Jack Smith asked to delay the federal election subversion case until September. And Ukraine hits Russia hard. A drone strike launched on a region in western Russia just days after a rare cross border attack. We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: The 2024 presidential race heading west today. Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz taking their pitch to the battleground state of Arizona with a rally later today in the Phoenix area. It comes as CNN is learning that next week President Biden will make his first formal appearance with Harris since he dropped out of the race and endorsed her.

In the meantime, former President Trump is also back on the campaign trail, one day after holding a press conference that included numerous false and misleading claims. Tonight he holds a rally in deep red Montana, a state that he won by 16 points in 2020. It's Trump's first campaign event in nearly a week and his first rally since he finally recommitted to a presidential debate with Harris next month.

We have CNN's Eva McKend joining us now from Glendale, Arizona. All right, Eva, what should we be expecting here?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brianna, they are here in the Southwest, the Harris campaign, to try to reach the diverse coalition of voters that helped the Democrats power pass victories. They'll talk tonight about reproductive rights. They will have to aggress -- address immigration here in this border state. And they say they have the infrastructure to reach these voters, young voters, Latino voters.

They also picked up a key endorsement today from a Latino civil rights group, that is the League of United Latin American citizens. And the Vice President is up with a new ad really leaning into her working class roots and humble beginnings. Let's look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She grew up in a middle class home. She was the daughter of a working mom and she worked at McDonald's while she got her degree. Kamala Harris knows what it's like to be middle class. It's why she's determined to lower healthcare costs and make housing more affordable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And Brianna, earlier this summer, when I was speaking to the immigrants rights activist group, Living United for Change Arizona, LUCHA Arizona, they were telling me that it would be difficult to make the case for President Biden as they were knocking on doors. Especially in the wake of him leaning into enforcement policies, but they tell me now that they feel a renewed sense of hope in supporting Vice President Harris at the top of the ticket.

And especially because she tapped Governor Walz as her running mate, they tell me that it signals to them that we are going to see a progressive, no -- nonsense presidency from her. So, they are hoping that Arizona delivers big. They're going to work to achieve that. They've already knocked on 100,000 doors.

Their goal by November? To knock on a million doors. Brianna?

KEILAR: A million doors. All right, Eva McKend, live for us from Arizona, thank you.

And let's go now to CNN's Kayla Tausche with more on this upcoming joint appearance with President Biden and Vice President Harris. Kayla, what can you tell us about it?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, next week's event in Maryland will be the first time that President Biden and Vice President Harris formally appear together since Biden exited the race nearly three weeks ago. The White House says the event will be focused on lowering costs, which aids say, is one of the four pillars that President Biden is going to focus on on his -- during his final months in office.

But it also is consistently the number one issue cited by voters. Their top concern, of course, is the cost of living. Now, Harris and Biden appeared informally on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews a couple weeks ago, welcoming hostages home. But this is the first time that they are going to share the stage since Harris ascended to the top of the ticket. And in her public events, she has gone to great lengths to thank Biden for allowing her to take the role that she's in now. Here she is a couple of nights ago before.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[13:05:08]

KAMALA HARRIS (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And I know we are all deeply, deeply grateful to Joe for his lifetime of service to our nation, and we thank you, Joe Biden, each and every day for all you are and you still have yet to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: Now it comes as the Harris campaign is trying to assess exactly how to wield Biden as an asset going forward, not a liability as he was in recent weeks for the Democratic Party. Specifically, David Plouffe, who is a new senior adviser at the campaign, said on CNN in recent days that Biden has strength with older voters in suburban areas, and specifically in the state of Pennsylvania, where his reputation as Scranton Joe carried that state in 2020.

But he's kept a low profile in the last couple of weeks, allowing Harris to step in the spotlight. So we'll see how they choose to use that appearance next week and what the message will be. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes. Very curious about it. Kayla, thank you for that report.

Jessica?

DEAN: All right, let's get now to the Trump campaign. CNN's Kristen Holmes is joining us. Kristen, the former president headed to Montana for a rally. A very red state when it comes to presidential elections.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not a swing state, yes.

DEAN: Not a swing state for presidential. There is a very important Senate race there --

HOLMES: Right.

DEAN: -- but why Montana for President Trump?

HOLMES: Well, so he was asked about this yesterday. I had asked him why he wasn't campaigning in battleground states. He brought up the fact that he was going to Montana, Wyoming. He has a fundraiser there after this Montana trip. Saying that he doesn't have to be there, which is true, but that these are very critical Senate races, in particular, Montana.

It is one of the most expensive races we're going to see and it's one of the only races in which the incumbent is a Democrat running for reelection in a state that Donald Trump won by a wide margin. So maybe it is very important for Donald Trump to be there because he is widely popular in Montana to boost up that candidate, Tim Sheehy, and to try to raise money for him as well going into November.

But the fact remains the same. There are concerns on the right, his own allies, of what he is doing to campaign. And if you talk to the campaign, they say he's still doing stuff even though he's not out on the trail. Obviously this creates a split screen when we see Kamala Harris on one side with Tim Walz really blanketing these various battleground states and then you have Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

He did one event last Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia and then he's going to Montana tonight. Clearly not in those battleground states, but they say that he's reaching out to people and audiences in a different way. He has done a number of interviews. He's reaching out to both conservative media as well as streamers. He's doing podcasts.

They believe that he's micro targeting a specific group. But again, you now have this split screen as we are going into a campaign. And if you're looking at a traditional campaign, he should be on those -- on the battleground states. He should be crisscrossing the country.

So the big question is, is his travel going to ramp up? What is this going to look like? And will this strategy of reaching out to various groups through interviews instead of necessarily hitting the campaign trail as hard as he did in 2016 pay off in the end?

DEAN: Yes, it is interesting. And the shift ever since Biden got out of the race in Harris's end, and she's campaigning at such a faster clip than Biden was.

HOLMES: It's a completely different race. Yes.

DEAN: It's just a very different race.

All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much.

Let's discuss this all further with CNN's political commentator and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings. And also with us, Democratic strategist and senior adviser to Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020 campaigns, Chuck Rocha. Looking very Hawaiian in his floral shirt there.

It's great to have both of you here with us today. Happy Friday to you, guys. Scott, let's start with you. The Harris is out -- the Harris campaign is out with a statement calling Trump, quote, "too lazy" to campaign in swing states. Trump said he's not going there because he said, quote, "I'm leading by a lot."

That's not exactly true. Those battleground states, most of them are pretty tight. Harris even ahead in some of the recent polling. Should Trump change his strategy here or is this the right one, Scott?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm sure he's going to campaign where he needs to campaign. He's in Montana tonight, which actually is a big deal for the Republican Party because that's probably the Senate race that's most likely to put the Republicans in control of the Senate next year, no matter what happens in the race for the White House. Trump did have a press conference yesterday. It made national news. You could debate whether it was good news or bad news, but he is campaigning. And if you want to make an attack that Trump is too lazy to campaign because he's not having rallies in swing states, I guess we could make an attack that Kamala Harris is too something to hold a press conference or answer questions about her record, her time as vice president, her positions when she was running for president, which she now through anonymous flack says she's changing.

So, you know, I guess the campaigns will have a tit for tat on that about who's actually doing what they need to do to assure the American people that they would be a good president for the next four years.

DEAN: And Chuck, do you think the Vice President is doing what she needs to do right now? Do you think it's time for her to sit down and have --

CHUCK ROCHA, SENIOR ADVISER, BERNIE SANDERS 2016 AND 2020 CAMPAIGNS: Yes, she --

DEAN: -- an interview like that?

[13:10:01]

ROCHA: Well, I think she's been doing an interview with the American people. She is desperate, and we are desperate as Democrats for her to get in front of as many swing state Democrats, Independent and Republican. Does she need to stop and do an interview? Sure. She can stop and do an interview, but as somebody who's actually run a presidential campaign, the way that you get out in front of people is you go to their states.

You have a rally, the press covers that rally, and you're literally taking the message there. And to your earlier reporting, the infrastructure, people walk by that comment too lightly. Having infrastructure in a place like Nevada and Arizona and Pennsylvania means something because you have grassroots organizers going out having conversations on behalf of the campaign at people's kitchen table and at their front door. That is gold for a political consultant like me and means way much more than just sitting down and having some interview with a big reporter.

KEILAR: Scott?

JENNINGS: Yes, look, they don't want to answer questions. I mean, that's a lot of talking and here's the bottom line. They don't want her to sit and answer questions. And if you look at her TV ads now and you didn't know anything, if you just landed here on a spaceship and you knew nothing, you would assume she's running as a Republican.

I mean, she's out here running saying she's throwing criminals in jail and getting tough on the border. You got Walz out here saying he's going to protect the Second Amendment. You'd think these people were running as Republicans when in fact their record is way left of center, way outside of the political mainstream. The bottom line is they don't want her to have to run on any kind of policy agenda. This campaign is an avatar. It is a vessel to just stop Trump. Their main thing is, being president is nothing more than not being named Donald Trump. That's what their platform is. I don't think it's enough, but we'll see if she can get away with it. It is a short campaign.

KEILAR: Look, I mean, Scott, I'd love to see her take questions. Can I ask you though, is it -- isn't it Trump's job to frame that? And when he's not out there campaigning often which seems sort of unlike him, the pace he's going at here right now, I mean, he could be doing that.

JENNINGS: Yes, his job is to frame the campaign and he had it down against Biden. It was strength versus weakness. They relentlessly prosecuted that case too successfully. They hounded him right out of his, the profession he'd been in for 50 years. In this case, it's pretty obvious what the frame is.

Common sense, conservative versus radical liberal. That's the frame. And it is up to him to frame this race. I don't think he particularly did it very well at the press conference yesterday, but that's the tight frame in which they have to operate. And they also have to remind people that Kamala Harris has a job, Vice President of the United States.

She's sitting right next to Joe Biden right now, and the American people aren't happy with the direction of the country. That's his job. He does have to do it.

DEAN: And Chuck, just quickly before we let you go -- oh, go ahead.

ROCHA: I was just going to say, look, I've sat on the same stage with Scott and talked about and give credit to Donald Trump when he was going up in the polls and admitted that he was going up the polls, even when he was sitting in a courtroom.

Now what Kamala Harris is doing is going up in the polls while Trump is going down. And so what she's doing is working. If we're going to give Donald Trump credit for doing something right, at least with polling and public perception two months ago, you got to give the Vice President credit for what we're doing right now because she's going up in the polls and we can't just open sour grapes against that.

DEAN: All right, Scott Jennings and Chuck Rocha, it's great to see both of you. Thanks again.

JENNINGS: Thanks.

KEILAR: And still ahead, Special Counsel Jack Smith asks the judge for more time in the election subversion case against former President Trump. That request was just granted. We'll have new details coming up.

Plus, our interview with a National Guard member who served with Governor Tim Walz. See what he has to say about the attack on Walz's of service record. DEAN: And Russia and Ukraine trading strikes overnight with Ukraine watching a drone attack on an airbase inside Russia. Meantime, Russia targeting a supermarket inside Ukraine. The latest on the escalation there, it's ahead on CNN News Central.

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[13:18:18]

DEAN: This just in, the judge overseeing the federal election interference case against Donald Trump moments ago granting Special Counsel Jack Smith's request to delay the timetable for future proceedings. That means the hearing now set for September 5th.

KEILAR: And this delay is directly tied to last month's Supreme Court ruling that granted Trump substantial immunity from prosecution. The decision left some Smith's office scrambling to put together their next steps in the case.

We have CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid here with us. Quite the about face from Jack Smith's team here. They've been pressing to get this trial started as soon as possible.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this was a surprise not only to us, but also to the defense attorneys. I've learned in speaking with sources that there have been multiple calls between prosecutors and defense attorneys this week because the judge had asked them to at least try to align on some of this, find some common ground.

But, look, there's no love lost between Trump's attorneys and the special counsel. Wasn't a surprise that they really couldn't find any areas of agreement, but it was shocking that prosecutors revealed that they needed more time because, as you said, they have been the ones pushing to try to get this case to trial before 2024 now that it's not going to be possible given the Supreme Court's decision.

But the fact that they don't even know exactly how to proceed and they need more time to consult with other components at the Justice Department, I mean, that suggests that this Supreme Court decision has really had maybe even a greater impact on this case than we've appreciated. Because not only did the Supreme Court say, you can't charge Trump for official acts.

They've also said you can't charge him for unofficial acts and use any official access evidence, so that could potentially be a conversation that he had. All of that has to be litigated. But the fact that prosecutors don't even know sort of how to lay out a road map at this point, that's really surprising.

This case still exists, Trump still faces these charges, but at this point it's really unclear what will ultimately result from this case.

[13:20:04]

DEAN: And projecting a bit into the future though, once this election is over, what kind of role does -- does Trump's either win or loss in the election play in this case?

REID: I mean, that's really going to be the game, which they've played very well so far, right? The whole game was to get everything delayed, if you can, until after the election. Obviously, that didn't happen in Manhattan, but Trump, even if he's re-elected, he can't make that case go away.

But the two federal cases, if he's re-elected, they're gone. His attorney general will dismiss those. Whatever remains of the Georgia case at the state level, that will likely be on ice. You can't prosecute as a sitting president, right? And then it's unclear what happens that Manhattan case. They're also reviewing that conviction in light of the Supreme Court's decision.

But if he is not re-elected, it's also not exactly clear what happens. These cases will continue in some form, but it's going to take a while to really litigate and go through the process of trying to figure out what these cases look like after the Supreme Court's decision.

So it will definitely be, as I've said many times, a lawyer full employment act just to figure out where do these cases stands. But it's a lot clearer if he is re-elected, they basically all go away.

DEAN: Yes, a little straighter error there.

All right, Paul Reid, thanks so much.

And let's discuss now with former Trump Attorney Bill Brennan. Bill, great to see you. Thanks for being here with us. We just heard from Paula, they're kind of laying out this newest information. She was saying they played this game very well. Trump's attorneys able to delay, delay, delay until we likely get some outcome from the election. Do you think that it has all gone according to their plans as well?

WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Well, I would say that it certainly when you're the defendant, it certainly is in your favor to have delay. I mean, there's the old adage justice delayed, is justice denied, but not necessarily when you're a defendant. And I suspect that there may be some dissension between the office of special counsel and main justice on how to proceed because that sweeping ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court has a lot of daylight in it. There's a lot of subjective interpretation for the three tiers of immunity laid out by the Supreme Court.

DEAN: Yes, I did want to ask you about that because again, what Paula was saying was just the impact of a case we knew was deeply impactful and very important with the Supreme case ruling on that -- on immunity -- presidential immunity. But we're really, it seems, really starting to see the rubber meet the road in terms of how this is actually playing out in these cases as they try to figure out what it means and how to proceed.

BRENNAN: Well, I think there's no denying that there's been wide ranging ripple effects in great impact. The proof is in the effects, the collateral effects it's had, not only in this case before Judge Chutkan, but the case in Manhattan before Judge Merchan.

You'll recall that that case was scheduled for sentencing, I think on July 11th, and that's been postponed a couple of times. Now I think there's a date in September, and I believe Judge Merchan's order said something akin to sentencing, if necessary, will occur on such and such a date. So, I think everyone from the bench to the prosecutors, both federal and state, to the defense lawyers are trying to interpret the Supreme Court decision in a light, most favorable to their own interest.

DEAN: And back to that federal case, Judge Chutkan had really, once she got it back, was trying to push ahead. Do you think it's possible they get to that before the November election? Or do you think it's more likely that that gets pushed to the side?

BRENNAN: Everything's possible, but it's extremely unlikely. You know, virtually impossible, I would say, because we're now in the midst of the election season. It's August 9th. I think the election is in early November, maybe the 5th. I just don't see how with the delay that's just occurred, and that's just to really talk about theories on how to proceed.

I don't see how it could be brought to trial in any realistic -- just fighting the calendar pages in any realistic way before November 5th.

DEAN: Yes. All right, Bill Brennan, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

BRENNAN: Thank you.

DEAN: Up next, we're going to speak with a retired Command Sergeant Major who served with Governor Tim Walz. He weighs in on the attacks over Walz military service.

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KEILAR: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has only been on the ticket since Tuesday, but in those three days, the attacks on his military service have been relentless. The running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris has yet to respond to the attacks.

Trump's own running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, who also served our nation, deploying to Iraq as a Marine, accused Walz of ducking service in Iraq by leaving the Army National Guard and running for Congress in 2005. Well, we haven't heard yet from Walz. Some of the soldiers that he did serve with are coming forward with those allegations.

I'm joined now by retired Command Sergeant Major Joseph Eustice of the Minnesota Army National Guard. He is a 32-year veteran who served with Governor Walz in the same battalion for about a decade. Joe, what do you think about the accusations that you see being leveled at Walz?