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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) Discusses How Trump And Harris Differ On The Economy; Belgorod Region Declares Emergency After Ukrainian Incursion; Workers Allege "Nightmare" Conditions At Kentucky Startup J.D. Vance Helped Fund. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired August 14, 2024 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:30:00]
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: And so now, three weeks away from a tax trial in California's federal court, Hunter Biden is enlisting Mark Geragos, this other lawyer in California, to essentially take the lead there. Abbe Lowell is quite busy, and Mark Geragos may be able to do things a little bit more nimbly over there in that court. Get to court quicker. He may be a little bit cheaper.
And all of this comes at the same where Hunter Biden is in a moment where he has had ongoing feeling out plea possibilities with the Justice Department -- with the special counsel's office. They really went nowhere but there were some initial discussions after that conviction in Delaware. Was there a way for him to avoid going to trial in California?
It hasn't gone very far but this is one of those situations where it's very possible Hunter Biden would be open to a plea deal if the special counsel's office was able to do something that he feels could really help him get through the next couple of months and sort of keep his exposure to a very limited way. But right now, they're full steam ahead going to trial in California. He is potentially open to a plea deal.
And then, of course, on the table is the possibility that his father has that presidential pardon power. But Joe Biden has been explicit so far saying he is not interested in pardoning his son or commuting his sentence.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: It will be interesting to see what Geragos is able to do with the tax stuff in California.
The New York Times, overnight, Katelyn, reporting on specific outreach from Hunter Biden to U.S. officials in 2016 over Burisma. What's going on here?
POLANTZ: Yeah, John. This is coming through the State Department and information that they are releasing.
Basically, in 2016, there's just another new incident of Hunter Biden and what he was doing on behalf of Ukrainian energy company Burisma where he was a board member at the time his father was the vice president. And in 2016, he was capitalizing or trying to capitalize on his father's role in this prominent position in the U.S. government. And Hunter Biden did reach out to the U.S. ambassador to Italy, according to The New York Times. He was asking, essentially, for a little bit of networking help.
But the U.S. government balked. They were very hesitant to want to do anything that Hunter Biden was requested. We've seen this over and over again in different instances with him around this time where they're saying we're not going to actively advocating in this way, especially with this Ukrainian company involved.
And a lawyer for Hunter Biden, Abbe Lowell, did say to the Times that there was no meeting that ever actually occurred. There was no project that materialized.
And, of course, crucially, John, Hunter Biden has been investigated for years and has never been charged with any illegal foreign lobbying activity. And there's nothing where we have found his father doing anything that could have helped him whenever he was sitting in the vice presidency -- John.
BERMAN: Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for sharing your reporting. Great to see you this morning -- Sara.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I will take it first.
BERMAN: Kate. I saw -- Sara's over there --
BOLDUAN: I know.
BERMAN: -- in my defense. In my defense.
BOLDUAN: Well, if you --
BERMAN: She's over there, you're over there.
BOLDUAN: We'll get to it. We have to get you to take your vegetables before you get your dessert.
The economy remains -- the economy remains issue number one among voters this election, very clearly. Both Harris and Trump campaigns are trying to make the case that they are the better to handle it.
Today, Donald Trump will make his case to voters in Asheville, North Carolina. And then, Kamala Harris heads to Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday where she will be rolling out -- she's expected to roll out her economic plan in her first major policy speech.
CNN's Harry Enten has been looking kind of to set the table for us, looking at how some of the messaging has been landing with voters so far.
Let's talk about Donald Trump because he has been leading on this issue with voters kind of throughout. Where -- what are you seeing now? HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: What are we seeing right now, and I'll point -- perhaps I can make the medicine go down a little bit easier on this particular topic.
All right, this is trust more on the economy those key Great Lake battleground states -- Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And what I want you to take away from this is two-fold. Number one, Donald Trump still leads on who they trust more -- Harris versus Trump here in August. He leads by six points, all right? So it is a good issue for him.
But it's not nearly as good of an issue as it was back in May on who do you trust more on the economy in these key Great Lake battleground states when it was Biden versus Trump when Trump was ahead by 14 points.
And this is something that we've generally been seeing in the polling. That is, the strength for Donald Trump has becoming less strong. He is not ahead by as much on these issues. And this, of course, is so important because this has been the number one issue that he's been hammering away at. And when you're up by 14, it's much easier to make that economic argument --
BOLDUAN: OK.
ENTEN: -- to those key Great Lake battleground state voters than when you're up by six. And it's just part of the larger picture that Donald Trump has been struggling once Kamala Harris has gotten into this race overall and on his number one issue as well.
[07:35:04]
BOLDUAN: Still leading, but leading by not as much --
ENTEN: Correct.
BOLDUAN: -- on this issue.
What about kind of digging into not just among all likely voters. How about among the key constituency for Donald Trump in the past and present, which is white working class voters.
ENTEN: Exactly right. So, you know, white working class voters, non- college white voters have been Donald Trump's core constituency. And so it's not really much of a surprise here that when we're looking at trust in the economy Trump has a larger lead with them overall -- a 24-point lead over Kamala Harris in who has more trust in those key Great battleground states -- Great Lake battleground states.
But look at this. Look again at the trendline. The trendlines here are so important because Donald Trump had a 36-point lead back in May. That has been cut by 12 points. And again, this is the real problem for Donald Trump because elections are not just about winning groups; it's about driving up the margins with the groups you're strongest with and closing the margins among the groups you're weakest with. And this is his strongest group in the electorate and his lead, simply
put, Kate, is not anywhere near as strong. And this goes in part with the fact that he is actually not leading as much overall in the horse race with white working class voters once Kamala Harris got in the race.
And I think this is kind of one of those interesting sort of nuggets because one of the reasons Joe Biden had been arguing to stay in was he felt that he could reach voters that Kamala Harris couldn't reach -- specifically, non-college white voters. But in this particular case he is doing -- Donald Trump is doing worse against Kamala Harris.
BOLDUAN: Bottom line, work for both of them to do on this front. And we shall see -- they're going to be heading on the trail this week -- if that is the focus.
It's great to see you, Harry. Thank you.
ENTEN: Thanks.
BOLDUAN: Sara.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. For more on this discussion on Kamala Harris' strategy, I'm joined by Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida. Welcome to the program. Thank you so much for being here.
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL) (via Webex by Cisco): Hi, Sara.
SIDNER: I want to -- I don't know if you were able to hear what Harry was saying about the data indicator. Despite the economic indicators that have been fairly good, Americans still say look, they're feeling really, really bad. They're struggling personally because of high prices during this administration.
And in these key battleground states, Donald Trump still gets higher numbers when it comes to how he handles the economy.
You know, this -- Vice President Harris is part of this administration. Does she need to differentiate herself from Joe Biden on the issue of the economy now?
SCHULTZ: Well look, I mean, I represent a congressional district in South Florida and I'm out talking to my constituents all the time. And there's no question that even though there's been remarkable progress in this economy -- we have post-COVID, the best economy in the world. More than 15 million jobs created during this administration. You have jobs that have been re-shored thanks to the CHIPS and Science Act for computer chip manufacturing. But -- investments in infrastructure.
But when I talk to my constituents and folks around the country it is really tough when that grocery bill is still too high. It's really tough when gas prices -- you want them to continue to come down.
But the contrast that the campaign of Vice President Harris and Tim Walz will present over the course of the next few weeks is clear. Donald Trump is someone who, when he was president, prioritized tax cuts for the wealthiest, most fortunate Americans.
They oppose making sure that we can continue the Affordable Care Act. Health care costs are often the most significant price point when it comes to family budget that can kill families when they have a health care crisis.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have focused on making sure that we can continue to invest in working families to fight price gouging, like Kamala Harris did when she was attorney general in California, successfully. She beat back the pharmaceutical companies on their -- on their pricing, on cosmetic companies, and many others.
So the contrast is clear. Donald Trump took care of rich. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in their leadership roles have taken care of making sure that they focus on middle class and working families and making ends meet.
SIDNER: I want to ask you about another policy issue. In 2019, when Harris was running, Kamala Harris said illegal border crossings should be a civil enforcement issue but not a criminal enforcement issue. And she said she would close migrant detention facilities on day one.
Do you expect her to change those policies or for those to be her policies now?
SCHULTZ: What I expect from a President Harris is what should already have been law but isn't because Donald Trump pressured, successfully, the MAGA Republicans in Congress that I serve with not to pass a bipartisan immigration reform deal that would have addressed so much of this border crisis. Because the Republicans really don't care. Donald Trump doesn't really care about solving the border crisis. Where's that wall that Mexico was supposedly going to pay for?
[07:40:05]
We are focused under Vice President Harris and under President Biden on trying to really get things done. You've seen a huge drop in attempted border crossings thanks to the policies of Biden and Harris that have brought down the -- that have brought down the motivation to have migrants approach our border. They know that they're not going to likely be able to cross successfully into the United States.
And we've invested -- and Vice President Harris led those efforts in countries like Guatemala where you've seen a huge drop in attempts to come to our border because life is getting better there. That's the balance we have to strike.
Donald Trump wants to deport and has committed to support mass deportations as soon as he becomes president.
SIDNER: Let me ask you about something that has come up with her vice presidential pick, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. He appeared multiple times with a cleric and a leader in the Muslim community who has posted antisemitic content. Imam Asad Zaman had shared a link in 2015 to a neo-Nazi propaganda film that portrayed Adolph Hitler in a positive light. And three years later, this is what Walz said about him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ, (D) MINNESOTA: I would like to first of all, say thank you to Imam. I am a teacher so when I see a master teacher, I know it. And over the time we've spent together one of the things -- one of the things I've had the privilege of is seeing the things in life through the eye of a master teacher to try and get the understanding, listening today to the stories and what it means.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Now, fast-forward to now and after October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, the Imam shared some anti-Israel posts.
The governor's campaign said that Walz doesn't have a personal relationship with Zaman, but he has been with him several times at public events. Zaman says that he shares things without fully looking at them.
Are you concerned about this -- where Walz is showing up with this Imam over and over and over again with this relationship?
SCHULTZ: I've known Tim Walz and served with him in Congress, and he's been a dear friend of mine for many years. And if there's anything I'm confident in it's that Tim Walz is going to continue to give voice to the voiceless. To fight back against hate, particularly antisemitism, as he has continually done.
He spoke out immediately after October 7 and condemned Hamas' attack. Has insisted that the hostages come home. And has always had a strong pro-Israel voting record alongside Vice President Harris when she was a U.S. senator.
I mean, this is an administration under Vice President Harris that adopted the first national strategy to combat antisemitism making it a top priority for every federal agency and has been focused on implementing that.
I want to make sure that we have a president and vice president like Harris and Walz in office so that we can continue to ensure that there are people running this country that actually care about fighting hate and reducing antisemitism instead of hosting neo-Nazis for dinner, like Donald Trump has done. And instead of sitting down with antisemite himself, Elon Musk, who has promoted antisemitic trumps on his platform.
Tim Walz and Kamala Harris -- they fight antisemitism, and Donald Trump sits -- and J.D. Vance sit down and dine and cavort with antisemites. A pretty big difference.
SIDNER: Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, thank you so much for being here this morning. Appreciate you -- John.
SCHULTZ: My pleasure. BERMAN: So we have -- got new reporting this morning on Ukraine's incursion into Russia. There is new video that shows a Ukrainian truck carrying blindfolded men in Russian military uniforms. You can't see them right now because they're blurred out in that video. We are learning the Belgorod region inside Russia has declared a state of emergency now.
CNN's Clare Sebastian joins us with the very latest. What are you learning, Clare?
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, good morning, John.
That video -- I think it's worth noting what we're learning about that. And it was filmed by AFP, and it appears to show a Ukrainian pickup truck carrying what appeared to be Russian -- possibly, prisoners of war -- away from the Russian border into Ukraine. And seeing this some 10 days ago would have seemed virtually impossible.
But this comes as Ukraine is becoming, having said very little for the first few days of this operation -- is becoming increasingly explicit about its motives here. The primary motives seem to be to sort of pull Russian troops away from the vulnerable areas of the front line in Ukraine -- ease pressure there. And they say to try to force Russia into peace.
[07:45:00]
But another part of this, according to President Zelenskyy, is to do what he calls replenishing the exchange fund. So essentially, capturing more Russians so they can then be traded for Ukrainians still in Russian captivity.
In the last hour or so we've heard from a call that was recorded between Zelenskyy and his commander in chief. The commander in chief saying that they have captured some 100 Russian soldiers -- this is his claim -- since the beginning of the day.
So if you're looking for metrics of success for Ukraine in this operation, this part, at least, seems to be working. But, of course, this may well come at a pretty heavy cost also for Ukrainian troops. They are still, though, on the advance -- John.
BERMAN: Still on the advance as of this morning.
Clare Sebastian, thank you so much for that update -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: Coming up next, a CNN investigation into the "nightmare conditions" at a failed farming startup that was promoted and partially funded by Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:50:18]
SIDNER: As Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance touts himself as a champion for the working class, a new CNN investigation finds that before entering politics, Vance was an early investor in a high-tech farming startup that promised to provide jobs for local Kentuckians. The company ultimately failed, and workers allege they experienced "nightmare conditions" and were eventually replaced with foreign migrant workers.
CNN's Kyung Lah has the story this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANTHONY MORGAN, FORMER APPHARVEST WORKER: A nightmare. It was a nightmare that should have never happened.
KYUNG LAH, SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): That nightmare happened here at his nearly empty greenhouse in Eastern Kentucky. AppHarvest, a failed high-tech startup, promised local workers a future that spiraled into broken promises.
Anthony Morgan bought into the company's public pitch that it was for Appalachia by Appalachians.
MORGAN: We was being told that hey, guys, he's from here.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you -- wow.
LAH (voiceover): He is J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president --
VANCE: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.
LAH (voiceover): -- leaning on his personal rise out of poverty to reach swing state voters as Donald Trump's running mate.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I chose him because he's for the worker. He's for the people that work so hard and perhaps weren't treated like they should have been.
LAH (voiceover): But before politics, Vance was a venture capitalist and AppHarvest's first outside investor, eventually steering millions of dollars to the company. Vance was a lead pitchman for the vertical farming startup, tweeting he was a supporter and investor, writing, "I live this company."
VANCE: It's a great business that's making a big difference in the world.
LAH (voiceover): The company's investor presentation pledged a commitment to Appalachia, estimating thousands of new jobs to a poverty-stricken area.
MORGAN: A major emphasis with them was we want to bring work to Eastern Kentucky. This is why we are here.
LAH (voiceover): Morgan left a stable job to join AppHarvest as a crop care specialist, pruning the greenhouse-grown vegetables. A single father with 6-year-old twins.
The job rapidly turned when production fell behind under what a dozen workers described to CNN as mismanagement, including dangerous conditions. Employees filed multiple complaints to the state and federal government alleging heat exhaustion, working in extreme temperatures, and lack of water breaks, but the cases were all closed with no citations.
MORGAN: I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees.
LAH: Inside?
MORGAN: Inside. A couple of days a week you'd have an ambulance show up and you seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.
LAH (voiceover): The cuts came next to promised worker benefits. And then, foreign workers came in to fill those so-called local jobs.
MORGAN: The second round of folks they brought in was folks on work visas. And they didn't bring just a van full, they brought busloads.
LAH (voiceover): Documents show AppHarvest hired contract workers from outside the region. At one point, as many as 500, the majority of its workforce -- not locals. But that's not the image AppHarvest wanted the world to see.
This is Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell visiting in 2021.
LAH: Mitch McConnell coming through. Were the migrant workers --
MORGAN: (Laughing).
LAH: -- there at the time?
MORGAN: (Laughing).
LAH: You're laughing. I mean, I look at the video. It doesn't look like there's any.
MORGAN: They hid these guys. They took them out of the plant. They was gone. And then, Mitch McConnell's giving a speech about all this work that AppHarvest has brought Eastern Kentuckians.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I like the idea f taking the tomato market away from the Mexicans. How about that?
LAH: So they were trying to hide the migrant workers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Specifically, yeah.
LAH (voiceover): This worker who asked not to be identified says the hiring of migrant workers became part of a mirage that AppHarvest was helping the region.
He took this video as his co-workers clapped for visiting investors. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And any time they did that, they kept workers off
the floor -- doing our, like, stationary parade while people come through. And yeah, it was -- it was awkward having to stand there and just be a prop.
LAH: A prop for what?
[07:55:00]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, look at all of these poor folks we're employing.
LAH (voiceover): The worker says it's impossible to forget about his time at AppHarvest as J.D. Vance ascends to national politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's gotten away with a lot of money and fame for pretending to be one of us.
VANCE: O-H-I-O.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just another grifter. Just another carpetbagger. Another tourist. He wants to tell us what we are.
LAH (voiceover): Vance left the board in April 2021 to run for the Senate. Shortly after, shareholders filed suit claiming they were misled. By 2023, AppHarvest had filed for bankruptcy a little more than two years after its public launch. But the workers in this failed startup say they are the real people in the Vance story.
LAH: Do you blame J.D. Vance for any of this?
MORGAN: I blame all of the original investors at AppHarvest. The original board of directors knew what was coming. You would have had to be an idiot not to have.
LAH: CNN's review of documents and interviews with a dozen former workers show that problems emerged while Vance was still a member of AppHarvest's board. Now, after he departed, he was still an investor and had more than $100,000 invested in the company, according to disclosures.
A spokesman for Vance says to CNN in a statement, "J.D. was not aware of the operational decisions regarding hiring, employee benefits, or other workplace policies which were made after he departed AppHarvest's board. Like all early supporters, J.D. believed in AppHarvest's mission and wishes the company would have succeeded."
Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right. New this morning, a manhunt in Hillsborough, North Carolina searching for a convicted murderer who was serving a life sentence for killing a 1-year-old child. He escaped custody Tuesday during a medical transport. Officials say he freed himself from leg restraints and ran into the woods still in handcuffs. There is a $25,000 reward for any information that helps lead to his capture.
Overnight, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar won her primary in Minnesota. She ran in her deep blue district on a platform of defending abortion rights and her legislative record. But she also drew sharp criticism for defending campus protesters against the war in Gaza.
Two other members of the so-called Squad, Jamal Bowman of New York, and Cori Bush of Missouri -- they lost their primary bids earlier this summer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CELIA CRUZ, CUBAN SINGER: Singing unknown song.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So the late Cuban-born singer and four-time Latin Grammy Award winner Celia Cruz is now the first Afro-Latina to appear on the U.S. quarter. Next year marks the centennial of her birth. Quite an honor -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: So a new twist in the battle for bronze. There are now new questions of a conflict of interest among the panel that made the decision to strip Jordan Chiles of that bronze medal that she won in the floor exercise.
CNN's Andy Scholes has more details on this. So what are you learning?
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah. Well, Kate, you know, this latest twist kind of makes you turn your head and go hmm because we're now learning that the head of the Court of Arbitration of the -- for the Sport panel that ruled against Chiles, ultimately awarding third place to Romania's Ana Barbosu, has actually represented Romania in legal cases for almost a decade.
So, Dr. Hamid Gharavi was one of the people on that three-member panel that ruled that the original U.S. appeal of Chiles' score came four seconds late.
Now, we just got a statement from the Court of Arbitration for Sport about the potential conflict of interest, and they said Dr. Gharavi made the disclosure in writing during the proceedings and his disclosure was sent to all parties and interested parties. And none of the parties or interested parties -- for example, USA Gymnastics or Jordan Chiles, objected to his appointment as panel chair during the CAS proceedings.
So they're basically saying that the objection needed to come before this conflict of interest has arised. But USA Gymnastics disputed the ruling at the time. They presented that timestamped evidence that their appeal actually came 47 seconds. But Gharavi and the panel said the rules don't allow them to reconsider their initial ruling.
Now, USA Gymnastics says they will continue this fight. They're going to be appealing to the Swiss Tribunal for Chiles to keep her bronze medal. In the meantime, rapper and Olympics hype man Flavor Flav -- he's trying to help. He posted a video of a bronze clock on X with the caption, "I gots yo back, Jordan Chiles." So if for some reason she does end up losing this bronze medal, Kate, Flavor Flav's got her taken care of with a replacement.
BOLDUAN: Flavor Flav is one of the awesome surprise stars of the Olympics as well. So let's see what comes of that.
But I do want to ask you about your favorite sports-related topic, which is mayonnaise. Yes, I said mayonnaise. So something about a mayonnaise ad now grabbing attention, starting with an NFL player showing his unusual take on his coffee recipe.
