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Soon: Harris To Lay Out Economic Plain In First Major Policy Speech; Trump Struggles To Stay On Message At Rambling Press Conference; Trump: "Very Angry" At Harris And "Entitled To Personal Attacks"; High-Stakes Gaza Ceasefire Talks End For The Day With No Deal. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 16, 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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[13:00:40]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Next hour, Vice President Kamala Harris laying out her economic vision, a noticeable shift from President Biden. We have new details about her plans for tax cuts, help with housing costs and attempting to lower the price of groceries. But are her plans realistic and how is this going to land with voters?

Plus it's the kind of summer wave you don't want to catch. We're talking about COVID, one of the largest surges we've had in years. Straight ahead what you need to know.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: And the Romanian gymnast at the center of the Olympic medal battle was just awarded the bronze. American gymnast Jordan Chiles now speaking out for the first time since being stripped of her honor, while Chiles now calls this moment one of the most challenging of her career. We are following these major developing stories and many more, All coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

SANCHEZ: The number one issue for most voters this election is the economy. And today, after much anticipation and speculation, Vice President Kamala Harris will lay out her economic agenda. She's soon going to take the stage in Raleigh, North Carolina and we'll bring you her remarks next hour as we're learning new details on what her economic proposals look like.

DEAN: Including a first ever federal ban on price gouging at the grocery store, affordable housing assistance and a new plan to cut taxes for middle class and lower income Americans. CNN's National Politics Correspondent Eva McKend is in North Carolina ahead of the Vice President's big economic speech.

Eva, we now have some of the tenants and details of this plan. What more can we expect to hear from her today?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Jess, she's proposing tax relief that would impact more than 100 million Americans. The child tax credit that was in the American Rescue Plan, that popular policy passed by Democrats in Congress, she wants to expand on that, make that permanent, but go from $2,000 to $3,600, $6,000 for mid class and low income families with newborns.

That, of course, speaks directly to the criticism from former President Donald Trump's running mate, JD Vance, that Democrats are somehow anti-family.

Also in her proposals, she's proposing policies that would lead to more access to affordable housing and more access to affordable healthcare. Ultimately, she is trying to set up a contrast with these policy principles. She's arguing that the Democratic ticket are principally concerned about everyday Americans, the American worker. And she argues that former President Donald Trump and his allies are more animated by passing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, obviously something that they would take issue with.

Ultimately, though, this is just a wish list. These are Democratic policies that have been proposed before, and ultimately the greatest challenge is ultimately working in concert with Congress to get these policies passed over the finish line., Jess.

SANCHEZ: Eva McKend live from North Carolina. Thanks for the preview.

Let's discuss with CNN Economics and Political Commentator Catherine Rampell. Catherine, thanks so much for sharing part of your Friday afternoon with us.

So these are about a dozen policy proposals. Some of them have been sort of in the ether for Democrats. They've been pitched before, they've been bills before, but they haven't exactly gotten across the finish line. Which of these policies do you see as most realistic for Congress, not only to take up but to actually pass?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the most likely policies that could find their way into law are the ones related to the tax code, actually, and that's because a large chunk of the tax code will be expiring next year, when the 2017 Trump tax cuts lapse, and there is already expected to be a food fight essentially over what will replace it.

So things like an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, I think that's on the table. I don't know if it will look exactly like what Kamala Harris has proposed. But something along those lines, there might be room for bipartisan support. And maybe even some of the affordable housing pieces on the tax side because, again, those have had bipartisan support in the past.

[13:05:13]

Some of the other things, it will really depend who controls both chambers of commerce. For example, the anti-price gouging stuff, which I have been critical of, it's basically a form of price controls, has a lot of Democratic support behind it. There's actually a bill that's already on the -- excuse me, in the Senate right now, that's co- sponsored by, I think, eight or nine Democrats.

And that Harris herself had sponsored a version of when she was in the Senate that has a lot of support on the Democratic side. I don't know how much support that would have on the Republican side. So, you know, the tax side stuff, there's already going to be opportunities for discussion of that, and that's where there's probably the most fertile ground for some sort of agreement.

DEAN: Right? Because whoever wins this election is going to have to deal with this -- the Trump tax cuts expiring and resetting the tax code, and that will be a fight no matter who is in office. Catherine, I hear -- I read your piece and I heard you just mention it, the federal ban on price gouging for groceries. You are skeptical of this, why?

RAMPELL: Well, first of all, nobody can explain what price gouging means. It's like that old line about pornography, I know it when I see it in the sense that what does it mean to have an excessive price or an excessive profit margin. That seems to be shorthand for a price or a profit margin that that bugs me. That seems too high.

So, you know, it's very hard to pin down what this would actually mean. If you look at the legislation that, as I mentioned, is already in the Senate, led by Senator Warren and Senator Bob Casey, and a slew of others, the particular way that this is written, which is likely to be the template for any proposal that Harris would eventually embrace is especially bad in that.

It just bans excessive prices, grossly excessive prices, grossly excessive profit margins, and says that the Federal Trade Commission can use any metric it deems appropriate to decide what that would mean, which basically says, like it's not going to be markets, it's not going to be supply and demand that's determining how much your grocery store charges you for milk or for eggs.

It's going to be some bureaucrat in DC, which seems like totally unworkable, first of all, for the FTC to be side deciding like how much Kroger charges for eggs in Michigan. But it also would be very bad for markets. We've seen this kind of thing tried in lots of other countries before, Venezuela, Argentina, the Soviet Union, et cetera.

It leads to shortages. It leads to black markets. You know, plenty of uncertainty. And beyond that, the specific way this bill was written might actually increase prices because of some of the other language in it, things like requiring companies, public companies to disclose in their quarterly reports, the quarterly earnings reports, how they're setting prices, which is a great way to help them collude, which normally we don't want them to do.

So anyway, you know, the devil's in the details, I guess, for that bill. But it's really hard for me to imagine any form of legislation that preserves the spirit of what she's proposing that would not be, you know, at best do nothing, at worst cause a lot of harm.

SANCHEZ: So not a fan of the price gouging ban portion of her proposals. But, Catherine, what about the plan to offer this homeowner subsidy, $25,000, to first time home buyers? Obviously, housing costs have become a concern for many Americans. Would that actually help, or would that drive, as some critics have argued, home prices up? RAMPELL: So that piece of her plan, I think, is likely to just drive prices up. We already have really strong demand for housing, the problem is that there isn't enough supply if you just give people even more money to spend on housing. Regardless of who they are, that's probably just going to get passed through to the sellers.

So it sounds nice, particularly for people who maybe don't have a lot of savings, but it's just going to get eaten up at, you know, if you get $25,000 and a tax credit, I think you should expect prices to go up more or less by $25,000.

Now, the other pieces of what she has proposed on the supply side, I think, are much more likely to be effective in making home -- in making housing affordable if they actually work -- if they are -- if they're able to get them through. Again, they're complicated in a way that I think is kind of unnecessary like providing tax credits for home builders who build housing specifically for first time home buyers.

[13:10:08]

It's a lot of constraints. You could just have them the tax credits go for builders who provide affordable housing. We already have a version of that, and it sounds like Kamala Harris has embraced some of that as well. But anything you could do on the supply side, which is limited at the federal level, because the biggest constraints on housing construction are at the state and local level, making it very difficult to build with permitting issues and zoning, and whatnot.

So their hands are somewhat tied. But to the extent that a president can do anything for housing affordability, it's on the supply side. It's not on the demand side.

DEAN: All right. Catherine Rampell, thanks so much for that context. We appreciate it.

And as Harris offers her plans for the economy, Donald Trump is scrambling to figure out how to slow the vice president's momentum.

SANCHEZ: Yes. During at times rambling press conference at his private golf club in New Jersey on Thursday, the former president alternated between economic remarks and insults aimed at his challenger. He admitted that he's angry at Harris and argued that he's entitled to personally attack her. Along the way, Trump made some 20 plus false claims.

Let's get to CNN's Kristen Holmes. Kristen, how are the Trump campaign and his Republican allies reacting to this, given that earlier in the week, we heard so many calls from them for him to stay on message?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So I actually want to point to that answer in which Donald Trump was talking about being entitled to personal attacks, because the part where he said he felt like he was entitled to personal attacks actually made the most sense of that entire 15 minute answer, then he went into a diatribe. And that's when he started talking about how he was the victim of multiple court cases, that they were trying to put him in jail. There were so many unfair judges. He basically went through a laundry list of all of his various court cases.

The answer to the question, which is about personal attacks, was probably 15 minutes, and had very little to do with anything other than airing his own grievances, which is what we've really become accustomed to with Donald Trump. And we got to a point in the campaign against President Joe Biden where he wasn't doing that. He wasn't really talking. Of course, we've seen him on during the trial saying those things, but he wasn't saying that as we were watching this kind of shift on the Democratic ticket, and now he is completely back in that.

Now talking about messaging, his team, and really Republicans across the country who would like him to be elected in November, kind of holding their breath when he does these press conferences, because you could see the reaction on Twitter. I was getting calls from various allies as he was reading from the binder, saying, look, he's doing a great job. He's talking about the economy. This is really kind of what he had done the day before, then it went off the rails.

And the question is whether or not Donald Trump can get it back, because the entire thing that they want him to do is win in November, but they believe that he can only do that by talking about these three specific issues in which he has pulled ahead of President Joe Biden on really Democrats as a whole, the economy, immigration and crime. They wanted to have events like yesterday, events like the day before, North Carolina, where he does this, but he just can't seem to help himself.

Now, he does seem to have started to shift slightly away from all the conspiracy theories. Maybe, perhaps the allies that I talked to, who talked to him, are getting through to him, but he is still talking off script as Donald Trump does.

I do want to play one piece of sound. This is from an event after the press conference when he was talking about Miriam Adelson, who was in the room, someone who he has had very good relationship with. Until recently, the New York Times reported he had an aide send her some kind of unhinged text messages trying to get that back. And then, he said this during the event.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the highest award you can get as a civilian. It's the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor but civilian version. It's actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, that soldiers. They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets, or they're dead.

She gets it, and she's a healthy, beautiful woman. And they're rated equal. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So if you're an ally of his, you're wondering just like, why? Why -- like you are here, you had these surging poll numbers, you can just focus on the economy. A statement like that is one that's obviously going to get a media attention, and they would like him to stay clear of those kind of things off script moments.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And you can bet that you'll see that in ads fairly soon, if not already. Kristen Holmes, thanks so much for the reporting.

Still to come on News Central, cease fire talks between Israel and Hamas have come to an end, mediators presenting both sides with a proposal that looks to bridge the divide in these talks. We have fresh new reaction from. President Biden.

DEAN: Plus, Ukraine's offensive going deeper into Russia, and now Kyiv is giving new insight into the reasoning behind their cross border incursion into Russia. We've got new details on that ahead.

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Plus, five people are charging connection with the death of actor Matthew Perry. Coming up, we'll show you what's next in that case.

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DEAN: Turning now to the Middle East, and a sign from President Biden that ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas may be close to bearing some fruit. This is the President a few moments ago at the White House.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the reasons why I was late for you all was, I was dealing with the ceasefire effort in the Middle East. And we are closer than we ever been. I don't want to jinx anything, but as my grandfather say of the grace of God, goodwill of the neighbors, a lot of luck. We may have something, but we're not there yet. It was much, much closer than it was three days ago.

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DEAN: Much, much closer, he says. Biden's comments coming one day after the Gaza Health Ministry said that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 10 months of war. Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its numbers, and CNN cannot independently confirm those numbers.

Joining us now is Leon Panetta, former U.S. Defense Secretary and former CIA Director under President Obama. Great to have you here with us.

First, just want to ask you about those comments from President Biden. Mediators are appearing cautiously optimistic. He says they're closer than ever, but there's probably still some ways to go. What's your sense?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, look, I think the President deserves a lot of credit for continuing to push to try to get a ceasefire and a hostage exchange, and try to see if we can ultimately bring this war to an end. But as we've seen, there are some difficult challenges that still remain, and those challenges are Hamas, and whether or not they'll ultimately agree to this, and Netanyahu in Israel, whether or not he will ultimately agree.

So there's still some challenges out there, but I give the United States and the other parties that are part of this effort a lot of credit for trying, because otherwise what could happen here is an escalated war in the Middle East.

DEAN: And on that note, we are waiting to see if and how Iran might retaliate following the assassination of Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh. How do you think that is factoring in to all of this if at all?

PANETTA: Well, it's playing a big role. Because I think everybody is on edge right now. Nobody is quite sure what Iran will do. Iran has promised to retaliate. The problem is that, if Iran really conducts a very strong attack against Israel that results in a lot of deaths goes after Tel Aviv and other key areas, this is going to be a wider war, and it could very well draw the United States and Israel both into a war with Iran.

Now, having said that, that might be what would discourage Iran from doing something like that, because I don't think they're particularly interested in a war with the United States and Israel, because that would mean the end of their regime. So because of that, you know, there may be some hope here that Iran understands that in retaliating, they cannot overplay their hand.

DEAN: And I'm curious what your reaction is that just in following in that theme of the potential for a broader war, your reaction to Israel's foreign minister saying it expects Britain and France to attack Iran if Iran strikes Israel. The French foreign minister saying now is not the moment to discuss attacking Iran. What do you think of those comments?

PANETTA: Well, they're not very helpful and frankly, we don't even know if that would be the case because, you know, it depends a great deal on what the attack looks like. There is a danger here. I think we're all aware of the danger if Iran overplays its hand.

But at the same time, there are some strong incentives here to ultimately try to do what we can to bring this war to an end, and try to provide a ceasefire, try to provide for a hostage exchange, try to provide humanitarian aid, and try to provide for a path that ultimately ends this war. I think all of the parties would be well- served by supporting that effort. But in the end --

DEAN: And there's also -- go ahead, I'm sorry.

PANETTA: -- be whether to continue this war or whether to ultimately bring it to an end, and that really depends on Netanyahu and Hamas.

DEAN: And it really seems, Mr. Secretary, that we are at this kind of key moment. And you -- it's complicated and, as simple as you just laid it out, either the war keeps going or it comes to an end, and now we've seen what happens. It can it can start to escalate, and we've now have seen ourselves get to the brink of a potential major escalation.

PANETTA: That's always been the danger in the Middle East. Uh, it's the tit for tat, and the response, and the quality of that response that kind of determines whether this will be a wider war or it'll be something that can be better controlled by all the parties.

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The reality is that we know, you know, from April -- the April attack from Iran, that if they try anything like that, where they're shooting 200 or 300 missiles into Israel, and they cross that line again, I think that's going to raise a lot of concern about whether or not we will see a wider war in the Middle East.

And so it's the quality of that attack that will determine just exactly what the response looks like.

DEAN: So much on the line there. Secretary Leon Panetta, thank you for your analysis there. We really appreciate it.

PANETTA: Thank you.

DEAN: Still ahead, how has Vice President Harris changed the race for the White House for female voters now that she's at the top of the ticket. We're going to break down the numbers on that. And as rent prices surge around the country, apartments are staying on the market for longer. So landlords are sweetening the deal to get tenants to sign on the dotted line. We've got new CNN reporting for you, that's next.

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