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Harris and Trump Hitting Key Battleground States This Week; Israel and Hezbollah Exchange Attacks in Major Escalation; Evacuations Ordered After Deadly Alaska Landslide. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 26, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The final sprint to the White House kicking off this week with a battleground blitz. Kamala Harris team says she'll soon sit down for her first interview. Donald Trump is shifting his strategy to Trump on steroids, his aide says.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking overnight -- I don't want to step on you. I don't want to step on you. So, this is how we're going to start the morning. We got a lot going on. We also want to talk about how breaking overnight Russia is unleashing a massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine. 15 regions struck, including the capital city, Kyiv, the deadly barrage this morning being called a nightmare.

Plus, evacuations in Alaska after a deadly landslide sends power lines and trees crashing through homes.

I'm Omar Jimenez with Sara Sidner. John Berman and Kate Bolduan are out today. CNN News Central starts now.

SIDNER: It's crunch time. This week, the race for the White House goes directly through the states that couldn't decide at all, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump turn up the heat in their battle for the battleground states. This week, Harris kicks off a bus tour in Georgia while Trump swings through three key blue wall states, both nominees set to make critical new pitches to voters.

With the next race defining moment on the 2024 calendar, the presidential debate now just 15 days away in all just 71 days left. until the election.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is leading us off this morning with the latest reporting on Team Harris. And, Priscilla, you're hearing from the campaign this morning about new demand that they have for the next debate. What is that?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Sara. We're learning about some back and forth happening between the two campaigns as they sort out these rules for the ABC presidential debate happening next month. Now, what this includes, I'm told, is the microphones, whether or not they stay on during the debate.

Remember that in June the Biden camp, the then Biden campaign had requested that the mics be turned off when each of the candidates was speaking. That is a little different, but from the way that the Harris campaign is approaching this. They actually want the microphones to stay on.

This is a statement from Brian Fallon, the Harris campaign's senior adviser for communications. I'll read you part of it. It says, our understanding is that Trump's handlers prefer the muted microphone because they don't think their candidate can act presidential for 90 minutes on his own. They later go on to say that they don't think he can handle himself against Vice President Harris without the benefit of a mute button.

Now, the Trump campaign push back on this, is that these rules had already been agreed upon when President Biden was the candidate, though I'm told that the only remaining dispute at this time is microphones despite suggestions from the Trump campaign that she also wanted notes and wanted to be seated.

Now, I am also told that the next few days are going to be very focused on debate preparations. We've seen the vice president on the trail a lot over the last month. She's expected to keep up the travel, but maybe at a bit of a different pace as she also puts a big focus on the preparations for this debate, knowing, of course, just how critical they are and how large of an audience tunes in when she goes toe to toe against former President Donald Trump.

SIDNER: And I know you have some new reporting about just how much money the Harris campaign has been able to get over these last few days or weeks.

ALVAREZ: A record fundraising haul. That number is $540 million since she launched her presidential bid after President Joe Biden stepped aside. What's important about these numbers is that it also shows a surge in grassroots donations, so a lot of these first time donors. And the reason that's important, Sara, is because this is going to be a focus for the campaign moving forward, is I'm told there's discussions about how they can strategize capitalizing on moments and making sure that they continue to get these first time donors, which becomes so critical to their strategizing when it comes to fundraising.

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Now, the campaign too has already reserved at least $370 million for television and digital advertising between Labor Day and Election Day. So, they're clearly trying to flood the market here. They have the funds to do it. And, of course, they'll also be hitting the trail, as I mentioned in this week, that includes Georgia, a state that, by the way, Biden only won by less than 12,000 votes.

So, they're going to kick off, they being the vice president and Governor Walz, this bus tour in Georgia this week that will conclude with a rally by the vice president on Thursday. SIDNER: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much.

Omar, you saw those big numbers for how much people are donating and all important small time, first time donors as well.

JIMENEZ: And we're going to see if that momentum can continue, of course, on the Harris side of things propelled after the DNC. But on the Republican side of things, you're going to try to see how they can combat that, and that brings me to this, because it's now all-hands- on-deck for Republicans and the Trump campaign, sources tell us, as the Trump team shifts strategy to try to cut off Kamala Harris' momentum.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Obviously, the Democrats are on a sugar high, everybody's acknowledged that, and I think that that gets real after Labor Day. If you look over the history of all presidential election years, I mean, that's when people really begin to pay attention.

So, the rhetoric and the little bounce they get out of the convention is always expected. But I think that Kamala Harris is about to be put to the real test.

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JIMENEZ: And that was House Speaker Mike Johnson there on the campaign trail this weekend. And this week, Trump's team is ramping up his schedule in battleground states ahead of his first debate with Harris.

CNN's Alayna Treene joins us now. So, Alayna, I mean, look, first of all, just tell us more about how the Trump campaign is ramping up their efforts. Let's start there.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Okay. Well, look, I mean, I think there's no question, Omar, that the Trump campaign sees what is happening with the Harris campaign. They have been frustrated, we've talked about this for weeks now, with the surge of enthusiasm that Harris has continued to enjoy.

We actually saw a memo from Trump's pollsters that they released on Saturday saying that that kind of post Harris becoming the candidate honeymoon that they had anticipated was going to extend beyond the convention, saying that some of the favorable polls that she's enjoying are expected to continue longer than they had initially anticipated.

And, really, we are seeing the Trump campaign shift their strategy because they have this new opponent. That includes ramping up aggressively Donald Trump's schedule. Remember, Donald Trump does not really travel as much as a typical candidate. He was really holding about two rallies a week up until recently.

I'm told that is changing. For the next few weeks between now and November, the next two months, I should say, they're going to really ramp up that schedule. You're going to see him traveling daily. Many weeks, if not holding two events per day, I'm told. One Trump adviser told me, think Trump on steroids. This is going to be an all hands on deck approach.

But they're also really trying to target some of the early voting states. We know early voting kicks off in North Carolina in just 11 days as well as in other states in other states throughout September. They're really going to be targeting their ground game strategy to kind of hit those states with that focus on who are the voters going to the polls first. And then, of course, you're also seeing Donald Trump behind the scenes simultaneously prep for that September 10th debate. So, they have a lot going on.

Now, I think to keep in mind here is that this strategy is completely different from the one that they had when President Joe Biden was still at the top of the Democratic ticket. I can tell you, I mean, after the RNC Convention in July, Trump's team was really measuring the drapes. They thought that they were going to have a much easier kind of glide path to November. That has been completely upended by Harris, and, again, the enthusiasm and the surging favorability that she is seeing that they didn't necessarily anticipate.

And so a lot of these changes behind the scene directly tied to their new opponent that they're still trying to grapple with.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And, of course, all eyes were looking at a sprint towards the September debate that at this point seems to be happening, but were working out rules in the meantime.

Alayna Treene, I really appreciated.

We're also following more news this morning. Hezbollah says even more strikes are possible after launching a barrage of drones and rockets at Israel this weekend. What this all means for the ongoing ceasefire talks.

Plus, heartbreak in Alabama after a high school football quarterback dies from a head injury he got during the opening game of the season.

And a warning after an entire town shuts down its parks to prevent the spread of a deadly mosquito-borne virus. Stay with us.

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SIDNER: A Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal is hanging into balance this morning after tensions between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah escalated with both launching attacks at one another over the weekend. But the two sides appear to have avoided escalating their conflict to a wider war for now. Israel says it carried out preemptive strikes in Lebanon, but has below says it will still able to fire 320 rockets and drones at Israel, even though most were intercepted.

CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is live for us in Tel Aviv with the latest.

Nic, there is a sense that both Israel and Hezbollah want to avoid escalation, and yet here you're seeing this back and forth.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. Look, it's very clear Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in his speech yesterday, tried to claim a victory, saying that their military targets and their attacks were meticulously completed, having claimed that they were striking 11 different Israeli military sites in the north and targets in the center of Israel.

The IDF pushed back. No military targets hit, they said, and no evidence seen that any Hezbollah weapon systems got through to Central Israel, whatsoever. And I think the perception here is certainly that Hezbollah failed to land a punch, and therefore this is something that, you know, reflects badly on Hezbollah.

How much that perception is understood in Lebanon is unclear, but there certainly will be people who realize Hezbollah did not actually managed to inflict any damage that Israel will accept. And that means they fell short of their original aim. So, I think that, again, also tells you that they probably won't try to escalate, because to escalate could mean an even bigger escalation from Israel. And also, Israel struck targets in the South of Lebanon preemptively, and didn't go after targets that might have been more sensitive in the north of Lebanon.

So, all of that tells you that both sides are sort of stepping back from this at the moment. But it seems very clear from here at least that Hezbollah failed to do what they wanted to do, and that's going to reflect very badly on them at home eventually.

SIDNER: Where does this put the ceasefire talks amid all of this?

ROBERTSON: The fact that they managed to continue Sunday, despite the fact that the strikes happened early in the morning Sunday is indicative of the fact that there is some momentum that these technical level talks that are going on in the background and have managed to bring the leaders together for a limited period over the weekend, it does seem to be positive.

That said, Hamas left yesterday, left the torch yesterday, saying what they've said all along, that they won't agree to what's on the table right now because it doesn't meet their benchmarks of complete ceasefire, all Israeli troops out of Gaza, despite the positive words that we'd heard that Israel was reducing the number of troops that it was prepared to have along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Despite all of that, Hamas' position remains unchanged. But I think what you have to say here about the talks is they are shrouded in a very high degree of secrecy. We've heard from the Hamas spokesman, but does this really reflect what's happening behind closed doors? It's very hard to tell. However, the talks, as we understand, both in Doha and in Egypt, at a technical level, are continuing.

SIDNER: Yes, we're looking at the pictures of Khan Younis and the suffering of the Palestinian people and then those who are suffering as hostages. There are so many people wanting this to end as soon as possible.

Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

All right, still ahead, a deadly landslide plowing through a neighborhood. Now, evacuations are underway in Alaska, the big concern this morning.

And all-hand-on-deck, how Donald Trump's strategy will be on, quote, steroids, as the Republicans look to shift the momentum ahead of the highly anticipated presidential debate, which is in just two weeks.

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JIMENEZ: Mandatory evacuation orders are in place for areas of a landslide-prone community in Southern Alaska, and this comes after a landslide killed one person and damaged homes and cars. And now city officials fear another landslide could cause even more destruction nearby.

Joining us now is CNN's Derek Van Dam who's got some of the details for us. So, Derek, just can you tell us what is happening there in Alaska?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, first and foremost, the Ketchikan Range, the mountain range that lines this part of the Alaskan Peninsula, received between eight to nine inches of rain in about a 30-hour period. The airport actually clocking in about two and a half inches of rain, but there's a lot of factors that have to come together for a landslide or a mudslide to occur.

And I want you to take note of this picture of the actual landslide, the debris field at the bottom, the houses that are extremely vulnerable, and the topography, or the mountain ranges in the background. So, this is the area that is most vulnerable to build our homes on, right?

And just so you know, mudslides and landslides can occur in all 50 U.S. states, but the steepest slopes are where the most vulnerable and the most likely locations for these to occur. They can travel 20 miles per hour, even faster than that, so faster than the human can run or outrun something like this. And, unfortunately, there are average between 25 to 50 fatalities per year on account of these landslides.

So, what happens? Well, basically the mountainous terrain has this heavy rainfall that soaks into the soil. Remember, we talked about eight to nine inches, but eventually it soaks into the ground. Gravity takes over and the slope fails. We cannot hold the slope of the weight when you combine the rocks, the mud and, of course, the water as well. The result was this front that moved through that brought the heavy rainfall to Ketchikan and the peninsula here and there's still an additional tenth to about a quarter of an inch of rain possible through the course of the day today in Ketchikan. Omar?

JIMENEZ: And I want to get your perspective, but reporting also on another weather system, I guess, that we're following. It is Tropical Storm Hone as well. What is the latest there?

VAN DAM: Well, the good news for Hawaii is that Tropical Storm Hone has been downgraded from a hurricane. It is moving away from the Hawaiian Islands, but it's left its destruction in its path. The flooding was the big problem. You can see the rapid rises in rivers. Some of the parking lots turned into waterways.

But this is the latest Tropical Storm Hone, 70-mile-per-hour winds. You can see the big island, there's Maui, and it is moving to the west. We had a flash flood warning for the Big Island this morning through about 6:00 A.M. Eastern Standard, but that has since been lifted. There's the current radar, still just scattered showers. And, of course, we could still have some of that residual moisture filtering down through the valleys and into the mountainsides and the slopes below.

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But this was a windy event for this system. As it moves away from the Hawaiian Islands will say goodbye to honey. But then we have to focus our attention what's developing over the Eastern Pacific Ocean. We've got Hurricane Gilma and Hector as well, so two that could impact the Hawaiian Islands later this week.

JIMENEZ: All right. Well, from Hawaii to Alaska, Derek Van Dam, I really appreciate all of what you've brought. Sara?

SIDNER: So pretty, even with those storms. My goodness, I think we need to take a trip, Omar.

All right, here we go. Florida's Lake Mary Little League team defied expectations becoming the state's first ever Little League World Series champions. They beat Taiwan to take the title, and it all came down in epic fashion to the final moments and extra innings. You have to take a look at this moment that sealed the win for Florida who had a runner on second when Taiwan made a critical mistake. Watch.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the runner at second base, Norton. He gets it down. Oh, it's perfect. It's over. Lake Mary's going to win the Little League World Series Championship.

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SIDNER: Amazing. Florida broke a streak of eight straight trips to the title game without a win, the longest ever for a U.S. team. All right, ahead, Kamala Harris's vision to extend her DNC honeymoon take her on a trip to Georgia this week. Still ahead, the major cash infusion she's received to fund it.

And the nightmare in Ukraine, one of the worst attacks President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has seen the latest on Russia's deadly attacks across 15 regions.

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