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Harris Pitches Plan for Economy in New Campaign Ad; Israeli Military Rescues Hostage Kaid Farhan Al-Qadi from Hamas; Ukraine Looks to Strike Deeper into Russian Territory. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 27, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:01:37]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Counting down to the debate. The September showdown between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is only two weeks away, a potentially make or break moment for these two presidential candidates, as long as they find a way to agree on the rules first.

And a daring raid leads to the rescue of a father of 11 held by Hamas, marking the first time the IDF has helped a hostage escape alive from the tunnels under Gaza. But a deal to bring home the hundred plus hostages still in captivity remains elusive.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And a troubling new study suggests the average person has more and more plastic in their brain, about twice as much as just eight years ago. What could that mean for our health? Can't be good, right? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: We are 70 days away from the election. And there are just two weeks until Vice President Harris and former President Trump face off in the presidential debate. And as the race for the White House sprints ahead, Trump is beefing up his political coalition.

CNN is learning that former democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have now joined Trump's transition team. Both have offered their endorsements here in recent days.

Right now, both campaigns are laser-focused on battleground states. Of course, Trump's VP pick, Senator J.D. Vance, is in Michigan today ahead of Trump's visit to the state later this week. And while Harris and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, will set off tomorrow on a bus tour of Georgia.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is with us live. Kristen, what are you hearing from the Trump campaign about the new additions to his transition team?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, Trump's team has long said that they want to expand the electorate. And that means casting a wide net, trying to get more voters than would traditionally vote for just Donald Trump or would traditionally vote Republican. And part of that clearly is trying to court these RFK supporters.

One of the things we talked about when RFK endorsed Donald Trump was what the actual polling looked like and what this could mean for the general election. So in some states, he had 6% or 5%. Well, the thing you have to remember about these RFK supporters, and it's also the same likely supporters of Tulsi Gabbard kind of independent mix, some are Democrats, some are Republicans. There's some crossover, is that there is a belief or at least an uncertainty that they show up at the polls in November, particularly if their candidate is not on the ballot.

So what you're seeing here in some extent is taking this endorsement and trying to use it in a way that will drive people to the polls. It's one thing to say that you are endorsed by RFK Jr. by Tulsi Gabbard. It's quite another to say, they will have an impact on personnel and potentially even policy if I am elected. So clearly, a way to drive people who support them to the polls.

And here's what we have in a statement from the campaign. They say, we are proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump-Vance transition team. We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America's greatness.

Again, these are two politicians who, at some point, have been very progressive Democrats who have now come out for Donald Trump. They are clearly trying to ride these endorsements and turn it into votes at the polls.

KEILAR: All right. Kristen, thank you for that update.

[14:05:02]

CNN's Eva McKend is joining us now. So Eva, Harris pitching her plan for the economy. This isn't a new campaign ad. What is happening here with her message?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, they're leaning into this economy first message. We see that with particular emphasis on lowering housing costs. The Vice President says, the country's housing shortage can be addressed in part by building 3 million new homes and rentals.

Let's listen to how she's making this argument in that new ad and on the campaign trail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States (D) and U.S. Presidential Candidate: As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability, and dignity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And Brianna, this, of course, comes at a time when the campaign is trying to thwart persistent criticism from all corners regarding the lack of a sit down interview and the absence of answering aggressive questions from the press. Though a senior advisor tells us, Harris will schedule a sit down interview by the end of the month and pointed to her engagements with the press while on the trail.

Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, her running mate, will launch that bus tour across Southern Georgia tomorrow, concluding with a Thursday night rally in Savannah. Georgia, of course, remains a critical battleground state. And while there's tremendous focus on voters, Brianna, in urban centers, they're also focused on capturing voters key to democratic coalitions in rural parts of the state as well.

Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Eva, thank you for that. We appreciate it. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's expand the discussion now with Jamal Simmons. He's the Former Communications Director for Vice President Harris and a CNN Political Commentator. We're also joined by Alex Thompson, a National Political Correspondent for Axios and CNN Political Analyst. Thank you both for being with us.

Jamal, you were on the Vice President's press team. Why has her campaign waited so long to schedule a sit down interview?

JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS AND A CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Boris, you would be shocked to understand that perhaps people aren't -- politicians aren't running to do media interviews just for the sake of doing them. Usually when a politician does a media interview, it's because they've got something to say. They're going out there to, quote, "advance something," right, to push out a piece of policy they're talking about, to talk about, you know, maybe she's going to talk with Tim Walz about his joining the ticket, which I'm understanding that perhaps he's going to be in that first interview. There's a reason for a politician to go out and speak to the media.

So the Vice President's had a lot to do over the last few weeks, right? She had to pick a VP nominee. She had to get ready for a convention, completely reorient a convention during convention speech, preparing for debates. There's a lot happening. So they're fixing to do a media interview in the middle of a lot of other things that the campaign has been trying to get done. And sometimes, that media gets pushed to the side despite our best intentions and best desires.

SANCHEZ: Alex, I'm curious what you're hearing about what this interview may wind up looking like in terms of a platform and in terms of whether she does it with her VP nominee or solo.

ALEX THOMPSON, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR AXIOS AND CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: These are the internal debates and conversations going on. Is it going to be live? How long is it? Is it on TV? Is it print? Is it with someone that is a little bit softer, a little bit friendlier, an ideologically aligned person? And if she does something that's more partisan or more liberal-leaning, does the press give her credit for doing that interview?

Now, you know, Jamal is right, in that there's two different things going on. There's basically should she answer questions? And I think, you know, as a reporter, I would be biased in saying, yes, she should. But is it a politically smart thing to do? And that's the debate also going on within Democratic Party circles. The fact is that, you know, some of her worst moments as Vice President were when she did interviews on camera that she got a little flustered. She sort of did these roundabouts and answers about immigration or about COVID-19.

And so that's the other thing that Democrats are thinking. You know, can you basically only do a few interviews? Is it strategically sound, just do a few interviews before then in November?

SANCHEZ: Jamal, I have heard from folks on the other side, Republicans, who have pointed to this and said this is an example of why she's not ready for prime time. If her team has to strategize who to sit down with and when, then it shows that there's something that she's insecure about or is looking to sort of soften her message on. What do you make of that line of attack?

SIMMONS: Well, I'll quarrel with that a little bit. You know, the Vice President has been talking to reporters, I think, just about every time she travels. She's going over to the pool. She's taking questions. She's going back on the plane and talking to people on the plane off the record. So I think they're talking to reporters quite a lot.

The question is, are you going to just hiccup a bunch of time to sit down and do a 30 or 40-minute interview with a reporter, or maybe you're going to do not just one reporter, maybe you're going to do two, or three of them, or you're going to do them every couple of days.

[14:10:09]

The question is when do you do that? And I think as a campaign or as a political office, what you're trying to decide is what are we going to say and how is this media interview going to help us communicate with the American public? Because despite however much they may love CNN or one of the other networks or outlets, you're really not talking to the outlet. You're talking to the public. You're talking to the voter. And is the voter watching or listening to that outlet when you make a decision to talk to them?

SANCHEZ: Alex, another line of attack from Republicans is aiming to characterize Harris as a flip flopper, as someone who has changed positions on several issues. And you have some new reporting about her stance on the border wall. Does this constitute a flip flop or is this sort of a shift, a slight shift perhaps, in the semantics of what she supports?

THOMPSON: No. I mean, this is a significant policy shift in how she views immigration. The fact is that when she was a senator and running for president, she called the idea of a border wall un-American. She said that she would block funding for it. And by full-throatedly endorsing, the bipartisan border bill that was negotiated earlier this year with Senator Lankford, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and Senator Murphy, you know, that bill includes hundreds of millions of dollars to continue building the border wall.

So the bill that she now says that she will sign includes building more border wall. Now, you can say that, you know, circumstances have shifted. You can also say, you know, that you actually don't support the border wall, but it was necessary in order to get a compromise done. But the fact is that her campaign didn't tell us those things for that story.

And again, it's part of the reason why it's important for her probably to do interviews, to answer these questions. You know, there could be explanations for, you know, not supporting Medicare for all anymore, not supporting banning fracking. But the fact is that we have not heard anything on the record from her or her campaign about those changes.

SANCHEZ: And to that point, Jamal, how would you advise the Vice President to approach that kind of conversation, where she has to answer for what are different positions than she used to hold on certain issues?

SIMMONS: You know, here's the real truth about this, Boris, is the vice president was part of a government that Joe Biden led for a long time. That was really a coalition government, right? This coalition of people who believed in democracy, who believed in -- they didn't believe in Maga, they didn't want Trump to be in office anymore. And that coalition sort of goes all the way from AOC and Bernie Sanders on the left, all the way to sort of Liz Cheney on the right.

And so the Vice President and the President looked to pass bipartisan legislation. They passed a lot of it when they were in office. And now you're seeing the Vice President come out, Kamala Harris, and say that she is going to also support more bipartisan legislation, even though it may contain things that she doesn't necessarily agree with.

And so my understanding of the border bill, it's not that she's allocating new money for the border. It's that, here's money that was already present from the Trump administration that hadn't been spent yet. And they're going to lengthen the amount of time that they have to spend that money for the border and so -- on the border wall. And so that's a little bit different.

But still, if you're running a bipartisan and kind of coalition way of a political movement, you're going to have to sometimes compromise and cooperate with Republicans on things that aren't necessarily your core values.

SANCHEZ: I mean, you just gave sort of a reasoned thought through response as to why there might be a difference. Wouldn't it be easy enough for her to do that, to reporter that were asking that question? Wouldn't that tamp down the ability for Republicans to point and say, well, look, she's flip flopping. Isn't it a good defense?

SIMMONS: Oh, Republicans are going to say whatever they're going to say regardless of what she does. But it is actually incumbent, though, upon the Vice President to talk directly to the American public, including through big media. And so I think you're going to see her do an interview. She said she is.

Now, the mix between that, whether it's local or national, is it print or on television or on radio, there may be a variety of things. They got to figure that out in the office. I wouldn't try to second guess them here on TV. I hated if somebody tried to do that to me when I was the Vice President's Communications Director. But they do have to talk to the American public. I think they're going to get to it pretty quickly.

SANCHEZ: And they have an open invitation to do it right here on CNN News Central Monday through Friday, 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. eastern. We're more than happy to accommodate them.

Jamal Simmons, Alex Thompson, thank you both for the time.

SIMMONS: I'll second that motion.

SANCHEZ: Thank you, Jamal. Appreciate that. Still ahead this hour on News Central, after nearly 11 months in Hamas captivity, an Israeli hostage is back with his loved ones today. What we're learning about the special operation that rescued him.

Plus, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg laying out some big regrets, how he says that he faced censorship pressure during COVID and wishes he had responded differently.

[14:15:07]

And fighting back, Ukraine's President deploying F-16s to combat Russia's largest air assault of the war thus far. Will it be enough to hold off further attacks?

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SANCHEZ: For the very first time, the Israeli military says, it rescued a hostage alive from an underground tunnel in Gaza.

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Commandos conducted a daring rescue operation earlier today, using pinpoint intelligence to save Kaid Farhan Al-Qadi. He was being held by Hamas in southern Gaza. Al-Qadi is now being treated at an Israeli hospital surrounded by family after spending 326 days in captivity.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins us now live from Tel Aviv. Jeremy, what more are you learning about how this rescue played out?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, I'm told by two Israeli military officials that Israeli Special Forces were combing a network of tunnels in southern Gaza. They were acting on intelligence that there may be hostages in the area. And that is when they came across this man, Kaid Farhan Al-Qadi, a 52-year-old hostage who had been held hostage by Hamas for 326 days. An Israeli military official telling me that he was alone when he was

found without his captors who may have fled the area before those Israeli troops arrived on the scene. But they were able to rescue him, take him to a waiting Israeli military helicopter and then out of Gaza to a hospital in southern Israel where he was finally able to be reunited with his very large family.

He is a father of 11 children. He has several brothers who were at the hospital and who were overjoyed to see him there. They had started to lose hope that he would even emerged from Gaza alive. And that is when they got the call early this morning that he was indeed alive, that he had been rescued by Israeli forces, and that he was on his way to this hospital in southern Israel.

He is the 8th Israeli hostage to actually be rescued in an Israeli military operation. But as you said, he is the first to be rescued from an underground tunnel. The others were all being held above ground. However, the hostage and families' forum calling this rescue operation miraculous is also pointing to the fact that they know that the remaining 104 hostages who were taken captive on October 7th and are still in Gaza, they will not all be rescued in Israeli military operations. And they are pointing to the fact that it is a ceasefire deal and a hostage release deal that will lead to the rescue and to the release of the remaining hostages. Those negotiations, as we know, are still ongoing in Cairo as well as in Doha, Qatar.

And tonight, that rescued hostage speaking with the Israeli prime minister, thanking him for getting him out of Gaza, but also reminding him that there are more hostages that still need to be rescued. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Jeremy Diamond, live for us in Tel Aviv. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah. We're also watching the war in Ukraine because overnight, Russia launched a punishing aerial barrage on the country. They killed at least five people as Ukrainian forces continue their slow advance into Russian territory.

We have CNN Military Analyst, Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton here to break all of this down for us. This was quite a doozy that Russia unleashed here. And this is the second night in a row that they've been bombarding Ukraine with missiles. Tell us what Russia is trying to target here.

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, RETIRED U.S. AIR FORCE: So basically, Brianna, what we see here is several major things that the Russians are trying to do. So what are they actually targeting? They are going after places like Kryvyi Rih, which happens to be Zelenskyy's hometown, Dnipro, Kyiv, and some of the other areas right here.

Now, they're doing this from an aerial perspective. But when it comes to the ground perspective, this town right here, Pokrovsk is a major facet of Russian operations. This is their main goal right here. The other things are designed to basically destroy the infrastructure, the Ukrainian infrastructure in terms of electricity, in terms of communications, and, of course, in terms of heating, because winter is coming and the Russians want to destroy as much of this as possible. KEILAR: And when we look at what Ukraine is using to repel these attacks, they're using F-16s, which are provided by the U.S. I know I'm speaking your language now. Talk to us a little bit about this, how capable these airplanes are?

LEIGHTON: So the F-16s are very, very capable, especially when their electronic warfare equipment is reprogrammed to handle the Russian threat. So what happened was the U.S. air force provided the Ukrainians with data that they could use to program their electronic warfare gear. And that allowed them to go after the Shahed drones, as well as incoming missiles that the Russians were using. So this impacted a lot of what the Russians were trying to do and rendered it far less effective. So the F-16s have made their debut in the Ukraine- Russia war.

KEILAR: And have been very helpful. Very interesting there. You have Ukrainian forces slowly advancing into Russia's Kursk region. And Russia is actually claiming today that Ukrainian forces tried to break through the border in Russia's neighboring Belgorod region, which is -- I mean, it's right next door there. Could Ukraine continue to seize territory here?

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LEIGHTON: It's possible, theoretically. So what we have here is, of course, this area is the Kursk area that we've been focused on. So this is about a little less than 500 square miles of territory that the Ukrainians have occupied. This is the Belgorod region right in this area. And this is a major logistics hub for the Russian military.

So what the Russians are doing is they've actually started to move troops from here into these areas right here, probably with the idea of basically providing a buffer for their forces so that they are not impacted by the kind of thing that happened in Kursk. But it is still theoretically possible if they don't move quickly enough, that the Ukrainians could occupy some territory even in the Belgorod region.

KEILAR: Ukraine's army chief said what I think a lot of people suspected, which is that this Kursk offensive has been trying to draw some of Russia's assets away from the front where Ukraine is not having as good of a luck in the east. How's that strategy working?

LEIGHTON: So it's working fairly well. But I think one of the key things that we have to look at is what is happening right here in Pokrovsk, which is what I mentioned earlier. This area is basically the center of the Russian effort right now.

So at the moment, there is no diminution, no lessening of Russian activity in the Pokrovsk region. What the Russians want to do is they want to capture this entire region for Russia, the Donbas region right here. That's been Putin's goal, really, since the beginning of this conflict.

But what can also happen is the more the Ukrainians do things here in the Kursk area, the less likely it will be for the Russians to sustain this offensive, especially if the Ukrainians move in other areas, potentially around here, and protect this area. So that is what they can do. They can also move into parts of Russia here. If they do that, that's going to tax the Russians more. But Ukrainians also have a challenge because they have limited resources and they can't really do this all the time.

KEILAR: Yeah, they can't -- I mean, can they hold this, is really the question.

LEIGHTON: So that is a really good question. So let's go back to the more detailed map here. They have some very vulnerable areas, right? When you look at this area right in here, for example, just take this as an example, the Russians could theoretically cut this off if they wanted to. They could also potentially force the Ukrainians out of Sutra (ph) or -- and possibly out of Oleshnya. But what the Ukrainians are doing is they're actually creating defensive perimeters in this area. And those defensive perimeters can lessen the effect of the Russians, can make it much harder for the Russians to move back in. And it could potentially be, what General Syrskyi mentioned, which is make this a bargaining chip for future negotiations.

They have a bit less territory than what the Russians occupied in Ukraine, but it could still be effective in terms of a bargaining chip and in terms of military tactics.

KEILAR: Yeah, could be very motivating. All right. Colonel Leighton, thank you so much for taking us through that. We appreciate it.

LEIGHTON: You got it, Brianna.

KEILAR: Coming up, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now speaking out why he says he regrets blocking some information about COVID during the pandemic, saying that he was facing pressure from the White House.

And depending on where you live, the cost of purchasing a home just got higher. As the affordability crisis deepens, will Americans see relief anytime soon?

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