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Kamala Harris and Donald Trump Prepare for Their First Debate Held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Nikki Haley Criticizes Donald Trump for Calling Kamala Harris Dumb; Senior Adviser to Trump Campaign Discusses Donald Trump's Goals in Tonight's Debate. Dozens Killed in Israeli Airstrike on Gaza Humanitarian Zone, Harris and Trump to Face Off for First Time in Presidential Debate Aired 8-8:30a ET.
Aired September 10, 2024 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:00]
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: -- in 2022. One in every 25 obstetric units were closed in that timeframe, Kate. And we are seeing a physician workforce shortage right now in this country.
But the nonprofit March of Dimes is calling for action to address this. They say, for instance, we should expand training opportunities for midwives. They call for investments in telehealth to really reach those patients in maternity care desert. So those are just some of the solutions that they're putting forward to really address this, Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, problem, very clear and obvious when you put up that map. Solution, that's where the focus really needs to be. Thank you so much, Jacqueline Howard.
A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: It's happening. It's here. One of the most consequential days in this election so far, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump set to face each other for the first time in a debate showdown in one of the tightest races in history.
And tropical storm Francine expected to officially become a hurricane today, bringing heavy rain, gusty winds, and a dangerous storm surge. We're tracking that storm as it strengthens in the Gulf coast.
Plus, a truck suddenly disappearing out of sight -- oh, my gosh -- as the bridge beneath it collapses into rushing water. We'll tell you where it happened, and who survived that.
I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.
It is debate day, aka a day that could end with a dramatically different 2024 race then which it began. Right now, the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump still historically deadlocked. The newest national polls showing a 49 to 49 percent tie, which means the stakes extremely high as both candidates for the first time meet face- to-face inside Philadelphia's National Constitution Center.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny had the very latest on the strategies that both campaigns are employing.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have spent months talking about one another.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living in a full-blown banana republic.
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you got something to say, say it to my face.
(CHEERING)
ZELENY: On Tuesday night, they will talk to one another in a duel seen around the world, but with one of the most important audiences here in Pennsylvania.
GINA OLD, UNDECIDED PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: And I don't know if I'll really know until it's time to actually vote.
ZELENY: This will be Trump's seventh debate, more than any nominee in history. Harris and her team have studied all of the previous six, three with Hillary Clinton.
TRUMP: No puppet, no puppet.
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's pretty clear --
TRUMP: You're the puppet.
ZELENY: And three with Joe Biden.
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Would you shut up, man?
ZELENY: Which offer lessons for both sides.
For Harris, it's a marquee moment to show Americans she is ready to assume the presidency, a question very much on the minds of voters and pivotal Buck County just outside Philadelphia, where signs of support for all sides are inescapable.
OLD: By nature I am a Republican, always voted Republican. I'm not sure the share.
JOHN BILLIE, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER FOR TRUMP: I'm going to go with Trump regardless, I don't know enough about Kamala, and big deals with the border and inflation, this is my main thing.
MARY SUE FRANK, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: My hope is that they're going to tell us what they're going to do, not what the other person has done wrong.
ZELENY: Pennsylvania is at this center of the presidential race, with Harris, Trump, and their allies spending more than any other battleground -- $82 million from Democrats, $74 million from Republicans, as a fight to define the vice president dominates the airwaves.
HARRIS: It's a very different vision than Donald Trump's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dangerously liberal, Kamala Harris is no laughing matter.
ZELENY: Harris has spent the last five days in Pittsburgh preparing for the debate.
HARRIS: Look, it's time to turn the page on the divisiveness. It's time to bring our country together, chart a new way forward.
ZELENY: In a weekend rally in Wisconsin, Trump argued he is the true candidate of change.
TRUMP: Kamala Harris and the communist left have unleashed a brutal plague of bloodshed, crime, chaos, misery, and death upon our land. And it's only going to get worse.
ZELENY: That rhetoric raises the question of what tone Trump intends to strike and, whether it will be sexist, as he often was against Clinton in 2016.
TRUMP: She doesn't have the look. She doesn't have the stamina.
ZELENY: Or seize upon policies of the Biden-Harris administration as he did in June.
TRUMP: We had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border in history.
ZELENY: Trump has been familiarizing himself with old Harris debates, too.
HARRIS: Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking. I'm speaking. If you don't mind letting me finish, we can then have a conversation. OK?
MIKE PENCE, (R) FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Please.
HARRIS: OK.
[08:05:06]
ZELENY: Those stinging moments from a former prosecutor now trying to make the case that she can turn the page to the presidency.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
ZELENY (on camera): Now for many voters, it is certainly the biggest opportunity to see Harris on this stage and show how she would turn the page to the future. Sara, that is probably one of the biggest questions hanging over this entire debate, who appears to be the candidate of change? Of course, Donald Trump was in the White House for four years, but he is going to try and tie the vice president to the policies of the Biden administration. I'm told that she will be preparing here in Philadelphia throughout the day.
The former president has also been preparing far more than he is letting on. But there is no doubt for all the -- there's certainly a global audience, it is the voters right here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania whose certainly are at the center of all of this, because this is the biggest and most expensive battleground on the map. Sara?
SIDNER: That was a great report, it really laid things out. And we should just not forget that we've never seen anything like this, a vice president going against a former president. It is historic. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for that report. It's always great. Thank you. Kate?
BOLDUAN: Joining us right now to talk more about this is senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Danielle Alvarez. Thanks so much for coming in. How is Donald Trump spending today ahead of taking the stage tonight?
DANIELLE ALVAREZ, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: Well, the president is currently in Mar-a-Lago. He is in good spirits. This will be his second debate of the election cycle. Of course, the first against Joe Biden and today against Kamala Harris. And his task is very clear. He has to focus on the issues most important to voters. He has to focus on what he has focused on primarily throughout the whole campaign trail, talking about bringing down inflation, talking about securing that southern border, and making sure that he holds Kamala's feet to the fire for 50 days, other than of course, her sit down with CNN, which she spoke for about 16-and-a-half minutes.
She has not answered voters' questions. And so tonight will be critically important to hold her feet to the fire and to talk about the plans that he has to restore America.
BOLDUAN: Who is a better debater, Donald Trump are Kamala Harris?
ALVAREZ: Well, I think they both have their strengths. I think it's clear that President Trump has been in this position before, delivered that knockout punch. I would certainly put my money on him. But I don't think we can lower the bar too much for Kamala Harris. She is a former prosecutor. That's something that the president will focus on heavily tonight, her record as a former prosecutor. She has taken the debate stage before.
But really the onus is on her, and I think that the bar is incredibly high for her, again, because she has not had very many unscripted moments, if any at all, during the last 50 days since ascending to the top of the Democrat ticket. And she is going to have to answer questions that the media has not been able to press her on that voters have not been able to press her on. I think the bar is incredibly high for her, but I think President Trump will deliver this evening.
BOLDUAN: Nikki Haley does not like the demeaning comments that Trump has made about Kamala Harris, and she said as much yesterday in an interview. Let me play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NIKKI HALEY, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's because Donald Trump and J.D. Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don't need to call Kamala dumb. She didn't get this far just by accident. She's here. That's what it is. She's a prosecutor. You don't need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Do you agree with Nikki Haley?
ALVAREZ: Well, I think the issues should be the focus tonight, but the reality is that Kamala Harris is failures on issues is the reason why she is incompetent, whether she's a man or a woman.
BOLDUAN: Right, and that's what Nikki Haley is saying. You agree that it doesn't help Donald Trump when she calls him -- when he calls her dumb?
ALVAREZ: I think it's important to call a spade a spade. I think Kamala Harris is absolutely incompetent for the failures of the last three-and-a-half years.
BOLDUAN: You think she is dumb?
ALVAREZ: And she's peddling lies, and I believe that she is peddling lies when she talks about turning the page. She is currently the vice president in the White House. We need to turn the page --
BOLDUAN: Telling mistruths, Danielle, is not equivalent to being dumb. You would then be making a statement about Donald Trump as well if that was the case.
ALVAREZ: I think --
BOLDUAN: Do you agree with Donald Trump --
ALVAREZ: -- doing the job that she is auditioning for. I absolutely think that she is incapable of doing the job that she is auditioning for. I believe that Americans know that she is incapable of doing the job that she is auditioning for because she is currently in the White House and failing. Inflation is higher than it has been since before she took office.
[08:10:03]
Housing is unaffordable. The southern border is open. We are in wars abroad. She is an absolute failure, and she is dangerously liberal, and that is what we will prove tonight.
BOLDUAN: If the position campaign is that she is incompetent and dumb, that is setting a bar for where things -- what you think, where you think the bar is tonight for Kamala Harris.
ALVAREZ: Incompetent, she is absolutely incompetent on the issues. BOLDUAN: Danielle Alvarez, thank you very much for coming on.
And you can watch. CNN will have complete coverage and analysis before and after the debate. The ABC News presidential debate simulcast tonight at 9:00 eastern on CNN. John?
BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, a deadly Israeli airstrike inside Gaza. Who Israel says it was targeting.
Thousands evacuated in new warnings of excessive heat issued as powerful wildfires rage across the United States.
And new video shows the terrifying moment a typhoon triggered a devastating landslide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:15:36]
BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight report that dozens of people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a humanitarian zone in Southern Gaza.
Israel claims Hamas terrorists were operating inside a command and control center embedded inside that area.
CNN chief global affairs correspondent Matthew Chance is in Tel Aviv this morning.
Matt, what are you learning about this strike?
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi John. Look, we are watching these horrific images that are coming through of the aftermath of that Israeli strike on my area in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
What's so striking about it is that this is meant to be a humanitarian zone, a safe area where Palestinian civilians are ordered to gathering and to avoid sort of combat operations which are being carried out by Israeli military across the area.
But nevertheless, sort of late last night, there were strikes on that sort of tent city, makeshift shelters destroyed, lots of people killed and injured. The latest figures coming to us from the Palestinian Health Ministry saying they've had 19 bodies come to the morgue in Gaza as a result of this, but rescue efforts are still underway.
People are buried in the sand. There's lots of injured people as well. But yet again, it underlines just how unsafe it is for ordinary Palestinian civilians even getting struck or caught up in combat operations when they're in supposedly safe areas.
The Israelis, for their part, say that this was a very focused operation. It was very highly targeted, they say. In order to attack Hamas militants, who they say were operating inside the safe area, a command and control center, and they condemned Hamas and other militant groups for effectively using these locations and using Palestinians as human shields.
But again, it's civilians on the ground who are bearing the brunt and paying the price of that ongoing conflict there -- John.
BERMAN: Matthew, of course, there is this huge debate in the United States tonight between Vice President Harris and former President Trump.
I know you've been speaking with the families of the American hostages there about what they want to see tonight. What do they tell you?
CHANCE: Yes. Well, some of them at least, I mean, three family members of three of the people that are being held in Gaza who are American citizens.
Yes, I mean, look that they're deeply frustrated. They are increasingly desperate given how hostages are being executed by Hamas on a regular basis now were being killed in the military action and they're calling on the candidates in the debate tonight to come up with some fresh thinking, some fresh ideas about how to get US citizens and the other hostages, of course, back home.
Put pressure perhaps on Hamas, on Iran, on Qatar, on Egypt, even on Israel in order to force the various parties to come to the negotiating table and agree a hostage deal. Look at incentives as well.
I mean, look, some of the family members are saying that the US government was very creative when it came to getting the American citizens held in Russian jails. Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, and the others. I covered that as well for this network as well.
Very creative in finding a solution to that problem. They're calling on the US authorities, the candidates, the Biden administration, to do the same, redouble their efforts and get those Americans back home -- John.
BERMAN: Understandable. Matthew Chance, thank you so much for sharing your reporting -- Sara.
SIDNER: All right, ahead. Donald Trump faces a different opponent in tonight's presidential debate. Can we expect some different lines of attacks from him? And how will Kamala Harris respond?
And, explosions in Moscow. Overnight, hundreds of drones swarmed Moscow and other Russian cities in Ukraine's largest drone attack yet. The fallout from there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:23:48]
SIDNER: All right, we're just hours away from the biggest night and the 2024 race, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will face off on the debate stage and few places have political bates as heated as New York. Here now is one of the because New Yorkers, former New York City Mayor
Bill de Blasio. Thank you so much. The fact that you're not in New York. I will talk to you about it later and you're there in Ann Arbor, Michigan instead.
We will have a discussion, but you do have a unique view of Donald Trump because he's a fixture or at least was in New York. What do you think the biggest pitfalls are for Harris that she needs to be aware of and deal with when debating Donald Trump?
BILL DE BLASIO, FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: Well, I've got to tell you, Sara, I'm totally confident that Kamala sees this pitch coming. The Donald Trump approach is to try and disrupt his opponents. We remember what he did for Jeb Bush, low-energy all of that.
His whole shtick to use a good New York term is to be disruptive, to be aggressive, to try and dominate the whole proceeding. And Kamala Harris isn't going to let him do that because she is a highly trained prosecutor who I am absolutely certain is going to take it right to him.
And here's his problem. If Kamala Harris turns to him and says, you took away the rights of American women to control their own bodies, what do you say to them?
[08:25:10]
If she does anything like that. I guarantee you, he won't have an answer that satisfactory. He will not know what to do. If she says, by the way, you were convicted by a jury of your peers, 34 counts. you're a felon. He is dead in the water.
So, I think the whole debate comes down to her keeping to a simple, sharp prosecutorial message, hit him hard. He'll try and disrupt her but guess what? He'll also overreach, he'll something demeaning or insulting and women voters all across this country, regardless of their partisan identity, are not going to take kindly to that.
SIDNER: I am curious because it sounds like you think that it is important for her to go on the attack as a prosecutor would to begin their case, is that what you're saying?
DE BLASIO: Absolutely. She needs to grab that space in my opinion, but keep it simple. I want to be clear. She has so many wonderful things she could say about her own work and so many things that she could say are wrong about Donald Trump.
But one of the keys in debates is to keep it simple. Unfortunately, we saw many times, including the very difficult experience President Biden had when a debater tries to remember all the facts and figures and policies, they get gummed up.
But a very clear, sharp message or what she's going to do to turn the page. And also saying, you took away the rights of women, something as simple as that, that's what the public remembers. That's what people feel and care about. SIDNER: I'm curious from your perspective, just how high the stakes
are in this debate. You have polling that shows 28 percent of the public feels like they don't really know Kamala Harris and particularly don't know exactly what her policies are, where that's only nine percent for Donald Trump.
What are the stakes for her and for him, and are they different do you think?
DE BLASIO: Absolutely. For him, the challenge is he is not reaching all those undecided moderate voters, Independent voters, folks who are unconvinced about him and worried he's too extreme. He's not reaching them because he continues to speak in the language of grievance and anger and hatred.
He could in theory tonight, do something about it. And it may be his last chance, but I would predict because we've seen it over and over, he doesn't have that gear. He doesn't know how to moderate and reach out across the aisle and show an open door.
For her, I agree. A lot of people still don't know her, but I'll tell you something. The strength that she has shown already on this campaign, and that's the most important thing. Come in strong and decisive both in pointing out his problems, his errors, particularly on issues related to women.
But also, listen to her platform. She's putting out ideas that are powerful about how to lower health care costs, how to fight inflation and price gouging. These are the things people want to hear. Even a few minutes of getting that across to tens of millions of people that's going to move a lot of votes.
SIDNER: When I want to ask you about some of the things that have been happening because the Donald Trump campaign has been saying, look, finally the sort of Kamala Harris -- the enthusiasm around her, the sugar high as people were calling it, is waning.
There have been all these events like Cat Ladies for Kamala and White Dudes for Kamala. You took part in another event, sort of like this, from your Italian heritage, is it Pyzons or Pizanos for Kamala? Tell me what that event was all about.
DE BLASIO: We called it paisans, P-A-I-S-A-N-S and if you go to paisansforkamala.com, you can learn more on this. It will be an ongoing effort to reach Italian American voters, particularly in the blue wall states in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, big Italian communities.
But what it's about, I think that enthusiasm is actually being built, Sara, by people representing who we are, all the different things that people care about. We care about are Italian heritage, for example, so many people have something that really is core to who they are. And then using that as a way to reach other people for Kamala Harris.
I think the excitement is building. I don't think it was a sugar high actually, I think it actually was about authentic, people being relieved that our candidate was ready to go and be very hopeful because her performance, her ideas, her vision is really resonating.
Yes, it's a very tight race. But I think you're going to see a lot of these amazing organizing efforts to move people. We have Robert De Niro, Nancy Pelosi, Leon Panetta, Steve Buscemi, Mark Ruffalo. We had incredible group of people that's still up there on YouTube. I urge people to watch it and get involved.
But Sara, you're going to see a lot more of that, a lot more of this kind of people doing their own thing to build support for Kamala.
SIDNER: All right, as you know, like any other group, Italian Americans are not a monolith. Everyone I think will be watching this debate to see what happens.
Bill de Blasio, thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Even though you're not here in New York, former New York mayor, I will give you a hard time about it later.
DE BLASIO: Battleground Michigan. Battleground Michigan.
SIDNER: I know why you're there. Thank you sir -- Kate.
[08:30:10]
