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"Never Trump" Republicans Increase Activity; U.S. Republican National Convention Takes Place This Week; Biden and Harris Campaigning, Meeting with Media; Demonstrations Continue Two Weeks After Contested Election in Belarus; Russian Opposition Leader Being Treated at Berlin Hospital; Source: Pompeo to Record Speech from Jerusalem. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired August 24, 2020 - 04:30   ET

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

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JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As President Trump formally accepts the GOP nomination again this week, some Republicans are already speaking out.

ERIC, FORMER US REPUBLICAN VOTER: I'm really ashamed to say it, but I'm one of many who voted for the current president, Donald Trump.

ZELENY: -- voicing their regrets.

SARAH, REGISTERED US REPUBLICAN: And it's been worse than what we ever imagined. We're farmers, and like I said, conservative Republicans.

ZELENY: And warning fellow conservatives.

ROB, TEXAN REPUBLICAN VOTING FOR BIDEN: You know deep down in your Sunday school hearts what kind of man Donald Trump is. What kind of Christian he is, you know, don't you?

ZELENY: These are some of the faces of the "Never Trump" movement, a small slice of disaffected Republicans, rank and file, and former elected officials swimming upstream in Trump's party, hoping to make him a one-term president.

After failing four years ago, the movement is multiplying, with the Lincoln Project, Republican Voters Against Trump, and Bush Alumni for Biden, whose slogan is, "We Worked for W. We Support Joe."

This time they're using the president's words against him.

TRUMP: I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers. We dominate the streets.

ZELENY: And hoping to get into his head. At least that's the goal of the Lincoln Project, whose videos, made by former aides to George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, are designed to mock and needle the President.

The present has long belittled "Never Trumpers," as his grip has steadily tightened on the Republican Party.

TRUMP: Some of these people don't get it. "Never Trump." By the way, "Never Trump" is disappearing rapidly.

ZELENY: The second act of the movement may be an uphill battle, considering 95 percent of Republicans in the latest CNN poll said they would vote for Trump again.

His reelection campaign has already spent $1 billion, while these groups have raised only a tiny fraction of that. Yet, two key points are different this time. Trump's record and Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton.

SARAH LONGWELL, POLITICAL STRATEGIST, REPUBLICAN VOTERS AGAINST TRUMP: Joe Biden just simply isn't as scary to them. I think women are going to lose this election for Donald Trump. I think that is going to be the decisive and defining group of people.

ZELENY: Sarah Longwell is a lifelong Republican and political strategist at Republican Voters Against Trump. She's spent the last four years studying his supporters from 2016 and senses a different moment now, amid the coronavirus crisis and deep economic pain.

(on camera): But at the same time, so many Republicans are still with him. Why is that?

LONGWELL: There's always going to be a core of support that's never going to walk away from Donald Trump. You know, you see it all the time. These college-educated Republicans in the suburbs, women. Women are walking away from this guy in droves.

Yes, does he have a base? Of course. But you need bigger political coalitions to win elections, and his political coalition is shrinking by the day.

ZELENY: Now the vast majority of Republicans do support President Trump or will at least vote for him, but it is some of these voters who certainly could make a difference. A sliver of Republicans in a tight race, it could matter. These testimonials coming in from average voters across the country who say they voted for President Trump four years ago but will not do it again. Offers what strategists say is a permission structure for other Republicans and conservatives to do the same.

Now there's no doubt the Trump campaign is spending a vast amount of money, more than these other small groups. But again, this week at the Republican convention, the question is, can President Trump change some of those people's minds who are already thinking about voting against him?

Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Washington.

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: We're joined by Richard Johnson, lecturer in U.S. politics at Lancaster University in England and author of "The End of The Second Reconstruction, Obama, Trump and the Crisis of Civil Rights". Thank you very much for joining us.

Good morning.

BRUNHUBER: As the poll we just mentioned suggests, you know, for Trump ground to make up and Republicans are hoping the convention will give them a boost. Can we -- you know, we're going to expect lots of Trump. Trump appearing almost every night I guess or every night. Lots of Trumps speaking. Does that suggest it's not about a platform or issues, it's about him? What are we expecting to see and hear?

RICHARD JOHNSON, LECTURER IN U.S. POLITICS, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY: Yes, I mean, Trump is underwater at the moment. He's got to really land it this week, I think. You know, the election is getting closer and closer and for all of the talk from Republicans about polls tightening and so on, they haven't really tightened nearly enough.

And the first mail-in ballots go out in North Carolina in two weeks' time. So, the clock is ticking. I think the Republican Party is the party of Trump. I mean, that is not a unique phenomenon.

The Democratic Party under Obama very much became his party. It's in phenomenon political science we call executive-centered partisanship with the president as party leaders are very important force.

But yes, the recent announcement that the Republicans are unlikely to even write a party platform this year, you know, with all of the issues.

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It shows you how focused, laser focused this party is, not so much on any particular given policy agenda as much as it is the leadership of Donald Trump is staking pretty much everything on that.

BRUNHUBER: Among those speaking, the couple who wielded guns at Black Lives Matter protesters. You study race and politics. Does it feel to you as though race is driving this election perhaps even more so than in 2008?

JOHNSON: Well, I think race is always a very significant background factor in American politics and that runs right through American history. I think it is more visible, in a sense, for -- particularly for white voters this time. And I think that President Trump -- you know, the key demographic that he is -- or one of the key demographics that he's been suffering with at the moment are white suburban women. He won the white female vote last time in spite of people's expectations that women would vote for Hillary Clinton, white women would vote for Hillary Clinton. But this time, it looks like he is in trouble.

And so that suburban couple with the guns, for example, or the couple with the guns, for example, they are I suppose in some ways, they're meant to be emblematic of a certain fear among a segment of white suburbia about crime, about safety. And I think that that is the kind of appeal that President Trump is going to make to them that vote for me and I will keep you safe from these nefarious forces, which obviously always has a racial undertone to it.

BRUNHUBER: Mr. Richard Johnson, appreciate it.

And of course, the Democrats already wrapped up its convention on Thursday. And now candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are making the media rounds and hitting the campaign trail to get their message out. CNN's MJ Lee reports.

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MJ LEE, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, is has been 12 days since Joe Biden announced that his running mate was going to be Kamala Harris. And since then we have seen the two of them do some campaign appearances together. And of course, last week we saw the pair formally accept their party's nomination at the Democratic national convention. And now the two of them have sat down together for their first joint interview with ABC news.

And one of the questions that Joe Biden was asked was about Trump's attack on his mental sharpness. Joe Biden responded in part that this is a fair question to get asked since he is 77 years old. But he also said that his actions would speak for themselves. Here's a little bit of that interview.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think it's a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old whether or not they're fit and whether they're ready. But I just -- the only thing I can say to the American people, it's a legitimate question to ask anybody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's put the attacks aside then. You know the people remember Ronald Reagan was 77 when he left office, you will be 78 entering office. And you have said yourself that you are a transition candidate. Does that mean a one-term President? What does that mean?

BIDEN: No, it doesn't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you're leaving open the possibility for eight years if you get elected?

BIDEN: Absolutely.

LEE: Something else that Joe Biden was asked in this interview was about his selection process of Kamala Harris. Of course, in the aftermath of George Lloyd's death in the United States, we have seen this moment of reckoning over race here in this country. And he did come across a lot of pressure whether it be from activists or other supporters of his, saying that it was time for him to choose a woman of color and particularly a black woman as his running mate. And he of course, ultimately ended up doing that. He said that this decision was actually an easy decision because he sees his values as being in line with Kamala Harris's values. Here's what he had to say about that.

BIDEN: I didn't feel pressured to select a black woman, but what I do think -- and I've said it before, and you've heard me say it, I've probably said it on your show with you -- is that the government should look like the people. Look like the country. 51 percent of the people in this country are women. And that old expression goes, women hold the half the sky. And in order to be able to succeed you've got to be dealt in across the board.

And no matter what you say, you cannot -- I cannot understand and fully appreciate what it means to walk in her shoes, to be an African American woman with an Indian American background, child of immigrants. She can't -- she knows exactly what it's like to walk in my shoes. And we do know is we have the same value set. And I really mean it. And so, it was easy for me. It was an easy decision to make.

LEE: All of this comes of course as Republicans are getting ready for their own convention to formally nominate President Trump for reelection. President Trump has said that he would like his own convention to look very different from what we saw from the Democrats. He is going to be giving his speech from the White House.

MJ Lee, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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BRUNHUBER: It's been two weeks since the highly contested presidential election in Belarus and the opposition movement, as you can see there, it's still going strong. Protests Sunday saw massive turnout. We go live to Minsk next right after a short break. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Russia is weighing in on the disputed presidential election in neighboring Belarus. Russia's Foreign Minister says it's difficult to prove the election was rigged without independent outside observers.

Thousands of people protested in Belarus on Sunday against the country's President and Belarus's embattled government has vowed to use military if order and peace are disrupted.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Minsk, Belarus. Fred, all the increased presence of security forces, it seems as though people are a political force here.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it certainly was. And certainly, was a lot of people who came out into the streets. There's some people who are speaking of possibly 100,000 in the crowd right that was actually right here on this square just yesterday.

And, you know, the slogans were some of the slogans that we've been hearing before. They're calling on Alexander Lukashenko to step down. There calling on new elections. One of the things that really doesn't sit well with the folks here was some of the force that was used in the early stages after that embattled election that took place here. That Lukashenko says he got 80 percent of the vote in. And the here say that that simply is not true.

And we're obviously speaking to people who are in the crowd. And a lot of them still believe that they need to continue this pressure. They need to come out because they believe if they don't start a force change now in this country, you know, that moment might slip away. A lot of the folks also saying, they believe that it was now that Belarus and Belarusian people have actually found their voice and are daring to speak out. And it certainly has sent people to the street as well.

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At the same time, you had Alexander Lukashenko -- and this was very important -- in a bizarre set of videos flying over the crowd and flying over the city in a helicopter with an AK-47 at his side. He then got out and actually inspected some of the people who are doing security at one of his palaces. He was wearing military gear. He was wearing a bullet proof vest. He seemed to have one of his sons with him as well.

So, you have this situation where Alexander Lukashenko continues to try to paint the folks of the opposition here as being militaristic, as being a threat to the country. Saying that there is a chance that outside countries from NATO might invade this place. But on the ground, what you're seeing is people with flowers. People who are extremely peaceful. I mean, there was around 100,000 people here in this area and there was not a single person who was even talking about using force in any way, shape or form. But to Alexander Lukashenko, still seems to try to paint that as a threat to this country and certainly seems to be upping the ante, when his security forces and he are saying that they are going to stop what's going on here very, very soon. It certainly seems as though he is in no mood to allow new elections or is even thinking about stepping down -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Appreciate your reporting on this, Fred. Fred Pleitgen in Minsk, Belarus.

Well it's now been about 48 hours since Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was flown to Germany to receive treatment at a Berlin hospital after a suspected poisoning. Will have the latest update. And the latest we have so far is doctors there have described his condition as stable. So, let's head straight to Moscow where our Matthew Chance is standing by. Matthew, we're learning more about potential surveillance in the weeks before the suspected poisoning. What more do we know?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: well, there is definitely a lot of speculation in the Russian media

that the Russian authorities have had Alexey Navalny under surveillance at the time when he was touring the Far East. Remember, he was boarding an aircraft in Tomsk, in the far eastern side of Russia -- far east of eastern Siberia.

And he's pictured having a cup of tea in the airport before getting on the aircraft back to Moscow. It's after he drank that tea and after the aircraft took off that he was taken so suddenly very stick. And there are disturbing images, of course, that we will see now of Alexey Navalny being taken off by medics of the aircraft on the tarmac in the city of Omsk where he was taken to a hospital. Doctors say they found no trace of poisoning in his system.

But that's one of the reasons why the family and the supporters of Alexey Navalny wanted him to be evacuated to another country. And eventually they got permission for that. Saturday morning, he was evacuated to Germany. He's in a clinic in the German capital of Berlin. And as you said, he's said to be in a stable but serious condition. We also understand he still unconscious because he's still hooked up or hooked up -- or at he was least last time I had an update -- to a ventilator to help him breathe.

There haven't been any further updates in the past 48 hours about his medical condition. But you know, his wife and his sort of supporters through which all of the information is flowing at the moment are saying that it will be a few days before they're able to give an update on the exact condition of Alexey Navalny. What they are saying is that doctors in Berlin are working hard first of all to save his life and secondly to find out why one of the Kremlin's most vocal critics fell so sick so suddenly -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right, we appreciate you staying on this story for us. Thank you so much, Matthew Chance.

Well, Mike Pompeo has arrived in Israel. While in the Middle East he's said to carry out a duty in service of President Trump. But it may not be in his capacity as the U.S. Secretary of State. We'll explain coming up next.

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BRUNHUBER: The man responsible for killing 51 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand's worst mass shooting will soon learn his fate in the sentencing phase of his trial. Brenton Tarrant was in court earlier for the start of the proceedings. Court watchers say he showed no emotion. Tarrant has pleaded guilty to the deadly shooting at two mosques at Christchurch in March of last year. The court will hear from dozens of victims, survivors and family members over the next several days before deciding on his fate.

Well, in a break from a long-standing tradition, a source tells CNN the U.S. Secretary of State will make a speech to the Republican National Convention this weekend. Mike Pompeo will do so in a recorded message from Jerusalem. He kicked off a tour of the Middle East and Africa after arriving in Israel a short time ago. He's been meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Let's turn to Oren Liebermann who is in Jerusalem for us. Oren, Pompeo delivering that speech to the convention while on official travel. Democrats say it's breaking with norms. Explain the controversy for us and then take us through what the administration is hoping to achieve in this Middle East trip. OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the reason this is such an

unprecedented step for the Secretary of State regardless of who that Secretary of State is, is because the nation's top diplomat is expected especially on an official visit, not to act for partisan gain, either his own or in this case for President Donald Trump. When he leaves the country, he is to leave domestic politics behind or at least that's what the president has been, that's what the norm has been known for years if not for generations.

Once the Secretary of State leaves the U.S., he represents the U.S., and that is all-Americans, Republicans, Democrats, others. By giving a speech in Jerusalem on an official visit certainly smacks of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo trying to do his part to try to boost President Trump as the Republican National Convention kicks off a bit later today. And that is why this has been criticized.

We asked the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if they were giving a heads up about this. Did they know that Pompeo would be making what is essentially a political speech from here in Jerusalem even if it's pre-reported? They declined to answer that saying they would only relate to the schedule.

Well, what is he up to on that schedule right now? Pompeo is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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They are expected to give at least a short statement after the meeting. So, in about 30 or 45 minutes or so we'll certainly keep you updated on that statement.

What is this trip all about? Part of it here is here celebrating the normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and trying to build on that momentum. Pompeo is expected to travel to Sudan after this and to Oman, two countries considered most likely to follow in the steps of the UAE and normalize agreements with Israel and normalize arrangements, I can say, with Israel. That would be another feather in the cap, another major foreign policy accomplishment for President Donald Trump just when he is looking for it most -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right, and anymore on the sale of the military equipment? I know that's been percolating in the news there.

LIEBERMANN: Well that's been one of the big issues here. Was part of this agreement that Netanyahu would agree that the United Arab Emirates would get a Lockheed Martin F-35 lightening. Well, there had been any statements about that on this and by Jared Kushner, who was part of brokering the Israel/UAE agreement certainly said it should be easier now for the UAE to get the advanced F-35's.

BRUNHUBER: All right, we'll stay on top of all of that. Thank you so much. Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem. Appreciate it.

And of course, remember CNN has full coverage of the Republican National Convention. That kicks off later today at 7 p.m. Eastern here in the U.S.

And with that, that wraps up this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Stay with us for "EARLY START." That's next.

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