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Microsoft Outage Creates Flight Chaos Around the World; Senior Democratic Lawmaker Says, Some Aides Dig in, Insulate Biden from Bad Data; Trump Returns to False Claims During Marathon RNC Speech. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 19, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We begin this hour with breaking news on several major stories. While you were sleeping, a massive cyber outage swept around the world. Airports in the U.S., Europe, and Asia are shut down for hours, along with major banks, media, and even some stock exchanges. Right now, only some are slowly coming back online.

In Russia, jailed American journalist Evan Gershkovich is sentenced to 16 years in prison. The U.S. government has denied the espionage charges against The Wall Street Journal reporter and called the case a sham.

And just in the last hour, the president's campaign top manager there, officials insisting Biden is in the race and will beat Donald Trump who wrapped up his convention last night. That's despite the pressure on the president to exit the race. We'll talk to a top Biden surrogate in just a few minutes.

But first, we begin with this massive worldwide cyber outage. Here's what we know at this hour. It's causing gridlock at airports in every corner of the world. This is Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest. It looks quiet there on the outside, but inside, a lot of frustrated passengers noticeably missing, of course, in this video, a lot of planes taking off.

Multiple airports across the U.S. are still facing full or partial ground stops. This is a live look at the FAA's airport delay map. All of the red dots that you're about to see here on screen right there are ground stops. Passengers, of course, are upset at the moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so upset right now. There are eight people in my party, eight people, $456 a ticket. And they're giving me $100 back. That is it. And we're screwed. This man is getting married. We have reservations. We have cars that we paid for. I paid $380 in a shuttle to shuttle everyone here this morning. They have been here since before me with three kids. I've been here since 3:00 in the morning. $100 is unacceptable. I am a good customer for Allegiant, and I feel like I'm being completely screwed over. This is bull crap.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And it's not just air travel that's being hit right now. Stock exchanges, banks, even health care systems have all felt the impact. The White House says it is looking into the issues and impacts of the outage.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike says the outage is not a cyberattack. The outage appears to stem at least partly from a software update. We're monitoring the situation from all over the globe.

CNN's Anna Stewart is at London's Heathrow Airport. But, first, let's go to CNN's Isabel Rosales, who is at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest in the world.

Isabel, I see a lot of people standing around you. That's not a huge surprise at Hartsfield-Jackson, but it sounds like a lot of passengers are tearing their hair out right now.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, Jim. That is correct. It is a mess. That is one simple way to put it. You expect to see a lot of lines, crowds at Hartsfield-Jackson. What you don't expect to see is people just sitting around here waiting, no answers for hours. And that is what is happening. They are understandably frustrated. Some are just sitting down on the ground waiting to get answers. We've heard airline staff shouting, you know, hey, Philly has been canceled, giving them a card with a Q.R. code. They are understandably frustrated.

Let me introduce you to someone right here, Miya, who is actually traveling with her toddler, Mona. What has your experience been like today?

MIYA HANEY, TRAVELING FROM ATLANTA TO BOSTON ON SPIRIT AIRLINES: It has been frustrating, to say the least. Like it's already hard enough traveling with a toddler. I have a 40-pound suitcase and her car seat. And we've been here for a little over an hour-and-a-half, and they just came to tell us kind of what the process was, which is going to take a long time. Basically, they have to print out each individual flight paper and then --

ROSALES: Manually checking people in.

HANEY: Manually checking people in. And then they'll send a person going up and down just shouting, oh, Boston here, flight number here. I have no idea when we're going to get called next. And I'm just -- I'm beyond frustrated at this point and tired and a little hungry.

[10:05:00]

ROSALES: And traveling with a toddler that's complicated. You're going to her sister's birthday party, trying to make it there into Boston. And it sounds like you don't really have a choice. You're just going to sit around and wait, right?

HANEY: Yes. And then it's a lot of family expecting us and the party is literally tomorrow. So, I'm hoping that we don't have the same fate as Philadelphia. So, we'll see.

ROSALES: Best of luck to you on your travels today. Jim, back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. Anna Stewart, you're at Heathrow. What are we hearing from the British government right now? It sounds like it's a mess there too.

ANNA STEWART, CNN REPORTER: It's an absolute mess, and I think wherever you woke up in the world this morning, chances are you heard about this outage and so for many, many people, they also felt it too. And I think really the frontline of the disruption has been travel. That's where we're seeing the most people impacted.

And, Jim, this is the -- was supposed to be the busiest day of air travel in the U.K. and most of Europe actually of the year because this is the start of the summer holidays. So, you can imagine the scenes inside some of the airports. Heathrow is impacted, so is Stansted, so is Gatwick, so are airports in Paris, Madrid, Lisbon. Honestly, I think you'd be hard pushed to find an airport that isn't impacted. And also, of course, the number of airlines, I think we have a list we can show you. Across Asia, you have AirAsia, Cebu, you have Singapore Airlines, airlines in Australia, and so many airlines in Europe as well.

This is just the beginning. Around 1,400 flights canceled so far around the world. Many, many, many more are delayed. And, of course, you get the knock-on impact of that through the day as well. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, Anna Stewart and Isabel Rosales, let's hope that things get untangled quickly. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Let's shift gears right now to the Biden re-election campaign. Just this morning Biden's campaign chair says that the president is absolutely staying in the race. But despite all that, we have new reporting this hour that things could be changing. More Democrats are publicly calling for him to abandon the race. And behind closed doors, senior aides are telling CNN that there is a growing belief that he might quit soon.

One senior lawmaker on the Democratic side is telling me that while pressure is building on Biden to drop out, the timetable could be fluid as the president recovers from COVID. That lawmaker said some advisers around the president appear to be digging in and insulating Biden from some of the polling information that shows he could lose the race.

But, of course, there are still lots of Democrats defending President Biden, insisting he should keep on running. Joining us now is one of those Democrats, Democratic Congressman Veronica Escobar of Texas. She is a Biden campaign co-chair.

And let me ask you this, Congresswoman. We have a number of sources painting a very grim picture on the record though, you're here with us. We appreciate that. What's the state of the president's re- election campaign?

REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): Folks are hard at work. Canvassers are knocking on doors. Folks like me are traveling the country. I just got back from Milwaukee, a great visit to Milwaukee to offer counterprogramming and talk to some of those canvassers. I've been to Arizona, Pennsylvania.

While some folks are commenting to reporters anonymously, the rest of us are on the record and working hard to make sure that we win this election in November.

ACOSTA: And, Congresswoman, I'm sure you saw this, Senator Jon Tester of Montana. That's a swing state, a state where he's a bit in danger, but he's the second Senate Democrat to call on President Biden to drop out of the race. That's on top of 23 House Democrats. What are you hearing from your colleagues? Are you hearing that there are some -- you know, there are some of your colleagues, I assume, who are saying, yes, the president should drop out. What can you tell us?

ESCOBAR: I am actually hearing more from colleagues who are doing what I'm doing, which is doing the work to win in November, supporting our ticket, President Biden and Vice President Harris, doing everything we can to make sure that we defeat Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. And that we never, ever allow Trump's Project 2025 to come to fruition.

There is so much at stake in this election, Jim. And just today, the Hispanic Caucus, the political arm of the Hispanic Caucus, Bold PAC, announced its endorsement of the Biden-Harris ticket. We also saw recently over a thousand black women leaders from across the country write an open letter saying President Biden is our man, Vice President Kamala Harris, we are with the ticket. There is a strong coalition of support that exists throughout this country.

I've also heard from voters and constituents, not just constituents of mine here in El Paso, but I've heard from voters in different parts of the country who are angry that there are -- their perception is that our nominee is being attacked from within by anonymous sources.

[10:10:01]

And reporters are reporting on all of this anonymous gossip. I've spoken to the Biden co-chairs. I've spoken to the campaign, to folks at the White House. None of this is coming from inside of the Biden team or campaign, and yet reporters continue to quote anonymous sources.

And, frankly, I'm looking forward to the day that they hear the president when the president says over and over again, he's staying in the race and they join us in making sure that we keep Donald Trump out of the White House and that we continue the great work that the Biden- Harris administration has done over the last four years.

ACOSTA: And I do want to talk about the former president's speech last night, the Republican Convention, but you are convinced that President Biden is staying in this race?

ESCOBAR: Yes, 100 percent.

ACOSTA: All right, let me ask you about last night because, you know, there was all this talk of unity from the former president and that he was going to change his tone and so on, the things that we've heard in the past about Donald Trump. But that's not what took place. And we heard him speak at great length about his complaints about immigration at the border. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to stop the invasion into our country that's killing hundreds of thousands of people a year. They're coming from prisons. They're coming from jails. They're coming from mental institutions and insane asylums.

They're taking their criminals and they're putting them into our country.

They're sending their murderers.

We become a dumping ground.

The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Congresswoman, as you know, I mean, Trump repeated a lot of his claims that he makes at these rallies that he does, and most of those claims obviously are false or misleading. What's your reaction to that?

ESCOBAR: Jim, I expected to wake up this morning to headlines in newspapers across the country about Trump's vile language, his anti- American language. And I expected people to be questioning his mental state and mental capacity but crickets, basically.

What you just played is who Donald Trump is. Despite the hype that, oh, Donald -- you know, the gun violence attack at his rally had changed him or humbled him or made him calmer or softer, despite all of that hype, Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And he uses the most vile and dangerous language to basically rile up his base.

But in addition to riling up his base, Jim, in a couple of weeks, here in El Paso, we are going to be marking the fifth anniversary of the August 3rd shooting, a shooting by a white nationalist who drove ten hours to El Paso and published a screed that mimicked Donald Trump's vile, incendiary language about an invasion. He walked into a Walmart in my community and slaughtered 23 people because he wanted to rid the country of the invasion and of the immigrants.

Donald. Trump is a risk to communities like mine. And just to double back on this, everything he said was a lie. We know that immigrants commit crimes in fewer numbers than native-born Americans. We know that immigrants help our economy. And, frankly, Democrats have recognized that we need to fix our broken immigration system, but who has stood in the way of that? It's been Republicans who want the problem and not the solution, so that they can rile up their base the way that Donald Trump did last night.

ACOSTA: I mean, given everything you just laid out there, I mean, there are a lot of Democrats on your side who are very worried about the White House going back into Donald Trump's hands should Joe Biden lose this race in November?

And I have to ask you about this. There is a group of Democrats who want to see the president step down from the race. They just launched a T.V. ad saying, from a group called the Pass the Torch. What about that notion that, you know, for President Biden? You know, this shouldn't be a marathon. It should be a relay race. I think we have a clip of the, I don't want to play it for you, get your reaction on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Biden, you saved democracy in 2020.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, you have a chance to do it again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to pass the torch and let us choose a new nominee.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One who can bring new energy, new hope.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And make sure Donald Trump never gets near the White House again.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our country's future is in your hands.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, please, be the leader we know you are. Pass the torch, Joe.

[10:15:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pass the torch.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pass the torch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pass the torch.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pass the Torch is responsible for the content of this advertising.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Congresswoman, I mean, what about that sentiment in the Democratic Party? It is there.

ESCOBAR: Jim, our president has said innumerable times he is staying in the race. I invite the folks raising money for ads like that and folks spending time on producing ads like that to join us and making sure that Donald Trump doesn't get into the into the White House, making sure that we are reaching the voters that we need, that we know we can bring to the table and the ballot box in November, to make sure that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are return to the White House so that we can continue the great work that we've done in lowering the cost of prescription drugs, making sure that we're growing the middle class from the bottom up and the middle out and making sure that we never allow Trump's Project 2025 to become a reality, because it would strip women, not just of all of their reproductive freedoms, but of their freedom to IVF and grow their family, their freedom to birth control and so much more.

There's a lot at stake. We all need to be focused on the same thing. And I welcome them back as soon as they're done spending their, their money and spending their time. We will welcome them back with open arms so that we can win in November.

ACOSTA: All right. Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, thank you very much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.

ESCOBAR: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Former President Donald Trump, as we were just saying, pledged unity last night at the RNC, but quickly started playing his old hits, claims of a weaponized Department of Justice, witch hunts and election conspiracies, plus that dark immigration rhetoric you heard just a few moments ago. I'll ask Trump's former adviser to the 2016 campaign about whether that message will resonate with moderates. That's next.

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[10:20:00]

ACOSTA: Just a few moments ago, we heard from a top Biden surrogate about the state of the race on the Democratic side But how is Donald Trump's speech going over after last night's Republican Convention?

Joining us to discuss the final night of the RNC is CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Milwaukee. Jeff, you know, there was a lot of talk that this was going to be a unifying speech, that there would be this new tone from the former president. That was about 10, 15 minutes into the speech, but then another 75, 80 minutes of what we hear from Donald Trump out on the campaign trail.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jim, it was a unifying speech for Republicans and for the Trump base. And that was really the takeaway and theme of this Republican convention here in Milwaukee, of course, in critical battleground Wisconsin. But you're right, the previews that this would be a moment to extend an olive branch or to sort of rebrand the Trump brand certainly did not come to pass.

The question is, does it matter? We will find out in the coming weeks. Some Republicans I've talked to this morning have called it a missed opportunity to sort of extend the sympathy and well wishes from last weekend's horrific act in Pennsylvania on, but the moments of drama at the beginning of the convention speech when the former president was talking in really stark detail about that attempted assassination really had this hall where I'm still sitting here now, just gripped following every word, but it quickly turned. And, again, Jim, after that, it seemed like a Trump rally, which, of course, the crowd in this hall loved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And how to make America successful, safe, free, and great again.

In an age when our politics too often divide us, now is the time to remember that we are all fellow citizens.

In that spirit, the Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system and labeling their political opponent as an enemy of democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Look, these are messages and words that the Trump base loves to hear. And the question going forward for the remaining 109 days, I think, of this campaign is, is the former president able to expand his base? Is that even necessary?

Clearly, one strategy of the Trump campaign is to double down on existing Trump supporters. The selection of J.D. Vance obviously underscores that. It reinforces the Trump brand. But talking to a few voters who live just outside Milwaukee here in those all-important battleground counties still undecided. And our Gary Tuchman was with a group in Waukesha County and several voters did not give the speech high marks.

Jim, I think convention, they often deliver a bounce. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the former president gets one as well. Those are often fleeting. But Republicans unified, no doubt. It's the Democratic Party heading to their convention one month from today that is certainly awash and disarray and, frankly, paralysis, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. And we'll have to see how that unfolds over the coming weeks. But as you and I both know, we've covered a lot of these races, you know, these candidates can come out of these conventions with commanding leads and that those leads can be fleeting. It's not always a sure thing that they could keep all of that support in their corner.

Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

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[10:25:00]

ACOSTA: Donald Trump's campaign pledged a unifying acceptance speech. And last night, the former president did initially take on a more subdued tone while describing a would-be assassins failed attempt on his life. But then perhaps unsurprisingly, Trump returned to his usual red meat rhetoric, attacking Democrats, demonizing immigrants and spewing lies about the 2020 election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The Democrat Party should immediately stop weaponizing the justice system.

The fake documents case.

Drop these partisan witch hunts.

Crazy Nancy Pelosi.

They're destroying our country.

Cheating on elections, we're never going to let that happen again. They used COVID to cheat.

The late, great Hannibal Lecter. He'd love to have you for dinner.

It's a massive invasion at our southern border.

The greatest invasion in history is taking place.

And our planet is teetering on the edge of World War III.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: All right. Let's discuss with CNN Political Commentator Paul Begala and former senior adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign, Jason Osborne.

[10:30:05]

Paul you know, if, if I had a nickel for every time.