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Harris Secures Enough Delegates to Win Nomination; Black Voters Raise Millions for Harris During Massive Organizing Calls; Investigation into Maine Shooter Cites Failures from Military Chain of Command, Civilian Law Enforcement. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired July 23, 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're live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We begin the hour with Kamala Harris taking command for Democrats in the race for the White House, the vice president locking down enough Democratic delegates to win the party's nomination for president. This hour, she's heading to Milwaukee for her first rally since rising to the top of the ticket.

With no Democrats challenging her at the moment, the party's struggling effort to block Donald Trump's return to the White House appears re energized, and the enthusiasm is growing. The Harris campaign says more than 58,000 people have volunteered to help her campaign since President Biden quit the race Sunday afternoon. And donors have joined that rush. The campaign says it has raised more than $100 million as of last night, and it's worth noting the campaign says most of those folks are first time donors.

Also last night, a powerful moment as Harris, now the first woman of color to be named a presumptive nominee for president, walked out to Beyonce's hit song, Freedom.

That song became an anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd's murder, and CNN is learning that Beyonce quickly gave her permission to use it just hours before Harris speech.

Her candidacy sparking an outpouring of electric support from black Americans. Last night, thousands of black men joined an organizing call to mobilize.

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BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm going to stand with her because she stood with me.

During my darkest moment, when I almost lost my daughter, when I had to protect my wife and I had to fight for a black woman in the hospital. And so now it's my turn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And joining me now is our Bakari Sellers and CNN Senior Political Commentator Van Jones.

Bakari, a powerful moment there. You know, I do want to ask you because a few days ago you and I were talking about all of this, and you were saying, you know, if the Democrats are thinking about getting rid of Joe Biden, they better not pass over Kamala Harris as the party's nominee. That is what is happening right now. What does that mean for the party?

SELLERS: Well, what you're saying is influx of energy. I think that the campaign that Kamala Harris has run over the past 24, 48 hours has been one of the most successful Democratic campaigns we've seen in a long time from the money raised to the energy, to the poll trajectory, to the grassroots efforts. Just last night, I know Van joined the call as well, but we had over 53,000 black men attempting to answer that question somewhat before it was asked about whether or not black men were going to rally behind Kamala Harris, raised over $1.3 million and that number still going up. The night before that, you had tens of thousands of black women. They raised over one million dollars as well.

And what you're seeing is an energy that I believe people like Van Jones and David Axelrod were saying that we needed in order to beat Donald Trump. You know, a lot of people were coming on air saying that we needed that energy and I believe that Kamala Harris has proved them to be right.

There were a lot of fears about skipping over Kamala Harris because of the fact she was vice president, et cetera. But she's risen to that moment and showed that she could earn that nomination. And so we're here. It's history versus yesterday. And that's what this race is now about.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Van, I do want to ask you about this call and the importance of it as well, because, I mean, one of the things that a lot of us were talking about before the big shakeup at the top of the Democratic ticket was whether or not Donald Trump was going to be able to siphon off enough black men to perhaps make a difference in that race had it been Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Has that changed now? How do you make the case that that should change?

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well I think it's changing. And I think that a couple things are likely to happen. First of all, you know, when you talk about a Donna Brazile, a Karen Finney, a Jotaka Eaddy, these are African-American women who are the pillars of the Democratic Party. They do the hard work that nobody sees, they touch people, they counsel people, they help people. And they orchestrated and engineered this outcome, not because Kamala is a black woman, but because they could not see the Democratic Party in disarray.

And they wanted to make sure that if there was going to be a loose ball, it landed in the most capable hands, someone who's won as district attorney, someone who's won as attorney general, someone who's won as senator, someone who's won as vice president, a winner who has delivered over and over again. So, they engineered the football getting into the right hands, and that was the first step.

But then what happened, which nobody necessarily predicted, was we spent three weeks sitting outside the ICU with a death watch for a democracy, watching what would happen after that debate if Donald Trump were able to get back in the White House. And it was terrifying. It was 2025. It was this horrible speech that he gave. And then suddenly, a crack opened of hope, one little heartbeat of hope. Kamala Harris raising her hand and saying, I'll take care of this.

And you saw an explosion of support and energy. But, you know, black folks are getting a lot of credit, of course, but you have young people who have taken over TikTok for Kamala Harris, you have Kamala Mania on TikTok. You have suburban women who are breathing a sigh of relief. You have a whole -- and you have black men taking a different look at the Democratic Party.

This will go down in history as the most successful political effort over a 48-hour period in the history of the United States. There has never been an effort they secured the nomination this quickly, money this quickly, enthusiasm this quickly, took over pop culture this quickly, and we are on day two of Kamala Harris.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, it was Dems in disarray as of, what, 72 hours ago. That is certainly not the case right now.

And, Bakari, I do want to ask you this, because this is something -- this is a sneak preview, I think, of coming attractions. Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett had this to say about Kamala Harris. I want to get your reaction.

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REP. TIM BURCHETT (R-TN): Biden said -- first off, he said he's going to hire a black female for vice president. And that he just skipped over -- what about white females? What about any other group? Just when you go down that route, you take mediocrity. And that's what they have right now as a vice president.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are you suggesting she's, she was a DEI hire?

BURCHETT: 100 percent. She was a DEI hire.

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ACOSTA: Bakari, I mean, obviously I could fact check that and knock that down. It's ridiculous. But what do you say?

SELLERS: Yes. I mean, what we've done is we've turned just the value of diversity now into a slur. And I think that the congressman knows that. And, you know, what we have to focus on and one of the things Kamala is going to focus on over the next 105 days or so is kind of just ignoring the noise, ignoring the people who are representing the underbelly of the country and going out and trying to bring those people into the party that needs some sense of hope.

She's going to be called all types of names throughout this process by people who should know better about people who are elected office. If I had an opportunity to talk to him face-to-face, I would say not only is she a mother, not only is she someone's sister, not only is she a daughter, but she's actually somebody who's been vice president of the United States, somebody who's been a United States senator, attorney general, district attorney, sir, she has way more experience than you to hold this office.

But even more importantly, you know, Congressman, while you were representing someone who has 34 felonies and represents the past, Kamala Harris is talking about building a future. She's going to get all of the incoming. I'm not sure, Jim, and I'd love to hear Van, I don't know if we have enough time, but I'm not sure that people are really prepared to see what this campaign is going to be and the depths of hell that many Republicans are going to go to, to sully the spirit and soul of Kamala Harris, not knowing that she's a fighter the way she is.

ACOSTA: Yes. Van, quick thought from you?

JONES: Look, I just want to thank Bakari. Bakari last night lit a fire in the hearts of black men that I had never seen since Barack Obama. That was an intimate gathering of 20, 30, 40,000 men. But when Bakari spoke, and all the black leadership spoke, but when Bakari spoke about what she has done for him personally, when he was in pain and when he was in fear, people realized we have to protect this sister. People who may not even vote for her are not going to let her be run down, are not going to let her be disrespected, are not going to let her be put down.

This woman, she checked every box, local, state, federal, vice president, to say she's not qualified is an insult to all of our mothers, it is an insult to all of our sisters, it is an insult to all of our daughters.

[10:10:04]

And Bakari Sellers, Roland Martin and others called us to account. Are you going to sit here and let this sister be disrespected? And I just want to thank Bakari personally. He lit a fire in me that -- and not just me that you're going to see turn the tide for black men on this campaign.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, I covered that 2008 campaign. That trash truck is coming. You can hear it down the street. Van and Bakari, thanks very much, guys. I appreciate it.

Let's bring in Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida. He's the youngest member of Congress, was also on the Zoom call showing support for Kamala Harris last night. Congressman, what were your thoughts on this call? And I'll go back to a question that I asked Van Jones, and that is there were some concerns that Trump was going to be able to siphon off enough of black men in support in the upcoming race against Joe Biden. How does that change now? Does that change now?

REP. MAXWELL FROST (D-FL): I think it does change, and it's because, I mean, just look at what happened last night. This call with tens of thousands of black men from across the country, of all age groups too, coming together to raise money, to organize and to mobilize around Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States.

And it's something that really got to me is the fact that this was an emotional call. I mean, there were all different types of emotions on that call. You heard from Bakari as he broke into tears, to talk about his personal interactions with the vice president. I spoke about the fact that, you know, last year, the president made history by creating the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

I got involved in politics at 15 years old because I didn't want to get shot in school. And it's been the vice president, Vice President Harris, that's been leading that office over the last year, and we've seen hundreds of millions of dollars go to communities across the country, and that's why we've seen gun violence actually go down in this country.

Who would have thought a decade ago that now, in this time, we would have taken action on gun violence, Vice President Harris would be running the office and we'd see it work and save lives all across the country?

And so this excitement is here on every single issue we can think about that disproportionately impacts black people and specifically young black men. Kamala Harris has been on the frontlines of fighting for it from the federal level down to the state level.

ACOSTA: And I do want to ask you about some comments that J.D. Vance made yesterday about racism in America. Let's listen to that.

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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Democrats say that it is racist to believe, well they say it's racist to do anything. I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too, but it's good. I love you guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Congressman, your response to that?

FROST: I mean, what a bizarre clip. I have a lot to say about that clip. It feels like a Saturday Night Live skit with the joke about a Mountain Dew being racist and then the one distant clap. The guy's got no juice. And so we'll see how he does on the campaign trail. He's not even exciting his own voters.

The other thing I'd say is that he is going to continue to use all these racist dog whistles throughout the campaign. We're going to see it from Trump, we're going to see it from J.D. Vance, and we're going to see it from a lot of their surrogates. In fact, just yesterday, one of the surrogates was saying, if we don't win, we're going to have to have a civil war to get our agenda through, a civil war.

And so this is an organization, this is a right wing campaign, that's going to be racist, misogynistic against the vice president. But we're going to stand on the issues, and what really matters is the fact that she is qualified. They want to call her a DEI president, or a DEI candidate. She has more experience than Trump and J.D. Vance combined, times a million, right? She worked at the state level, she was the attorney general, she was vice president of the United States, she was a senator representing one of the largest states in the entire country. And so these are just racist dog whistles.

Whenever you hear DEI, I want you to think about the N word. I want you to think about racial slurs. That's what they actually mean.

ACOSTA: Do you think Congressman Burchett is being a racist when he says that?

FROST: I have a good relationship with the congressman. I think sometimes though he does use rhetoric that is racist. And whether people know it's racist or not, I'm here to tell them that is racist. And I hope they won't use that rhetoric anymore.

ACOSTA: Congressman, I do want to switch gears and ask you about what's -- since you're our Gen Z Congressman here in this country, and I know we've talked about this before, why is the vice president resonating with young voters on social media? We're seeing talk of Coconut Trees and even Brat. Do you know what Brat means? I had to look it up.

FROST: Yes. I, I do know what brat means. And if anyone's interested, you just got to go listen to that Charlie XCX album and then you'll understand it. But you got to listen to the music first, you can't read about it.

But, you know, the other thing I tell people is, what we're seeing is a really classic example of when pop culture really gets intertwined with the politics.

[10:15:07]

And it takes a special kind of candidate, and a special kind of leader to inspire that. It has to be organic. You can't make it happen. And the fact of the matter is actually over the last several weeks, we've seen this happening on TikTok and social media, little by little as Gen Zs really grappled around Kamala Harris, her record, and are excited about her. And so whether Coconut Trees are talking about Brat or whatever, the message is getting across to millions, tens of millions of young people across the entire country and across the entire world and I think that's really inspiring. This is how we bridge the gap between cool and consciousness and that's happening right now in this campaign.

ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Maxwell Frost, thanks very much for your time.

Our thanks to Van and Bakari as well, great conversation with all of you. Thanks so much.

Moments ago some breaking news to bring you America's top diplomat, Tony Blinken, secretary of state, commenting publicly for the first time on President Biden's decision to step aside and endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Here's what he said about President Biden and changing the world's view of the United States. Here's what he had to say.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Our standing around the world is infinitely stronger than it was when he when he took office. In speaking to him the other day after he made his decision about not seeking re-election, what he's intensely focused on is the work that remains over these next six months, to continue the efforts, the work that we've been doing particularly trying to bring peace to the Middle East, ending the war in Gaza, putting that region on a better trajectory, continuing to deal as effectively as he has been.

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ACOSTA: All right. There's the secretary of state there commenting on the president dropping out of the race.

Still ahead, communication failures, months of disturbing behavior and a warning from his best friend, what we just learned from an investigation into the army reservists who shot and killed 18 people in Maine last year.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope you understand that they're concerned enough about your welfare that they called us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, because I'm scared because I'm going to friggin do something.

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ACOSTA: This just in an army investigation into the reservist who shot and killed 18 people last summer in Maine has revealed a series of failures from both the shooter Robert Card's military chain of command and civilian law enforcement. Included in those failures, a delay in uploading discharge papers that included Card's, quote, homicidal ideations like this one captured on a New York State police body camera during a visit to his room at an army training facility.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope you understand that they're concerned enough about your welfare that they called us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, because I'm scared because I'm going to friggin do something, because I am capable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like what do you mean by that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean by that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing.

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ACOSTA: Correspondent Natasha Bertrand is following the story for us. Natasha, what have you learned?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. I mean, there were a number of serious failures in the months leading up to this mass shooting conducted by Robert Card, the Army reservist that you saw in that video, that really contributed to a breakdown of communications between the Army, civilian law enforcement and civilian hospitals where Robert Card was ultimately transferred for additional psychiatric care.

Essentially, what happened was in around January of 2023, Card was starting to exhibit very serious signs of, you know, deteriorating mental health, including paranoia, extreme anger. And he at one point said that he had a hit list. And all of these things contributed to really major concerns by his family, which reported him to local law enforcement and authorities in May of 2023.

But still, his units in the Army Reserve ordered him to training in July of 2023, something that the U.S. Army Reserve is now punishing members of his chain of command for because the sheriff's office did report this disturbing behavior and the reports that the family made to local law enforcement to the U.S. Army. So, they should have been aware that he was in a deteriorating mental state and he should have not been ordered to that training, according to this U.S. Army investigation.

Now, in addition to this, major breakdown in communication between civilian hospitals, as well as the U.S. Army, where Card, when he went to that training, he started exhibiting again very serious signs of mental deterioration, including that paranoia, hearing voices. He was admitted to an Army hospital, which then determined that he needed a higher level of care and he was then sent to a civilian hospital to receive that psychiatric treatment.

But the discharge from that hospital was not made known to the U.S. Army until about three weeks later. And that discharge summary really would have exhibited to the U.S. Army the extent of just what he was suffering. And, ultimately, they were unable to take his weapons away because, again, he was in the Army Reserve, and they have very limited control over what a reservist does in their civilian time. And so just a number of breakdowns here, and, ultimately, Robert Card did end up killing 18 people in the worst mass shooting in Maine's history.

So, a number of remedies being taken now, Jim, but obviously, you know, it is tough given this Army Reserve you know, limitations over what they can actually do and control members of the reserve there.

ACOSTA: Yes. Clearly, there were breakdowns before this tragedy unfolded.

[10:25:02]

Natasha Bertrand, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.

In the meantime, Vice President Harris is inheriting the Biden campaign and its headquarters in the president's home state of Delaware. I'll ask the state's governor how all of that is going. That's coming up.

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ACOSTA: This just in, House Speaker Mike Johnson responding to a question from our Manu Raju moments ago about Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett calling Vice President Kamala Harris a DEI hire. Here's that exchange.

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RAJU: As Kamala Harris has become the presumptive nominee, some of your colleagues have been criticizing her over the issue of diversity. Tim Burchett said that she was a DEI hire.