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Trump Campaign Downplays State of Race with Kamala Harris; Trump and Harris Agree to Debate on September 10; New Bodycam Video Shows Police Encounter with Trump Shooter; Looking Ahead to Olympic Men's and Women's 400 Meter Relay Final. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired August 09, 2024 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. Top stories today.

A debate is now set for September 10th between U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. ABC News will host and allow other networks to broadcast the event. Trump indicated he would also debate Harris on September 4th and 25th. Harris says she's open to discussing further showdowns.

During a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Thursday, Trump said he hasn't been on the campaign trail recently because he's, quote, leading by a lot. Except polls show the race is tight. Trump says he'll campaign more after the Democratic National Convention later this month.

Meanwhile, Harris and her new running mate continued their swing state blitz with a stop in Michigan. The two spoke to members of the United Auto Workers Union, which gave Harris a key endorsement this week. Harris and Walz touted their support of unions and the importance of organized labor.

Natasha Lindstaedt is a professor of government at the University of Essex. She's with us from Colchester, England. Thank you so much for joining us.

What do you make of the fact that we haven't seen much of Donald Trump this week and an awful lot of the Democrat candidates, and his argument being that he's ahead when the polls show he isn't?

NATASHA LINDSTAEDT. PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY OF ESSEX: I mean, it's really interesting. And when he was asked this about his, you know, lack of campaigning at the recent press conference, he said, oh, that's a really stupid question.

It's very strange to go to Montana because that is not a swing state. That's one that Trump will easily win. If you contrast this with the Harris-Walz campaign, I mean, they are going hard in some of these battleground states and drawing huge crowds, and I think that's really irking Trump at the moment.

In the press conference, he even mentioned that his crowd size was even larger than the "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr., which, of course, was a false remark. I think he's just completely caught off guard by the switch-up between Biden and Harris. He even alleged that it was unconstitutional. It wasn't.

But his campaign just wasn't ready for this. I think he thought that he would be able to win easily, and truthfully, he would have been able to win easily had Biden remained on the ticket. And the whole campaign strategy was built around this idea that Biden was too old and that Trump could sort of roll with his 46 percent support, and there wouldn't be much support or energy behind the Democrats with Biden at the top of the ticket.

But we're seeing a huge shift, and he just isn't ready for it, and he's unable to acknowledge what's really remarkable happening in the polls with Harris surging ahead in swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and really moving closer to Trump in Georgia and Arizona.

FOSTER: Let's listen to how he's trying to delegitimize Harris's candidacy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact that you can be, get no votes, lose in the primary system, in other words, you had 14 or 15 people, she was the first one out, and that you can then be picked to run for president, it seems to me actually unconstitutional. Perhaps it's not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: What do you think about it Natasha? Do you think that's going to resonate with people?

LINDSTAEDT: I don't think so. I think he's trying to just dampen the energy, the spirit behind this movement, and this is something that we could not have really predicted because Kamala Harris's approval rating was so low, and there was so much energy after the Republican convention. We got a little bit of a bump there, and it just seemed like it was going to be a slam dunk for the Republicans.

Instead, what we're seeing is there's this just massive movement. It's more than a campaign. It is really a movement in which you see that she chose Tim Walz. He turned out to be a fantastic choice. He was a lot more charismatic in terms of his speaking abilities than even I thought, and he was able to really connect with those voters in the Midwest.

[04:35:00]

So he's just completely caught off guard and not sure how to respond, so he's trying to find ways of diminishing her candidacy in any way he can, whether it be by making fun of her name, mispronouncing it, saying that she has 19 different ways of calling herself Kamala or diminishing her as a woman or questioning her race and her identity. They're trying to figure out whatever they can grab onto because they're trying to define her some way, and they're struggling to do that.

FOSTER: In terms of what we see going on next, obviously everyone's got their eyes on the debates. You have no idea, do you, how they're going to perform until you actually see them together. Obviously, Trump has had more experience at that very top level of debate.

How do you think Harris is going to play it? Because we've seen how, you know, if Biden goes in on the attack, it's very hard to take on Donald Trump, isn't it, unless you stick to the policies. She's got to sort of rise above it to some extent to make it work.

LINDSTAEDT: So I actually think that she would destroy Trump in a debate. He was ready to debate Biden, and it went the opposite way. He was able to really effectively make Biden look really bad.

And he's not prepared to debate someone like Kamala Harris, who's a trained prosecutor. If you saw her in these sessions where she was questioning Brett Kavanaugh or former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, I mean, she will come at him again and again and again. And her first debate performance when she was running for president really showed some of that promise.

She fizzled out a bit, but many commentators are saying that she's just grown a lot, she has evolved, she's become more presidential in the way that she carries herself. And she knows the facts, she knows the policies backwards and forwards. She's been able to handle really difficult issues like immigration and basically put it back on Trump's team.

And the way that Trump sort of torpedoed the bipartisan bill at the border to stem immigration. He doesn't really understand policy very well. He does well when he can sort of bully and overpower people with his voice and then just sort of not responding to questions. And, you know, you have to fact-check him quite a bit.

I think she'll be quicker on her feet and able to fact-check him while the debate is going.

FOSTER: OK, Natasha, we'll see, won't we? It's going to be a fascinating debate for sure.

Now, a new intelligence report obtained by CNN shows U.S. security officials are on alert for possible attacks at the Democratic National Convention, perhaps in retaliation for the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

The convention starts in 10 days and more than 50,000 people are expected to visit downtown Chicago. That includes President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and numerous high-profile and elected leaders. The assessment notes that no specific credible threats have been identified.

Meanwhile, CNN has obtained new police bodycam video of the moment a police officer seized the gunman right before he fired shots at Donald Trump at that rally last month. CNN's Danny Freeman has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the moment we've heard so much about, seen now for the first time on police body camera. A Butler Township police officer asking for a boost to check the roof of the AGR building outside former President Trump's rally. There's no audio in this video obtained by CNN.

You can see on the timestamp this is less than one minute before Crooks started shooting. The officer climbs up to the roof and almost immediately drops down and the tone changes. You don't see it on the video, but police have said Crooks aimed his rifle right at the officer.

He runs to the other side of the building to look at the roof and on this officer's dashcam, which was recording audio, you can hear those first three gunshots from Thomas Matthew Crooks at 6:11 p.m.

(GUN SHOTS)

The officer rushes back to his car to get his rifle. You hear him shout to other law enforcement officers on the dashcam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't pull up your head, he's right there.

FREEMAN (voice-over): Back to the officer's bodycam.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's this close, bro. Turn around on me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were's he at?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's straight up. Who's got eyes on him?

FREEMAN (voice-over): Chaos ensues. By this point, the gunman, Crooks, has already been killed by Secret Service, but it doesn't appear local law enforcement is aware.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're about to hop up. He's laying down. He's going north.

Next building over. Right after the gap. He's got glasses, long hair.

FREEMAN (voice-over): These videos provide new insight into local law enforcement's movements moments before the shooting and the frantic aftermath.

Since that day, there's been finger-pointing between U.S. Secret Service and western Pennsylvania law enforcement, including testimony from the acting director of the Secret Service asserting local snipers hidden in a building could have spotted Crooks.

[04:40:00]

RONALD ROWE, ACTING DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE: I'm not saying that they should have neutralized him, but if they'd have just held their post and looked left, maybe, and there's a lot of maybes there, Senator. A lot of maybes, but --

FREEMAN: But this new body camera footage also suggests local law enforcement had warned Secret Service they needed to protect the building Crooks used to fire the shots.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I (EXPLETIVE DELETED) told them they need to post the guys (EXPLETIVE DELETED) over here. I told them that the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) .

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Secret Service. I told them that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Tuesday. I told them to post (EXPLETIVE DELETED) guys over here. What?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought you were guys on the roof.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, we're inside.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alpha one, bravo one. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I told them to post (EXPLETIVE DELETED) guys over here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wasn't even concerned about it because I thought someone was on the roof. I thought that's how they count out. Can you lose a guy walking back there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were inside.

FREEMAN: I should also note that frustration you just saw right there coming just about 10 minutes after the shooting took place. Now, we did get a statement from the Secret Service on Thursday saying that they are reviewing the body camera footage that was released by local law enforcement, and furthermore, they added that they appreciate local law enforcement partners who acted courageously as they worked to locate the shooter that day.

Danny Freeman, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: When we come back, we'll go live to Paris and recap Thursday's most shocking moments and look ahead to today's top events. Do stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Today is jam-packed with gold medals being awarded in 16 sports. Including on the track for the 400 meter men's and women's relay races.

And host nation France will face European rival Spain in the men's football final. While Germany and the Netherlands go head-to-head in the women's hockey gold medal match. Last but certainly not least, breaking, or breakdancing as it's also known, makes its Olympic debut today.

Joining me here to discuss that, Mr. Breakdancer himself, Coy Wire. Why are we --

[04:45:00]

COY WIRE, CNN WORLD SPORTS: Don't get me started.

MACFARLANE: -- get to breaking in a minute. But let's begin, Coy, with last night's action. Because there was some dramatic scenes, weren't there, on the athletics track last night.

MACFARLANE: Noah Lyles taking the bronze. And then telling us all he had COVID. what happened?

WIRE: Right, and a lot of people were wondering why he was jumping for joy, hooting and hollering before the race. If he knew he was not feeling well, why would you not conserve that energy? I saw Carl Lewis came to his defense a bit and said, look, when you're the face of the sport, that's a big burden to bear and that's what you do.

You help lift and elevate all the others, bring the attention to the sport. So he did not get mad at Noah Lyles for putting on that show after he clearly wasn't up to the task of finishing bronze in that race.

And so he then later posted at night that on social that he believes his Olympics are done. That means for some of tonight's action coming up.

MACFARLANE: The relay, right?

WIRE: The 4x100 meter relay. You know, with him out, now the door is wide open. You know, they are the favorites to win it. They did still have the fastest qualifying time, even without Noah Lyles.

But here now you have these reigning world champs who are looking for redemption. Remember they didn't even make the final in Tokyo, but you have the reigning Olympic champs, Italy, they snuck into the final barely. And then team GB in South Africa, they finished with the second and third fastest time. So look out for them as well.

And of course, we also have the women's 4x100 meter, and that's going to be incredible energy. It'll be our last chance to see silver medalist --

MACFARLANE: Sha'Carri, yes, Sha'Carri Richardson.

WIRE: -- Sha'Carri Richardson reigning world champion and the 200 meter champ, Gabby Thomas. They're looking incredibly strong in that field tonight.

But bronze medalist, reigning world and Olympic bronze medalist, team GB, you'll be happy to hear we'll be right there with them, looking with Jamaica and Germany fighting for those podium spots as well. So those are some of the teams to keep an eye on tonight. It's going to be incredible energy here.

MACFARLANE: Crowd pleaser events, those ones, aren't they? And of course, as we were mentioning earlier, there is still an event to make its debut in these Olympics as we near the end. And it's no small deal, breaking, breaking. I love it. I love it. Breakdancing.

WIRE: I mean, look, this is highly anticipated, right? Because it's the first ever. And it's not, you know, set up to be in any more Olympics come.

It's kind of a celebration for the end of these games, which have been fantastic. We're going to have b-boys and b-girls. They're not called break dancers, b-boys and b-girls from around the world, repping by popping and locking for their nations to chase gold.

You think this is a younger sport, and it is. But 35-year-old Sunny Choi from Team USA has found a second calling in life. We caught up with her ahead of these games. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUNNY CHOI, TEAM USA BREAKING: I was previously a director of global creative operations at Estee Lauder. I was comfortable. There were all of these, like, but I had a plan B.

So what's really stopping me? And it turns out it was just, like, not wanting to fail and especially not wanting to fail publicly and not wanting to let myself down. And so I just, like, wasn't allowing myself to dream.

So I was like, you know what? I'm going to allow myself to, like, have this childhood dream and see it to fruition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: I mean, does she not give all of us hope?

MACFARLANE: She's 35 years old. I'm really rethinking things at this point. I mean --

WIRE: Well, let's see what you've got. You got any confidence? Oh, my god!

MACFARLANE: Oh, no, it's too embarrassing. I'm not even going to try.

WIRE: When we're off the set.

MACFARLANE: You know, I've only been in Paris 24 hours, but I think I saw one of the games of the tournament.

WIRE: I heard, women's basketball.

MACFARLANE: I was at the USA Serbia basketball game last night. My goodness, it was electric. I mean, I know that's a well-used term, but like that final quarter where USA just came alive was honestly one of the best things I've ever seen. WIRE: And they were down double digits.

MACFARLANE: They were down double digits. And they just turned it on, not even the last quarter, like the last three minutes. They just turned on a dime. LeBron, Steph Curry stepped up. Oh, my gosh. Yes, it was epic.

WIRE: The fighting Nikola Jokic is right in Serbia, best player in the world versus the best team in the world. And man, Serbia was looking strong there.

But yes, they flipped that switch and turned on. And now that's an incredible final.

MACFARLANE: A rematch.

WIRE: A rematch.

MACFARLANE: A rematch in Paris.

WIRE: Yes, the host nation, France, led by Victor Wembanyama, right? Rudy Gobert. This is going to be -- speaking of electric. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about that one.

MACFARLANE: Well, I hope you can make it to that because it's going to be the place to be. What is it, Saturday?

WIRE: Hey, you have pull around here. Tell my boss, he needs to be at that game.

MACFARLANE: I'm not even meant to be here. Yes, I mean, Max knows I'm not even meant to be here. But look, congrats on an incredible Olympics fortnight.

And still plenty of action to come, of course.

And Max, I don't know if you're there, but I may have to spend an extra 24 hours in Paris.

FOSTER: Well, I mean, France, USA. I mean, literally, why would you not? I mean, that's going to be unbelievable.

You've got to do the swing first.

WIRE: Oh, yes, a little topping and locking.

FOSTER: Well, you know, I think there's a bit of a miss here. I think they should have done parkour as the French sport that they added to this Olympics.

[04:50:00]

It's not breakdancing. That's just my thought.

WIRE: I like that. MACFARLANE: Well, not a bad, not a bad idea. But I know that Max has got the trainers for the breakdancing right under that desk behind him over there. So, yes, he'll be into it.

FOSTER: Cheers, guys.

Now we have just had some news into CNN. Reuters reporting an 18-year- old Iraqi national has been detained in connection with a foiled terror plot in Austria that forced three Taylor Swift concerts to be cancelled.

Officials say the teen associated with the main suspect, a 19-year-old Austrian with North Macedonian roots, who police claim was the mastermind. Authorities discovered chemical explosives, detonators, machetes, knives, would you believe, in his home. Police say the suspects were radicalized online. Thankfully, it was all foiled.

Now, still ahead, U.S. markets are recovering some lost ground, surging higher on the latest jobs data. What a week to end on the markets. Those details when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: U.S. stocks surged on Thursday after new jobs data eased investors' fears about the economy.

[04:55:00]

First time unemployment claims fell last week to just over 230,000. The Dow gained nearly 700 points, 1.8 percent. The S&P rose 2.3 percent, its best day this year. And the Nasdaq composite added nearly 3 percent, its best day since February.

Good news for home buyers as well, as 30-year fixed mortgage rates fell to 6.47 percent, which is the lowest since May 2023.

Three North Carolina children safe and unharmed after they were rescued by the Raleigh Fire Department on Thursday. The kids had been stuck in rapidly rising flood waters caused by tropical storm Debby. Firefighters were able to pull them out, put them on a raft and take them to safety. The storm dropped more than 15 inches of rain on one North Carolina city.

Debby has weakened to a tropical depression but continues to cause flooding, tornadoes and gusty winds along the U.S. East Coast. The National Weather Service has issued flood watches from the Carolinas to New York and Vermont.

Stories in the spotlight, the world's largest 3D-printed neighborhood nearing completion. The community near Austin, Texas, is called Wolf Ranch. The foundations and roofs are installed the traditional way, but the walls were created with a 45-foot-wide robotic printer.

The company says the homes take about three weeks to complete and are less expensive, minimize waste and require fewer workers. Home prices range from around $450,000 to $600,000 and developers say a little more than a quarter of the houses have been sold.

People in Denmark are celebrating the return of ramen noodles that were banned for being too spicy. Stores pulled three varieties of a South Korean ramen brand in June after the Danish government claimed that noodles posed a serious health risk. The ban was aimed at children who were challenging each other on social media to eat the ramen, but further tests found that the noodles do not exceed the critical spice level, so Danish ramen fans can have their noodles, eat them too and let the challenge re-begin.

Thanks for joining us here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. CNN THIS MORNING is up next after a break.

END