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CNN International: Trump Targets Harris in Musk Interview; Greece Battles Wildfires; Harris to Appear With Biden at Campaign Event This Week; Biden Heads to New Orleans for Cancer Moonshot Event; Democratic National Convention is Just Six Days Away; Israel's Ben- Gvir Makes Provocative Visit to al-Aqsa Compound; Hamas to Attend Ceasefire-hostage Talks; Israel Preparing for Potential Attack From Iran; Putin Lashes Out at the West for Ukraine's Incursion; Ukrainian Military Claims to Control 1,000 Sq. Km. Of Russia; Kim Jong-Un Rejects Foreign Help, Touts Self-reliance; U.S. Cities Feel the Brunt of Scorching Temperatures; Team USA Appeal for Jordan Chiles to Keep Bronze Medal Denied; Pompeii Archaeologists Find Buried Couple and Their Treasure; Van Gogh's "Starry Night" Recreated in Bosnia. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired August 13, 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]

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWSROOM": Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Christina MacFarlane and this is "CNN Newsroom." Just ahead, Donald Trump joins Elon Musk for a two- hour interview after technical issues nearly derail the event. We'll tell you what Trump had to say about his Democratic rival Kamala Harris. Plus, Israel's national security minister makes a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound referred by Jews, by the Temple of Mount. Just ahead, how other countries in the region are reacting. And firefighters in Greece battle a major wildfire outside the capital. We are live near Athens with the very latest details.

The world's richest man calls Donald Trump the path to prosperity. That comment came during the tech mogul Elon Musk's more than two-hour interview with Trump Monday night. Musk is a big supporter of the former president and didn't exactly throw hardballs at the Republican nominee. Instead, Musk steered the conversation to campaign talking points and Trump repeatedly attacked his Democratic rival. Here's an excerpt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They're doing it right now, while this third- rate phony candidate, don't forget, I beat -- I beat Biden. He failed in the debate miserably. We cannot have a Democrat -- we cannot have her. She's incompetent. She is as bad as Biden. No tax on tips and all of a sudden she is making these speeches and there will be no tax on tips. I said that months ago. All of a sudden, for politics, she says -- she comes out with what I said, which I think is terrible. And I think it's also hitting them very hard. These people are fake. Kamala wouldn't have this conversation. She can't because she's not --

ELON MUSK, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TESLA MOTORS: No.

TRUMP: -- smart.

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: You know, she's not a smart person by the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: The conversation on X was delayed by more than 40 minutes because of technical difficulties. Musk said it was a cyber attack that overwhelmed X's servers.

MUSK: As this massive attack illustrates, there's a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.

MACFARLANE: The interview comes as Trump tries to counter the momentum the Harris campaign has enjoyed since Joe Biden left the race. CNN's Kristen Holmes has a closer look at the state of the race.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As momentum around Kamala Harris continues to build --

KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hey, Nevada.

HOLMES (voice-over): Donald Trump promoting far-right conspiracy theories around his Democratic challenger, falsely claiming on social media that the crowd size at Harris Detroit rally was AI generated, writing "This is the way Democrats win elections, by cheating, and they're even worse at the ballot box." Adding that, anyone who is willing to fake their crowd size, "will cheat at anything." Recent polling showing Harris improving on president Joe Biden standing in several battlegrounds, with a close race in the critical states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump's allies imploring the former president to focus on policy, not personal attacks.

KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R) FORMER UNITED STATES HOUSE SPEAKER: You've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime.

TRUMP: And I will never ever let you down.

(CROWD CHEERING)

HOLMES (voice-over): Trump trying to get back on message, releasing a series of videos on X, including one painting Harris as a "San Francisco radical." The former president also expected to hit the campaign trail Wednesday with what's being billed as an economy focus speech in the crucial state of North Carolina. Harris has promised to put up details about her economic policies this week as Republicans hammer away at the lack of details around her policy plans. Over the weekend, Republican VP nominee, J.D. Vance, taking on the role of attack dog, sitting for interviews as Trump campaign aims to highlight Harris' decision so far not to take a lot of questions from the press.

SEN. J.D. VANCE, (R-OH) VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I think that what it is, is two people, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who aren't comfortable in their own skin because they're uncomfortable with their policy positions for the American people. And so, they're name-calling instead of actually telling the American people how they're going to make their lives better. I think that's weird, Dana, but look, they can call me whatever they want to.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES (on camera): Now, Kamala Harris is also expected to be back on the campaign trail on Thursday with President Joe Biden. It's going to be their first joint campaign appearance since Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Now, it's going to be interesting to watch how Kamala Harris navigates this. Because on one hand, she of course, is going to want to stand next to the man who essentially put her at the top of the ticket, who made her vice president. But yet, at the same time, she has already tried to distance herself from some of his more unpopular policy decisions, particularly around immigration or inflation and crime.

[08:05:00]

We also know Republicans are seeking to tie her to Joe Biden in a negative way. So, she's really going to have to walk this fine line as she figures out how she's going to campaign with Joe Biden in this now, very tight race.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, Washington.

MACFARLANE: We will have more reaction on the fallout to that story in just a moment.

But now, let's turn to the U.S. president and first lady who are headed to New Orleans in the coming hours for what the White House is calling a Cancer Moonshot event. The Administration is pushing to speed up progress on preventing and treating the disease. And for the Bidens, this is a personal matter. They lost their son, Beau, to cancer in 2015. Let's head to Washington and join CNN's Senior White House Reporter Kevin Liptak.

So Kevin, this is the first time we are going to be seeing President Biden since he dropped out of the race. And as I mentioned that this is a very personal matter today. What can we expect to see and hear from the president?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and I do think it gives you a good indication of how the president will be spending his time for the remainder of his term in this reshaped version of the presidency, really focusing on the items that are so close to his heart, and this is one of them. He actually founded the Cancer Moonshot initiative when he was vice president following the death of his son, Beau, from a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. He revived it when he returned to the White House with the goal of cutting by half cancer deaths in 25 years, which is quite an ambitious goal. But experts say that it is achievable with the right resources behind it, and that is exactly what he'll be doing in New Orleans today.

He'll be touring a medical facility at Tulane University and announcing $150 million in new research grants, specifically focused on trying to develop better technologies that would allow surgeons to better remove tumors from cancer patients, things like imaging technologies or high-powered microscopes. It's part of an initiative that the president put together with Democrats and Republicans at the Department of Health and Human Services, and it's part of what he calls his unity agenda, trying to find areas where both parties can agree. And that is certainly something that you're going to hear from President Biden over the next several months, really, as he tries to calibrate his focus on these legacy items. What he wants to do is ensure that the money that has passed for these things is going out the door before he leaves office.

His aides have had to recalibrate in some ways how he is going to spend the next several months. He's obviously no longer running for president, and he will have these specific areas where he'll be focused. One of them is the economy and trying to lower prices. He also wants to ensure that the legislation that he's passed while president is being implemented. Of course, he'll also be focused on foreign policy, the war in the Middle East, the biggest item there. Of course, he's also focused on getting his Vice President, Kamala Harris, elected and to that end, we will see the pair of them out for the first time since she became the Democratic standard bearer talking about the economy at an event on Thursday.

MACFARLANE: All right. Now, Kevin Liptak there, thanks very much. Let's turn back now to our top story and bring in Alayna Treene with a closer look at that Trump-Musk interview. I mean, Alayna, the Trump campaign have clearly been trying to adjust to the newly competitive race to the White House. What is the feeling as to whether this interview has done Donald Trump any favors?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: I mean, we didn't really hear much new from Donald Trump last night in that conversation with Elon Musk. I think part of this was to try and draw the attention away from Harris and put the spotlight back on Donald Trump. In that way, I do think they succeeded in some sense, but look, the people who are on X, formerly known as Twitter, are not the type of battleground voters, undecided voters that the Trump campaign knows they need to be targeting.

You're not seeing Donald Trump -- well, you really haven't seen Donald Trump in a battleground state over the last week. Instead, he's doing these types of interviews and his last rally was in Montana, which is a deeply red state. But just to break down that conversation last night for you, it started off with being marred by many tech glitches. It took off 40 minutes after its allotted start time. And it kind of marred the triumphant return to X that I know Donald Trump's team was hoping for. But once the conversation was underway, it became very clear that we weren't going to learn anything really new about Donald Trump's views.

The conversation was kind of Musk and Donald Trump bro-ing it out. Musk lobbed a series of softball questions at the former president. At some points, he actually tried to steer him to his campaign talking points and Donald Trump instead used the opportunity to air his grievances, repeat the same things we hear him talk about on the campaign trail.

[08:10:00]

Some of those attacks included going after Kamala Harris and her position on the border, but he also spent a lot of time going after Joe Biden, including criticizing his handling of the war in the Middle East, as well as in Ukraine, claiming that America was better off four years ago than it is now under Joe Biden. And the interesting thing about that is, it does line up with what I'm hearing in my conversations with Donald Trump's allies and even some of those on the campaign, which is regardless of what Trump says publicly, he still wishes that he was facing off with Biden and not Harris.

But clearly, that is not the opponent he has any more and I think broadly, my big takeaway is that Musk is not a journalist. He was a friendly interviewer. That's part of why I was so interested in this conversation because we know that when Donald Trump feels comfortable, he's with someone he can speak more candidly with, you can sometimes hear him share information patient that he wouldn't necessarily share in a more formal setting. But he didn't really do that last night. Instead, he kind of talked about the same policy views and attacks that we've heard him make several times over the past several weeks.

MACFARLANE: Yeah. And this fixation on Biden still that -- now that he is out of the race, slightly strange reaction from him. Alayna Treene, it's great to have your thoughts. Thank you.

Now, a provocative move by Israel's far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, escorted by Israeli police, walked into the Al-Aqsa compound earlier, calling on his country's military to win the war in Gaza and bring Hamas "to its knees." The manager of the holy site says Ben-Gvir brought more than 2,000 Jewish worshipers with him, the move which inflames already high tensions in the region came ahead of a new round of talks about a ceasefire and the release of hostages on Thursday.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is joining us now from Haifa, Israel. And Jeremy, Israel obviously preparing for possible retaliation from Iran and its proxies for the killing of Hamas leader. All of this ahead of these key talks, which we expect to take place on Thursday. So, what has the mood been like in the build-up to these discussions about the ceasefire, but also hostage release negotiations?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, first of all, I think the word expect is critical here in terms of those talks on Thursday and that's because that is the expectation from the United States' point of view, from the mediator's point of view. But we also know that a lot could happen in the next 48 hours that could upend that expectation, and that's because what we are watching is indications, according to the United States and Israeli government officials, that Iran will likely retaliate against Israel, will carry out this attack after nearly two weeks of vowing to do so. But some uncertainty about whether or not they would actually follow through.

And now, the expectation is that that Iranian attack could come in the coming days, perhaps even before those talks on Thursday, and should a significant Iranian retaliation arrive in Israel before those ceasefire negotiations scheduled for Thursday, it could obviously upend those talks altogether. And yesterday, what we saw was a two key European leaders, the Chancellor of Germany, as well as the British Prime Minister speaking with the Iranian president, urging him to de- escalate the situation, to restrain a further Iranian response.

And today, we are getting indications from the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry that they have no intention of doing so. Instead, the spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry, Nasser Kanaani saying in a statement that European countries are "shamelessly demanding that Iran not retaliate against Israel for violations of its sovereignty" and saying that Iran is "firm and resolute in defending its sovereignty and won't ask for permission from anyone to exercise its right to do so.

So, that is an indication that Iran is a sticking to its plans to retaliate. We don't know exactly when that will come, but we know, of course, that the size and scope of that Iranian retaliation will be critical for the future of this region and of course, for those ceasefire talks as well.

MACFARLANE: And Jeremy, at this time of extreme tension, Ben-Gvir's visit to the holy site there, I believe it's the second in three weeks. What is the response to that been so far?

DIAMOND: Well, it is without question a provocative visit by Israel's far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, not only his presence there and the words that he uttered while he was there, but bringing along with him several thousand Jewish worshipers who appear to be preying on what is known as the Temple Mount or the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the Haram al-Sharif. And that's because there is a status quo agreement meant to try and keep tensions from rising, keep from inflaming tensions in the region, and that is that non-Muslims are banned from praying at the site.

[08:15:00]

And Ben-Gvir, while he was there, saying that he believes that Jews are allowed to pray at the site, saying our policy is to allow prayer. Now, that is of course, a violation of that status quo agreement and it was quickly refuted and rejected by the Israeli prime minister's office, which said in a statement that Israel's policy at the Temple Mount has not changed and saying that Ben-Gvir's visit to the Temple Mount marked a "deviation from the status quo."

We are also getting rapid condemnation not only from the Palestinian Authority, from Hamas, but also from the Jordanian foreign ministry, which is critical in helping to manage the status quo at the Temple Mount or the Haram al-Sharif. And so, obviously, this could risk inflaming tensions further in a region that is already very, very close to boiling over the edge.

MACFARLANE: Jeremy Diamond reporting for us there from Israel. Thanks, Jeremy.

Now, firefighters in Greece say they have made progress containing a fast-moving wildfire just outside Athens. The fire started Sunday and spread rapidly. More than 700 firefighters have been fighting the flames with at least six European countries answering Greece's appeal for help. The wildfire tore through communities, destroying cars, homes and businesses, at least one person has been killed.

Firefighters say small outbreaks are still popping up near the capital. This Athens suburb was engulfed in smoke as local people raced to put out the fire with hoses and buckets of water. CNN's Eleni Giokos is in Penteli near Athens. She's joining me now with the latest. Eleni, tell us what you've been seeing there, because the picture I saw this morning was pretty sobering.

ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is indeed. I mean, just seeing the devastation and destruction to forest area, but then also the homes and the businesses. And Christina, you mentioned the death of a woman. We have more information about her. This is the building where she was found. We spoke to some of her co-workers earlier. They said that she'd been working at this events company for over 20 years. She was a foreigner, should come here to Greece to send money back home, and she had every intention of going back to her homeland at the end of the year.

Now, what's baffling everyone is that there were evacuation orders. She didn't make it out and they found her body earlier this morning. As one of the most devastating stories and listening to her co- workers, listening to the loss of life and just what impact that's had over and above the loss of livelihood and some of the homes that we've seen, it's really being very harrowing. It's really tough. Today is the aftermath, Christina, it's the day after the big wildfires that people described as a furnace and heroic efforts by a lot of the volunteers and the firefighters.

They've been trying to battle this blaze for almost three days. Fire that started 40 kilometers away from where we are, spread through in what some people said in the blink of an .eye came into the suburbs. We are 11 miles out of Athens. It's really so very close and people are asking, how did this happen? You know, is it just the wind? Could the government have done more?

There are so many unanswered questions, and seeing and hearing some of the pain today has been extremely difficult. And a lot of government officials walking around to see what they're going to do in terms of assisting a lot of the communities that have been impacted, Christina, and it's not just about climate change, it is also about just how much forestry has been burnt in Greece since 2021 that is exacerbating these heat waves that are hitting the country annually. MACFARLANE: Yeah, and we expect this now, sadly to happen with a regular occurrence, but more so in the rural areas where there is more forestry, where these fires -- we've seen them so often before, but less so this close to the capital of Greece. You talk about the government there. I mean, what has the reaction been from the residents as to whether or not the government did move quickly enough to alert people to the fact that this was such a fast-moving fire?

Yeah, I think Eleni -- unfortunately, Eleni has -- we lost connection there with Eleni. But as you can see, devastating scenes there just outside of Athens.

Now, still to come, Vladimir Putin is vowing revenge following Ukraine's surprise cross-border offensive. Ahead, what the Russian president is saying and what is happening on the ground right now.

And Kim Jong-Un meets with victims of North Korea's devastating floods. But why is he refusing help from Russia and China? That's all ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:21:40]

MACFARLANE: More than a week into a surprise attack on Russian territory and Ukrainian troops are continuing to push forward. Residents southwest of Kursk now being urged to evacuate the area. The Russian defense ministry released this video, said to show additional military hardware for the Kursk region. Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile is vowing "to kick the enemy out" after accusing Ukraine of trying to destabilize his country.

The offensive marks Ukraine's biggest incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the start of the 2022 war. CNN's Clare Sebastian has been tracking developments. Clare, we are used to hearing this kind of rhetoric from Vladimir Putin, but it's clear, this is humiliating for him and it has exposed not just his vulnerabilities, but that of his military as well. So, what do we -- where do we expect him to go next?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he has held this meeting on Monday with his top officials, with the heads of the regions that have been affected by this. He's trying to look like he's in control. He's saying that this is bringing Russian society together, that more people than usual are attending up at military recruitment offices as a result of this. We are also seeing state media come out with reports about people collecting money and sending it to the Kursk region.

So, he's sort of on the one hand trying to gloss over it, on the other hand, blaming the West and promising a response. So obviously, keeping an eye out for that, but it is hard to distinguish Russian revenge from the general course of hostilities in Ukraine. I think the key thing for Putin is that a weekend, he has told the defense ministry to kick the enemy out. They still haven't. We are still seeing evacuations, as you noted, this spreading that there are already some 180,000 ordered as of Monday. We now see another region getting involved there. So, Russia is now going to have to deal with a couple of hundred of -- a couple of hundred thousand internally displaced people within its own country. As for Ukraine, well, they are maintaining very clearly that this is defensive, is designed to degrade Russia's ability to attack. Take a listen to President Zelenskyy on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): It is entirely justified to destroy Russian terrorists wherever they are, wherever they launch their attacks from, Russian military airfields, Russian logistics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So he says that the areas, some 1,000 square kilometers according to his army chief, that they are occupying within the Kursk region, those are the same areas he says, in particular, from where Russia has been launching attacks into the adjacent Ukrainian region of Sumy, some 2,000 or so shellings he says over the past couple of months. So, they are maintaining that that is the sort of core part of the strategy to stop Russia being able to attack with such frequency.

MACFARLANE: I mean, this isn't a sizable area, but it is psychologically damaging, right, for Russia? I mean, Zelenskyy has said that he hopes this will also improve their negotiating position with Russia. I mean, what are the chances that this change in the dynamic of the war in that sense?

SEBASTIAN: So I mean, look, if you listen to what Putin said on Monday, negotiations are further away than ever. He said, we cannot negotiate with an enemy that indiscriminately attacks civilians as Russia is now accusing Ukraine of doing on its territory and tries to threaten a nuclear plant, which is again, a little backwards if you look at the fact that it is Russia that's occupying Zaporizhzhia where we saw a fire starting earlier in the week. I think interestingly, Russia has left the door open to potential negotiations.

They have maintained now for really the best part of the war that it is, in fact, Ukraine standing in the way, and it is willing to talk, obviously, on its own terms.

[08:25:00]

So, if it does agree to negotiations at any point, they will be looking for a way to look like they're not forced into it by this, that it is happening on their own terms. And we know that Zelenskyy has talked about holding another peace meeting in November, which he would invite Russia to. But look, nothing is scheduled as of yet and obviously, this does potentially complicate things, but I think it is -- it isn't impossible that that could happen.

MACFARLANE: We will watch closely to see how this develops in the hours ahead. Clare, thank you.

Now, as people in North Korea try to recover from weeks of heavy rain and flooding, state media is casting Kim Jong-Un not just as the country's leader, but as its savior. But with the regime shrouded in secrecy and Kim rejecting any foreign assistance, the big question is, how much devastation has been hidden from the eyes of the world? CNN's Will Ripley reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On his emerald green bulletproof train, loaded with supplies from the capital Pyongyang, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is portrayed as a hero on state TV, traveling to areas devastated by flooding. Record rains left entire towns and villages under water, just miles from the Chinese border in the northwest of the country. State media reports thousands of evacuations, but no deaths, a claim impossible to verify with no foreign aid organizations allowed in.

Kim delivering a defiant speech from the railcar carrying his armored limousine, declaring with confidence, North Korea is fully self- reliant, rejecting all offers of international aid, even from allies, China and Russia, at least for now.

Some fear Kim's deepening military partnership with fellow strongman Vladimir Putin could be giving his economy and confidence a boost. Russia effectively vetoed United Nation's sanctions monitoring earlier this year, opening the door for illicit trade, the U.S. says, perhaps emboldening Kim to shut the door on international aid and diplomacy.

LINDA THOMAS-GREENFIELD, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: We are prepared to have an open dialog with the North Koreans without preconditions. We want to pursue diplomacy.

RIPLEY (voice-over): U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas- Greenfield visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone this spring, telling outfront at the time, any top-level meeting like Former President Trump's summits with Kim would require lots of legwork.

THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Before any meeting like that could happen, we have to have engagements at other levels.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Trump signaling he'd be willing to engage directly with Kim if re-elected.

TRUMP: I got along very well with North Korea, Kim Jong-Un -- I get along with him. He'd like to see me back too. I think he misses me.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Vice President Kamala Harris taking a decidedly unfriendly stance during her visit to the DMZ in 2022.

HARRIS: In the North, we see a brutal dictatorship, rampant human rights violations, and an unlawful weapons program that threatens peace and stability.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Kim blasted South Korean media for speculating about massive flooding casualties, calling it a smear campaign from a dirty, rubbish country. North Korea even tried sending another round of trash balloons, following South Korea's offer of humanitarian aid. South Korean media reports shifting winds blew all, but ten of them, back.

South Korea's unification ministry accuses Kim of trying to shift focus away from the devastating flood damage, visible even in these carefully edited state TV images. This is what North Korea wants the world to see. Kim visiting flood survivors living in tents under the sweltering summer heat, as many wonder what state media is not showing, how many people may be suffering for the sake of self- reliance.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Now, the questions were easy, but getting the interview up and running was seemingly more difficult. Elon Musk's conversation with Donald Trump goes off the rails before it even starts. We've got highlights for you next.

And voters in the key election battleground of Pennsylvania reveal that they are -- well, I'm not sure if they're convinced by Kamala or turned off by Trump. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:50]

MACFARLANE: Now, with just six days until the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump is perhaps trying to slow the recent momentum of his rival Kamala Harris. Last night, the Republican nominee join tech mogul Elon Musk for a live stream conversation on X, formerly known as Twitter. The X chairman said the event was aimed at "independent voters trying to make up their mind." Here's some of what Donald Trump had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We are going to have the largest deportation in history of this country, and we have no choice. One of the things we are going to do is we are going to build an iron dome over us. You know, Israel has it. We are going to have the best iron dome in the world. I want to close the Department of Education --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: The live stream was delayed about 40 minutes with Musk claiming it was a cyber attack on his site, but also acknowledging "some unforced errors." Meanwhile, the Harris campaign taking advantage of the technical issues to repost Trump's own mocking of Ron DeSantis' experience of similar troubles when he launched his presidential campaign on Twitter last year.

Meanwhile, Vice President Harris has been campaigning in battleground states, reintroducing herself to voters since becoming the Democratic nominee for president. CNN's John King went to Pennsylvania for his series "All Over The Map" and spoke with voters in the suburbs of Philadelphia. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KING (voice-over): Bucks County, Pennsylvania. This covered bridge a local treasure. Michael Pesce often stops along the trail here to fish and to think. Not a great time to be a Reagan Republican. Pesce supported Nikki Haley, but won't vote for Donald Trump ever. And he sees Kamala Harris as more liberal than he would like.

MICHAEL PESCE, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I have doubts about her. She's going to be tied to the Biden record regardless of what she says or what she does.

KING: Does it impact your calculation for what you do?

PESCE: No, it doesn't change anything at all. I'm still not going to vote for Trump regardless. So, I'm not excited about voting for Kamala Harris, but it's better than the alternative.

KING (voice-over): Every vote counts though, enthusiastic or not. Big margins in the suburbs around Philadelphia are critical for Democrats. Bucks is more blue collar and off late, the most competitive of the collar counties.

KING: If I were here the day after the debate and I asked you, you think Biden could win Pennsylvania? You would have said?

PESCE: No way. It would have been no way.

KING: Do you think Harris can win Pennsylvania?

PESCE: I think she can. I think she can. I think the energy she's brought to the campaign, the fact that she's a woman and women's rights are going to be a big deal here in Pennsylvania. And I think that's kind of where Pennsylvania will go.

KING (Voice-over): Berks County is more rural and more Trumpy, just outside the suburban collar, but margins matter everywhere in the battlegrounds.

Joan London is an attorney for local governments.

JOAN LONDON, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Bloom farm zoning permit status. We had a meeting this morning, very productive meeting.

KING (voice-over): London cast her primary vote for Haley, then switched her registration to independent. She worries about Trump's course tone and what she sees as angry populism. A new worry since our last visit in May, Trump running mate J.D. Vance. No cats, but married and childless. Now, even more proud she left the GOP.

[08:35:00]

LONDON: I've led a very full life that way and to say, I don't have a stake in the future of the country, I had -- I had some difficulty with that and all I could think of -- Senator Vance, are you going to tell Ann Coulter or Condoleezza Rice or Elizabeth Dole, they are miserable cat ladies? I don't -- I don't think so.

KING (voice-over): London plans to ride in a conservative, but she leaves the Harris window open just a crack.

LONDON: If Donald Trump or J.D. Vance really says something so outrageously offensive, that could drive me to vote for Vice President Harris, but it's highly unlikely. She just doesn't -- she doesn't represent my values, my beliefs about policy.

KING (voice-over): Media is in Delaware County. Cynthia Sabatini knows a lot about the change here.

CYNTHIA SABATINI, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: My street was rock-ribbed Republican. Now, you have to shake a stick to find a Republican.

KING (voice-over): Sabatini is also never Trump.

SABATINI: And I watch his campaign rallies. It's all about him; it's not about the country.

KING (voice-over): This is now the third campaign in which these Never Trump voters hold significant sway. In 2016, Sabatini rode in a Republican senator. Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania. In 2020, she voted for Biden.

KING: Was that hard?

SABATINI: No, because I didn't want to see Trump elected, after the chaos of the prior four years.

KING (voice-over): Sabatini said she has read things that worry her about Harris, about immigration policy, and about being tough on her staff, probably another ride in this November, but the 2016 result, still stings.

SABATINI: I'm trying to keep an open mind about Harris. If the rap on her as I read, is correct.

KING (voice-over): Bala Cynwyd is in Montgomery County.

CARTY: I was very Republican when I was growing up.

KING: And it is not anymore?

CARTY: And it is Democrat now.

KING (voice-over): Carol Carty is an attorney, a registered Republican. She's angry that Trump constantly attacks courts and judges and election results.

CARTY: I'm now turning on '80s songs to go back to the '80s. In my lifetime, the Republican Party has changed with Donald Trump.

KING (voice-over): Clinton 2016, Biden 2020, a Never Trumper she thought. But inflation and immigration soured her on Biden. And then she watched the June debate. CARTY: When Biden was on the ticket, I was going to vote for Trump. But now, it's a harder call. Just because I am not a fan of Donald Trump.

KING (voice-over): Nor now of Senator Vance.

CARTY: I'm not a cat lady. I was a childless dog lady because I didn't -- I didn't meet the right person until I was over 40-years-old. So, I could very well be one of those childless women and I found the comment insensitive and narrow-minded.

KING (voice-over): This is near Carty's summer home on Maryland's eastern shore. She says the conversations back home among her Philly suburban mom friends are crystal clear.

CARTY: Definitely, I have more friends saying that they're leaning towards Harris.

KING (voice-over): But she still has reservations and hopes a Harris- Trump debate helps.

CARTY: Tell me what you did exactly at your last job, and what are your goals for this job if you get the job, and that's what I want to hear from Kamala Harris.

KING (voice-over): Scoring the campaign, just like a job interview, in the suburbs that usually decide who gets hired.

John King, CNN, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MACFARLANE: Political analyst Michael Genovese joins us now live from Los Angeles. Michael, great to have you with us. I first just want to get your thoughts on the Musk interview, Michael, because I think to most observers, this looked extremely rambling, very chaotic, and I think emphasized again just how much Donald Trump is trying to recapture, get back in this race. What were your thoughts on it?

MICHAEL GENOVESE, POLITICAL ANALYST: I think you're right. Trump is trying to reclaim the limelight he lost to Harris in the last few weeks. Donald Trump is accustomed to dominating the public space, and Joe Biden could never move him off center stage. Harris has moved him off center stage, and that has flummoxed Donald Trump. But as you said, this was long, over two hours, boring, and a lot of softball questions.

What most interested me was the connection and the relationship that seemed to emerge between Musk and Trump. Trump was acting as if Musk was the one he was trying to please. And Musk was using this opportunity to try to set policy and press Donald Trump to adopt some of his preferred policies like government spending, which he thinks has gone crazy, and he kept on pushing Donald Trump to commit to stopping and/or reducing that. The second thing was deregulation, another issue that's big for Elon Musk. And so, I think it was more Musk using Trump than Trump using Musk. MACFARLANE: Interesting. I mean, we didn't hear much in terms of policy really, as you mentioned there, from Donald Trump. But really, we haven't yet heard much on policy either from Kamala Harris. I mean, she hasn't laid out her policy portfolio. I expect we will hear more on that at the Democratic Convention next week.

But what we have seen, I think in recent days, is Kamala Harris sort of move towards issues that are more in the Republican domain in terms of the economy, in terms of immigration, also most recently the no tax on tips, which is something we were hearing Donald Trump railing against yesterday in that interview.

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I mean, as a strategy, her kind of trying to claim that ground, what do you make of that?

GENOVESE: Well, what normally happens in an election is that once the nominees are set, they move to the center and I think that's what Harris is trying to do. She is trying to capture some of the center. And she knows that voters, especially swing voters, don't like Trump, but they're not sure about her. And so, she's trying to create a narrative that suggests that she's very acceptable, she's middle of the road, more maybe a little center-left. She has to counter the Trump attacks that she's a radical leftist. And I think that's what we'll be seeing at the convention.

MACFARLANE: Harris is also due to have her first joint campaign appearance with Joe Biden on Thursday. I mean, it's a delicate balancing act for her, how much she sort of needs his support this time, but also while trying to distinguish her own campaign away from Joe Biden. But, you know, we just saw in that package there from John King that there are still a lot of undecided voters in Pennsylvania. I mean, is it -- how much does she need Joe Biden at this stage for what is going to be a crucial swing state?

GENOVESE: You know, Joe Biden is going to speak at the convention we expect and the Democrats need to show respect for him. And so, I think this is for the Democratic base. But the election is going to be hinged upon two different sets of voters who are up in the air right now, the Midwestern voters and the suburbs. And John King's piece about the voters in the suburbs is just spot on.

The voters are still somewhat volatile and up for grabs. And Kamala Harris has a chance to introduce herself to those voters. They -- she's a known quantity, but not a well-known quantity. And so if he can set the narrative as opposed to Trump setting the narrative of who she is and what she wants to do, she'll go a long way, and being kind to Biden is something that a lot of Democrats are saying that's a nice thing to do. That shows me what characters she has.

MACFARLANE: I mean, she is leading in crucial swing states at this stage, I mean, which has obviously been a definite boost to the Democrats. But, do you see her maintaining that kind of momentum? What messaging does -- you mentioned that she has to kind of catch more of the center-ground, being kind to Biden is one way of doing that. But, what else does she have to do to maintain this momentum beyond the Democratic Convention?

GENOVESE: Well, I think right now, the Democrats are on a sugar high. Can it last? She has the opportunity to really continue to build momentum. She still has a honeymoon period and people are still sort of squaring with who she is, trying to decide what they think of her. So, she has a great opportunity to do that. The convention will be the key for her, especially her convention speech. Lot of people will watch that and they will hinge a lot of their sense of who she is on that and how she presents herself.

This is going to be her first sort of coming out party, the first chance that voters really will take a look at who she is and what she has to say.

MACFARLANE: All right. Well, all eyes on the convention next week, a lot of pressure on the Democratic candidate. And Michael Genovese, thank you so much for joining us, giving us your thoughts. We appreciate it.

GENOVESE: Thank you, Christina.

MACFARLANE: Now, still to come, a sweltering summer in the city. New CNN reporting reveals how scorching temperatures are hitting more than 260 million people across the United States.

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MACFARLANE: Welcome back. It is a scorching summer in the U.S., especially if you live in a city like most Americans. But it's not just about this summer, it's a long-term effect. Compared to the 1970s, nearly all of America's big cities now get more days classified as extremely hot. That's over 95-degrees Fahrenheit. The worst cities are desert cities like Phoenix, Arizona, where paramedics now travel with body bags full of ice to treat people suffering from heat, exhaustion or heat strokes.

CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir is with us. So Bill, talk us through the findings that you've been looking into on this?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Christina. We really looked at the data and what you're feeling plays out in the numbers as well. If you take the 50 biggest cities in the United States and count the number of days above 95 Fahrenheit or 35-degrees Celsius, back in the '70s, you had about 1,000 -- 1064 days or so you could count on, on all of those 50 cities. Last year, it had nearly doubled to 1,857 total days.

One reason that things are getting worse is that these hot days are kicking in sooner. If you look at the calendar, what used to start middle of June or late June, can now start mid-June. As we move on to the next graphic, and then it can the last into mid-September. So there's an extra almost a month of hot days built in over this time. But not all cities are equal. And the cities that are in Texas and Arizona are really the ones suffering the most. Las Vegas, 83 days above 95 degrees, and that is a big jump over what it was even a generation or two ago. San Antonio has had the biggest leap. They had a week worth of 95 degree temperatures back in the '70s. It was 13 weeks last year, a jump of over 1,200 percent. Nashville is getting hotter. Atlanta in the south, Baltimore and Washington on the East Coast, having a scorching 2024 as well.

And then when you look at the next graphic, really the three hottest cities in the country that are really having to adapt the fastest are all in Arizona -- Phoenix, Mesa, and Tucson, 158 days in Phoenix in those super scorching temperatures, Christina, there. So adaptation is really a matter of life and death in these places.

MACFARLANE: Yeah. So, how are cities adapting to this massive change? It sounds pretty (inaudible).

WEIR: Well, you mentioned -- you mentioned in Phoenix that all ambulances and fire trucks now carry body bags full of ice.

MACFARLANE: Yeah.

WEIR: They try to get these heat stroke victims cooled off as fast as possible because of over 103-degrees Fahrenheit, your brain is literally cooking. Your organs are failing, so they're adapting in terms of first response and construction, building -- taller buildings closer to the street creating canyons of shade. There's plans to plant thousands of trees across a lot of these cities as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. But that takes time, right, to build new cities, to build new infrastructure for these more scorching climates now.

And in the meantime, it's just a matter of training first responders, building cooling centers that are open 24 hours in some cases because the temperatures overnight are still really stressful on the human body, but it's happening so fast, these changes, Christina, so city managers, planners have to have to up the pace to keep up with the rising thermometer.

MACFARLANE: Yeah, it is -- it's pretty insane, isn't it? Just over the course of 40 years for it to change that quickly. Bill Weir with us. Thanks very much, Bill.

WEIR: You bet.

MACFARLANE: All right. Still to come, winning an Olympic medal is a massive achievement. But for gymnast Jordan Chiles, the happiness didn't last long, we'll explain why next.

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MACFARLANE: USA gymnastics says it's appeal for Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles to keep her bronze medal has been denied. Chiles won bronze for her floor exercise routine at The Games in Paris. But only after her coach successfully challenged the difficulty score which have been judged incorrectly. That challenge added an additional tenth of a point to her score and bumped up to third.

But the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on Saturday that the challenge to Chiles' initial score occurred too late, outside of the one-minute period. And now, the U.S. is appealing, that ruling has been denied. I know this sounds extremely complicated. Andy Scholes is here to explain what it means for Jordan Chiles and what comes next. Andy, this is a bit of a mess.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN WORLD SPORT REPORTER: It certainly is, Christina. And you know, technically, that bronze medal now belongs to Romania's Ana Barbosu. But Jordan Chiles is back in the United States with that bronze medal. And for now, I doubt she's going to be in any rush to send that back because USA gymnastics says they're going to continue to fight for her to keep that bronze medal.

In a statement, USA gymnastics said they were notified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday that their rules do not allow for an arbitral award to be reconsidered even when conclusive new evidence is presented. They went on to say, we are deeply disappointed by the notification and are going to continue to pursue every possible avenue and appeal process, including to the Swiss Federal Tribunal to ensure the just scoring placement and medal award for Jordan. So that's the next step.

It's going to go to the Swiss Tribunal with that video evidence, the U.S. says they have. Now, during the competition, as you mentioned, Christina, coaches have one minute after the routine to file an appeal to the judges. Well, Romania's original complaint said the U.S. took too long, to which the Court of Arbitration agreed. They said it ended up being four seconds too long, a minute and four seconds. But the U.S. says they have that video evidence saying they actually did the appeal in 47 seconds. So, we'll wait and see what the Swiss Court has to say about all of this. Olympic medals, Christina, a lot of the time, it's all about seconds, right? You know, you've got to finish first in a matter of seconds.

MACFARLANE: Yeah.

SCHOLES: But it shouldn't be like this when we are talking about seconds, right? I mean, it seems like a certainly, it's just a technicality.

MACFARLANE: I know. The technicality around this is blowing my mind. And also honestly, my feeling towards the athletes because you've -- I heard that Jordan Chiles is taking a break from social media. I don't blame her. And we are hearing also that this appeal now could last months, if not years. How are the athletes themselves doing in responding to this?

SCHOLES: Well, yeah, you said she's taking a break from social media and another thing about this, Christina, is Romania never wanted to take a medal away from Jordan Chiles, you know. When they sent in this appeal, they were basically saying, Chiles should keep her bronze, but you know, Barbosu, she should get a bronze as well. And there is actually another gymnast involved in all of this. They thought her score was wrong as well, that she should probably get a bronze as well.

And the IOC, they could have nipped this in the bud, Christina. They could have just looked at all of this and said, you know what, the Paris Games, they were so good. We don't want any stains. Both of these girls deserve a bronze medal, and that's what we are going do. But instead, they went this route and now, it looks like we are going to just be having appeal after appeal and it's going to end up with so many people just being unhappy about the entire situation when it was such a great event.

MACFARLANE: And after that highlight of the three of them standing on the podium, Biles and Andrade as well, I mean, this is -- it's just tarnishing, isn't it, to that memory? But we will wait and see what the outcome is. Andy, appreciate you breaking it down for us. Thank you.

Now, archaeologists in the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy have unearthed the skeletal remains of a man and a woman buried in the volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago. The women's remains were found on a bed in a small villa surrounded by gold, silver, and bronze coins. The man was laying at the foot of the bed.

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The once thriving city near Naples was buried by volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in the year 79 A.D.

And a Bosnian businessman has taken one of Vincent Van Gogh's most famous paintings and turned it into a nature park. Van Gogh's 'The Starry Night' can now be seen amid the green hills and meadows near the town of Visoko. The man behind the park says it's an idea he has been working on for 20 years. It stretches ten hectares or about 24 acres, and features 130,000 lavender bushes, medicinal and aromatic herbs, and 13 lakes created from existing natural streams. The park will focus on art programs and promoting Central Bosnia's cultural heritage.

What a lovely idea? And that is it for our edition of "CNN Newsroom." I'm Christina MacFarlane. Stay with us. "Connect the World" with Becky Anderson is up next.

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