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83 Days Until U.S. Election; Trump's Allies Raise Concerns About His Recent Remarks; Tropical Storm Ernesto Gets Stronger; Biden: Concerned About Ceasefire Deal's Prospects; Workers Allege Nightmare Conditions at Kentucky Startup J.D. Vance Helped Fund. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired August 14, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I happen to be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan. Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald's trying to make a McFlurry or something?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very heavy rainfall coming down at this hour. You can lose an awful lot of power here. We know that from history and this storm is going to make a run to Bermuda.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks like we're swinging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, there you go. This is the jewel of Coney Island right here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the wonder wheel. This is Coney Island, guys. Places like Coney Island are essential businesses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Christina Macfarlane. Max is off this week.
It's 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. in Asheville, North Carolina, where tonight former U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to speak on the economy. His team is hoping he'll stay on message as Trump struggles to regain his footing in the presidential race, often turning to conspiracy theories or racially tinged insults against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala, you know, nobody knows her last name. It's Harris. No, everyone thinks of her as Kamala. So it's Kamala Harris.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: In recent weeks, Trump has appeared frustrated and unfocused, airing old grievances and launching attacks on his former opponent, President Joe Biden, and even his fellow Republicans. His allies fear his behavior may come at a cost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want this campaign to win, but the campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It's not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb.
It's not. You can't win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they're smart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: Well, meanwhile, Kamala Harris' running mate Tim Waltz made his first solo appearance on Tuesday speaking to union members. He played up his and Harris's middle class background.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I happen to be the first union member on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan.
(APPLAUSE)
WALTZ: But. But rest assured, I won't lose my way.
You heard the story. You knew Vice President Harris grew up in a middle class family, picked up shifts at that McDonald's as a student. I keep asking this to make a contrast here.
Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald's trying to make a McFlurry or something? It's -- oh, he knows, he knows as he knows as he couldn't run that damn McFlurry machine if it does him anything. So.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: Well, for her part, the vice president is set to deliver an economic policy speech in rally on Friday, hoping to silence criticisms from the Trump campaign. CNN's Kristen Holmes reports on the state of the race.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are three different things that are happening here. One, you have Donald Trump dabbling in these conspiracy theories. So that is talking about the crowd sizes, talking about Kamala Harris's ethnicity. Then you have him completely off message. One instance that was pointed out to me by a number of conservatives was him at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, going after Governor Brian Kemp, a very popular Republican governor in what is now a very critical swing state. That's a message that they would not like him to be sending.
And then the third is that people are really paying much more attention now. When you talk about him going off message and these fringe theories, he really runs a risk. And this is what his allies are telling me they're concerned about, of people remembering or voters remembering why they shied away from him in 2020, when he was pushing all of those lies about the 2020 election.
Now, if you talk to people who are close to him, who are outside of the campaign, they are encouraging him both privately and publicly to stay on message. And I want to read you one exchange between Larry Kudlow, who served on the Trump administration, and Kellyanne Conway, who obviously was part of the administration and led his successful 2016 campaign.
She says to Kudlow, the winning formula for President Trump is plain to see. It's fewer insults, more insights, and that policy contrast. Where Larry Kudlow says, don't wander off, don't call her stupid or all kinds of names and stay on message.
[04:05:00]
Now, partially what's been alarming to people who are close to Donald Trump is this picking up of these fringe conspiracy theories. It is something they've seen before, and they worry that he is particularly susceptible when he is in a state of vulnerability.
Obviously, Donald Trump has had a lot of upsets in the campaign recently, particularly as we have seen the enthusiasm boost for Kamala Harris, the polling boost for Kamala Harris.
And his advisors really blame the accessibility that people have to him, that these kind of fringe conspiracy theorists have to him, whether it be at Mar-a-Lago, whether it be on the golf course, whether it be the fact that they have his cell phone number. Many times these advisors don't even know who Donald Trump is speaking to on a regular basis. And so that is where he's getting some of this.
And now he's at a point where he is promoting it. And that is where they see a problem, particularly when they want him to stay on message as this race seems incredibly tight.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Well, CNN projects Minnesota representative Democrat Ilhan Omar will beat back a primary challenge. Omar defeated former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels for a chance to return to Congress.
Her victory comes as a relief for progressives, especially those critical of Israel's war in Gaza. Pro-Israel groups have spent millions propping up challenges to progressive House Democrats. Omar called the campaign the ugliest of her life.
The National Hurricane Center says tropical storm Ernesto will strengthen and become a hurricane in the coming hours. Right now, it's just shy of a hurricane with 70 miles per hour winds and located about 40 miles north of San Juan. More than 100,000 customers in Puerto Rico are already in the dark and nearly all customers across the U.S. Virgin Islands are without power. Flash flood warnings have been issued across the area.
Now, Ernesto won't make a direct landfall in Puerto Rico, but heavy rainfall and strong winds are lashing the island. The storm could become a major hurricane in a few days and could potentially impact Bermuda. Here's what we know right now.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for all of Puerto Rico. Public schools are closed and dozens of shelters have been opened. People are preparing for widespread power outages, floods and mudslides.
This comes as the island's electrical grid is still being repaired after it was severely damaged by Hurricane Maria seven years ago and the National Guard has been activated.
The National Weather Service is warning that flush flooding is expected to begin shortly in Puerto Rico. People there have been stocking up on bottled water and gasoline and other suppliers as they prepare for the storm.
CNN's Chad Myers has the storm forecast.
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CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, behind me here is Ernesto. There's Puerto Rico, very heavy rainfall coming down at this hour. In places, could see four to six inches of rain.
And with the wind, even in Puerto Rico, with even a 40 or 50 mile per hour wind, we can lose an awful lot of power here. We know that from history. Maybe four to six inches even over the British Virgin Islands as the tails, the outer bands still come over parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico proper.
Temperatures in the ocean are one to two degrees, even three to four degrees Fahrenheit above normal for this time of year. And this storm is going to make a run to Bermuda. It's going to be left or going to be right.
The American model is on the west side. The European model is on the right side. What you need to know is that this thing could be 110 mile per hour hurricane as it makes its way toward Bermuda.
That's only one, two miles per hour, less than a category three hurricane. And with the waters being so warm, there's no way to know whether it's going to be a two or a three. But then where does it possibly go?
Well, if you're in Nova Scotia or in Newfoundland, I want you to pay attention because some of the models are trying to turn this back toward the west, not into the U.S. or into Boston at this point, but still could be a brush with Nova Scotia and there at Newfoundland.
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MACFARLANE: Now, Iran's threat of military action against Israel is looming over the Gaza ceasefire and hostage talks set to resume in Qatar on Thursday. Hamas is planning to send a delegation, but they will not meet directly with Israelis. Diplomatic sources tell CNN the talks are not expected to stop Iran from retaliating against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh last month.
But U.S. officials say Tehran has not yet decided on a course of action. CNN's MJ Lee is at the White House with the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas war that has been elusive for so many months has clearly become more complicated after the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. President Biden, who until quite recently had expressed real optimism about those talks, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that those talks had, in fact, become more difficult. Take a listen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think you can still get to a ceasefire deal, or is that starting to be a distant possibility?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's getting hard. We'll see what Iran does, and we'll see what happens if we're going to attack.
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But I'm not giving up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are those two things tied together? Do you have the understanding that Iran could cease or stop doing an action if a ceasefire deal was possible?
BIDEN: That's my expectation, but we'll see.
LEE: I am told by administration officials that at least as of Tuesday, the U.S. still does not believe that Iran has decided on a course of action against Israel, and there are furious diplomatic efforts by the Biden administration to try to deter a wide-scale attack and to de-escalate what is a very volatile situation.
One official telling CNN that they do believe that the U.S.'s public warnings against Iran do seem to have had some kind of effect, but it is clearly a waiting game right now for Israel and the U.S. and other Western countries that are bracing for whatever actions Iran might take against Israel, potentially in the coming days.
And what is undeniable is that for White House officials close to the president, they will all acknowledge that getting a ceasefire deal is one of the biggest outstanding pieces of a part of his foreign policy legacy that is really top of mind for President Biden as he has just a number of months left of his first and last term at the White House.
But as the president himself made clear on Tuesday, those talks, those ceasefire talks that he has been so closely engaged in for a number of months, they do appear to be back in limbo at this moment in time.
MJ Lee, CNN at the White House.
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MACFARLANE: CNN's Paula Hancocks is with me and has been following developments. Paula, Biden trying to strike, I think, a bit of an optimistic tone there over these negotiations, but the reality is they're going to be incredibly fraught. We've heard both Hamas and Israel accusing each other of stalling this deal. How much influence can the U.S. exert over these negotiations?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think certainly the U.S. can exert a little more influence over Israel, but we've seen from recent months not too much influence over Israel. They're really going their own way. We're seeing, for example, two of the top Middle East envoys from the Biden administration heading to the region this week.
Brett McGurk will be in Qatar and Egypt, those two key mediation countries, and also Amos Hochstein, who is in and out of Beirut trying to stop the simmering tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
So they're doing everything they can, but the fact is Hamas has said that they have already agreed to a proposal. It's the one that was flagged last month and approved by the U.N. Security Council. It's been supported by the U.S. president, and they don't want to go back to these talks. They don't feel the need to go back and rehash.
But from the Israeli perspective, we understand from the prime minister's office they will be sending a delegation, and it doesn't appear as though they have finished negotiating yet.
MACFARLANE: And we have heard that the U.S. have also authorized billions of dollars of an arms deal in the last day, just days ahead of this ceasefire. Critics will say that that is potentially a missed opportunity on their part to use it as leverage. You were talking about, you know, how limited that is against Israel at this time.
I mean, is this a bit of a missed opportunity here in terms of the timing of the agreement of that?
HANCOCKS: Well, this is a deal that's been in the pipeline for some time. Of course, the fact that it's announced just one day, just one day ago, is going to be significant. But it is a deal where these weapons, some $20 billion of weapons, will be delivered to Israel in the coming years. It's not going to influence anything on the ground at the moment.
But of course, the time is going to be looked at very closely. You've got, for example, 50 F-15 fighter jets. That's about $18 billion, potentially the biggest weapons deal that the U.S. and Israel have done. So it is very significant.
We have heard in the past that the Biden administration has said that they are going to withhold certain weapons from Israel because of what they're doing in Gaza. But then at the same time, you have this very significant weapons deal that they are announcing as well. So depending on which analyst you speak to, it's the carrot or the stick. What are they trying to do with Israel? But this particular deal has been in the pipeline for some time.
MACFARLANE: All right, Paula Hancocks, thank you.
Japan's prime minister says he'll step down next month, ending a three-year term marked by political scandals. Fumio Kishida made the announcement during a news conference earlier today, saying he will not seek re-election as president of the ruling party, the Democratic LDP. He said bowing out is his effort to restore people's faith in politics.
His party has been rocked by some major political scandals involving allegations of failing to properly declare income and giving kickbacks to lawmakers. Concerns about the economy, including a weakening yen against the U.S. dollar, have also undermined confidence in Prime Minister Kishida's policies.
[04:15:00]
Now, ahead, a CNN investigation reveals nightmare conditions for workers at a startup that Republican vice president nominee J.D. Vance helped fund.
Plus, residents in the suburbs of Athens are struggling with the devastation left by a fast-moving wildfire. We'll have the latest on the blaze ahead.
And Banksy's Animal Series is leaving a trail across London, with this mural appearing in a very fitting spot.
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MACFARLANE: Welcome back. Donald Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, has proclaimed he's the champion for the working class. But a new CNN investigation found that before entering politics, Vance was an early investor in a farming start-up.
That company promised to provide jobs for locals in Kentucky. Ultimately, it failed, and workers alleged they experienced, quote, nightmare conditions and were eventually replaced with migrant laborers. CNN's Kyung Lah has the story.
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ANTHONY MORGAN, FORMER APPHARVEST EMPLOYEE: A nightmare. It was a nightmare that should have never happened.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That nightmare happened here at this nearly empty greenhouse in eastern Kentucky.
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AppHarvest, a failed high tech startup, promised local workers a future that spiraled into broken promises. Anthony Morgan bought into the company's public pitch that it was for Appalachia, by Appalachians.
MORGAN: We was being told that, hey guys, he's from here.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you. Wow.
LAH (voice-over): He is J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president.
VANCE: I will be a vice president who never forgets where he came from.
LAH (voice-over): Leaning on his personal rise out of poverty to reach swing state voters as Donald Trump's running mate.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I chose him because he's for the worker. He's for the people that work so hard and perhaps weren't treated like they should have been.
LAH (voice-over): But before politics, Vance was a venture capitalist, an AppHarvest's first outside investor, eventually steering millions of dollars to the company. Vance was a lead pitchman for the vertical farming startup, tweeting he was a supporter and investor, writing: I love this company.
VANCE: It's a great business that's making a big difference in the world.
LAH (voice-over): The company's investor presentation pledged a commitment to Appalachia, estimating thousands of new jobs to a poverty stricken area.
MORGAN: A major emphasis with them was we want to bring work to Eastern Kentucky. This is why we are here.
LAH (voice-over): Morgan left a stable job to join AppHarvest as a crop care specialist, pruning the greenhouse grown vegetables. A single father with six-year-old twins. The job rapidly turned when production fell behind under what a dozen workers described to CNN as mismanagement, including dangerous conditions.
Employees filed multiple complaints to the state and federal government alleging heat exhaustion, working in extreme temperatures, and lack of water breaks. Though the cases were all closed with no citations.
MORGAN: I think about the hottest that I experienced was around 128 degrees.
LAH: Inside?
MORGAN: Inside. A couple days a week, you'd have ambulance show up, and you've seen people leaving on gurneys to go to the hospital.
LAH (voice-over): The cuts came next to promised worker benefits. And then foreign workers came in to fill those so-called local jobs.
MORGAN: The second round of folks they brought in was folks on work visas and they didn't bring just a van full, they brought bus loads.
LAH (voice-over): Documents show AppHarvest hired contract workers from outside the region. At one point, as many as 500, the majority of its workforce, not locals. But that's not the image AppHarvest wanted the world to see.
This is Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell visiting in 2021.
LAH: Mitch McConnell coming through. Were the migrant workers there at the time? You're laughing. I mean, I look at the video, it doesn't look like there's any --
MORGAN: They hid these guys. They took them out of the plant. They was gone. And then Mitch McConnell was giving a speech about all this work that AppHarvest has brought Eastern Kentuckians.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I like the idea of taking the tomato market away from the Mexicans. How about that?
LAH: So they were trying to hide the migrant workers?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Specifically, yes.
LAH (voice-over): This worker, who asked not to be identified, says the hiring of migrant workers became part of a mirage that AppHarvest was helping the region. He took this video as his co-workers clapped for visiting investors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And any time they did that, they kept workers off the floor doing our like stationary parade while people come through. And, yes, it was awkward having to stand there and just be a prop.
LAH: A prop for what?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, look at all of these poor folks we're employing.
LAH (voice-over): The worker says it's impossible to forget about his time at AppHarvest as J.D. Vance ascends to national politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's gotten away with a lot of money and fame for pretending to be one of us.
VANCE: O-H-I-O.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's just another grifter, just another carpetbagger, another tourist who wants to tell us what we are. LAH (voice-over): Vance left the board in April 2021 to run for the Senate. Shortly after, shareholders filed suit claiming they were misled. By 2023, AppHarvest had filed for bankruptcy a little more than two years after its public launch. But the workers in this failed startup say they are the real people in the Vance story.
LAH: Do you blame J.D. Vance for any of this?
MORGAN: I blame all of the original investors at AppHarvest.
[04:25:00]
The original board of directors know what was coming. You would have had to have been an idiot not to have.
LAH: CNN's review of documents and interviews with a dozen former workers show problems emerged while Vance was still a member of AppHarvest's board. Now, after he departed, he was still an investor and had more than $100,000 invested in the company, according to disclosures.
Now, spokesman for Vance says to CNN in a statement, J.D. was not aware of the operational decisions regarding hiring, employee benefits or other workplace policies which were made after he departed AppHarvest's board. Like all early supporters, J.D. believed in AppHarvest's mission and wishes the company would have succeeded.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACFARLANE: Incredible reporting there.
Now, drone strikes and an incursion as Ukrainian forces move deeper into Russian territory. Regional leaders are sounding the alarm to Moscow.
Plus, there's no end in sight to the heat wave in parts of Europe. The latest details just ahead.
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MACFARLANE: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. Here are some of the top stories we're following today.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is blaming technical issues for his voice sounding, quote, somewhat different and strange during his conversation with Elon Musk.
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