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Trump Picks Ohio Senator JD Vance For Running Mate; Biden Calls "Bullseye" Comment A "Mistake"; Biden Says He Will Not Leave The Race In NBC Interview. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired July 16, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:33:40]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Five thirty-three a.m. not here in Milwaukee. I keep -- I keep getting hung up on this. It is 4:33 central time here in Milwaukee. I tend to stay in East Coast time. For those of you watching on the East Coast it is 5:33 a.m. This is the skyline here in Milwaukee on this Tuesday morning, the second full day of the Republican National Convention.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

A once Never Trumper is now Donald Trump's running mate. The former president announcing yesterday his vice-presidential pick is JD Vance, a freshman senator from Ohio. He's just 39 years old. We are the same age. He is the youngest vice-presidential candidate since Richard Nixon.

The two men appeared publicly together last night for the first time since the announcement at the RNC. Vance came out 20 minutes after talking to Donald Trump about this. And in an interview with Fox News, Vance described the moment that he got that call from Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JD VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He just said look, I think we've got to go save this country. I think you're the guy who could help me in the best way. You could help me govern. You could help me win. You could help me in some of the Midwestern states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and so forth.

All right. The panel is back.

Catherine Lucey, this is, of course, a remarkable transformation for JD Vance because look, he -- in many ways, you could argue that he is someone who was on the vanguard of the white working-class shift to Donald Trump back in 2016. There were a number of voters in Ohio and western Pennsylvania who voted for Obama and then they voted for Trump, right? And his book, "Hillbilly Elegy," captured some of why this was.

[05:35:20]

But he also has an Ivy League pedigree, and he was with many in the elite establishment in 2016 -- Paul Ryan among them, the Speaker of the House -- arguing that Donald Trump was bad. He called him cultural heroin at one point. He even said in a private message that he might be America's Hitler. I mean, the rhetoric was very, very anti-Trump.

I mean, Mitt Romney told his biographer, McKay Coppins, for his book, "How can you go over a line so stark that and for what? It's not like you're going to be famous and powerful because you become a United States senator. It's like really? You sell yourself so cheap." Talking about how Vance sort of turned around and said instead that he thought Donald Trump was actually good for the country.

Now, JD Vance apparently did it for more than just a Senate seat, but it does help explain this -- partially, this transformation that you saw.

I mean, what do you -- what do you make of how Vance has handled this because he has been -- you know, turned around and just said hey, I was wrong about Trump?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yeah, and he's not alone, right? He's not the only Republican who started out anti-Trump and has made this evolution as Trump has really taken over and changed the entire party. And you're seeing here at this convention a real culmination of that, right, just how much he has made over the party.

And he obviously -- he has shifted his rhetoric, he has embraced those views, and he has made a lot of inroads with Trump and Trump's family. We know he's close to his sons.

And he's really seen as someone who, to your point, can take this message now to folks in really key states. I mean, more and more, it seems like this race is going to be won or lost in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. And he is a young, energetic messenger who can speak to white working-class voters in those states.

HUNT: Yeah. And we actually do have the sound bite of Vance talking about how he approached Trump in 2016. He was asked about it on Fox News last night. I think it's worth noting Fox News, part of the Rupert Murdoch empire, was part of the full-court press from the corners of the Republican Party to get the former president not to pick JD Vance.

But here is what Vance said on Fox last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: I don't hide from that. I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president, and he changed my mind. I bought into the media's lies and distortions. I bought into this idea that somehow, he was going to be so different -- a terrible threat to democracy. It was a joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Matt Gorman, can I get you to weigh in on how he's handling this?

MATT GORMAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yeah. I mean, as best as he possibly can. Look, if you didn't criticize Trump when he ran in 2015 and 2016, you're either probably a liar or were employed by him at the time. So there -- it's just that widespread.

But I think to Catherine's point, the theory of the case -- I think you're exactly right. They wanted more help in the Sunbelt -- Arizona, Nevada. That's a Marco Rubio, that's a Tim Scott play -- maybe Burgum. They focused in on those Rustbelt states.

I would also expect to hear a lot about Vance's military background, especially in his convention speech. He'd be the first Marine to ever be VP or president, and the only vet among the four presidential -- or vice-presidential nominees.

And I think more than anything else, what stuck out to me throughout kind of this vice-presidential search, he's an extremely effective communicator. He's willing to go on CNN, NBC -- a lot of places where my party doesn't really want to go. And not only go on there but be able to get a message out. And I think that's really admirable.

HUNT: Yeah. In fact, there's been some reporting -- Alex Isenstadt, over at Politico, has an excellent story kind of walking through how Donald Trump got to this point where he picked him over -- it stretches over many years.

But one of the things the Vance team decided to do was to go on -- to send him into places where the former president could see him defending Trump under what they view as hostile circumstances.

GORMAN: I would point folks to one -- a good example of that. The other week, he was on "MEET THE PRESS" and he was asked about a complimentary quote he gave during that same period about Barack Obama. How he said he was an admirable man, father. And he answered the question. He took it directly dead-on, but he also weaved into his message that he was trying to get through. He talked about Trump and related to both of them as being good fathers and good family men.

It was extremely well done. If you want a good example of that communication skills look at that.

HUNT: So, of course, we can talk about this from the perspective of having covered these folks.

But Mychael Schnell, Sarah Longwell, who is a close friend of our show, spends all of her time talking to voters -- the swing votes. The people that went from Trump to Biden and now are trying to figure out where they're going to go in the next --

MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE HILL: Right.

HUNT: -- election cycle.

And she talked to some of them about JD Vance and they actually kind of perceived this -- it's almost like the tag that you're a flip- flopper feels like an arcane -- you know, Mitt Romney sort of lost his whole -- his whole political career on this label. It now feels quaint.

[05:40:02]

But it seems like for voters, right, consistency still is important. Let's listen to what some of them told Sarah.

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VOTER 1: I don't know much about him except I know he was very -- extremely anti-Trump. And so, it's kind of, like, speaks to his, like, lack of integrity and sincerity to not really -- I mean, maybe he'll explain why he came around and it'll make sense, but I doubt it.

VOTER 2: I don't have respect for people jumping off like that. There's a bunch of people that are anti-Trump and then all of a sudden, they're on it. But again, you look at all the sides and there's similar things going on with the Senate, with the House, with bills, and so on and so forth. It's -- that's politics in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Mychael?

SCHNELL: I mean, I think that the main question there will be will those Republican voters ditch Trump and ditch JD Vance because they find him to be disingenuous or will they stick with them at the end of the day because they want Republican and conservative policies?

I think this also gets into sort of Trump's decision here. He went with JD Vance, someone who is basically a carbon copy politically in terms of positions and policy. He didn't go with somebody like Nikki Haley, who could have really united the party politically. Remember, in some of those late state primaries we still saw Nikki Haley pull in a large number of voters.

Back in -- back in 2016, then-candidate Trump chose Mike Pence knowing he needed to bulk up the evangelical vote. Knowing he needed to strengthen things there.

And this time around --

HUNT: He needed credibility in the party.

SCHNELL: And he needed credibility in the party.

HUNT: Yeah.

SCHNELL: This time around Trump chose JD Vance. Sure, he'll help in some of those key states with white voters, but it's not something that Trump really needs to ramp up on. He still has strong support there. I think that this shows Trump made a play for a reason for having somebody who he is supportive of who can carry the MAGA agenda into the next generation. Remember, age has been a huge part of this election.

HUNT: Yeah.

SCHNELL: But if he wanted to worry about getting voters like that and other voters who may be skeptical of him for flip-flopping and for his positions, he would have brought someone in who wasn't an exact copy of him politically.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, it certainly seems to show that Donald Trump is freed to do what he wants to do. Pick the person that he likes --

SCHNELL: Right.

HUNT: -- because he isn't constrained in the way he was in 2016.

Meghan Hays, very briefly, let me just bring you in on this because I know that there are -- JD Vance is someone that Democrats are relatively eager to run against, although I will say the generational contrast is a stark one.

MEGHAN HAYS, DNC CONVENTION CONSULTANT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is -- you're absolutely right. Trump picked him because it's the future of the party for him and it's his views going forward, so it could be 12 years of these sort of MAGA extreme views. So I do think that there's a lot to note there.

I do think Democrats are eager to run against him because he is -- he does embody those extreme views, and I don't think that's where the swing voters are. I think that they're more in the middle. And I think that people are generally more in the middle. So it will be interesting to see how the Biden campaign and Democrats react to Vance's views here.

HUNT: Yeah.

All right, we've got to take a quick break. So, still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This November?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Unless I get hit by a train, yeah.

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HUNT: President Biden defiant in a sit-down interview.

Plus, the head of the Secret Service's message just days after a gunman wounded Donald Trump.

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[05:47:38]

HUNT: All right, welcome back.

President Biden has been out doing interviews in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. He sat down with NBC News yesterday and was asked about the tone of the campaign.

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LESTER HOLT, ANCHOR, NBC NEWS: But have you -- have you taken a step back and done a little soul-searching on things that you may have said that could incite people who are not balanced?

BIDEN: Well, I don't think -- look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just now say anything because it may incite somebody? Look, I've not engaged in that rhetoric.

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HUNT: President Biden also emphasized in the interview he would not be dropping out of the race. He will return to the campaign trail today in Las Vegas.

Meghan Hays, let me go to you here because look, I think we should be clear here the president there was saying he had used this language in a fundraiser, saying we should put Trump in the bullseye. He was trying to say that as many in his party have been urging him to do to try to focus on former President Trump. He acknowledged it was a mistake to use that kind of language, but he also seemed a little bit defensive there.

I think it is worth noting as he tried to say later in the interview Donald Trump mocked Paul Pelosi, for example, after he was attacked inside his own home, as well as Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, who was the victim of a thankfully foiled kidnapping plot.

You know, I think it's fairly clear where kind of on balance the rhetoric stands here. I think the challenge is that President Biden seemed to be having difficulty making that case, which is what Democrats are watching for as they try to weigh -- and our John King is reporting that while this conversation has kind of moved into private in the wake of the assassination attempt it is still going on about whether or not he should remain at the top of the ticket.

HAYS: Yeah. I mean, I think that we've all used language that is now in hindsight probably not the best language to use. No one could have seen this coming and the unimaginable happened. And so I do think we all have to take a step back as -- you know, and think through what we're saying as we move forward.

[05:50:00]

So it's unfortunate that he used that, but I do think that it was used in a time -- in a different time -- a different moment in time.

And I also think that -- look, I think Democrats need to start to focus on if they want to beat Donald Trump or if they want to continue to fight in their own party. And I don't -- the president has made it abundantly clear he is not stepping down, so I'm not sure what else the leadership on the Hill and other Democrats want him to do. He has made it abundantly clear he is not stepping down.

So either we can turn and focus on Donald Trump and winning the election in November or we can continue to fight in our own party. I just don't think that if the president is not stepping down, why are we continuing to fight with our own party? And so, I think that we just have to have sort of an internal look at ourselves and decide what we're going to do.

HUNT: Matt Gorman, the -- I take Meghan's point. The president is dug in. And at a certain point, Democrats are doing damage to themselves.

However, we're also seeing, quite frankly, the map change. I mean, we are talking about states like Minnesota, Virginia, New Hampshire -- places where the race -- presidential race seems to have tightened in a way that we couldn't have expected otherwise.

Where are Republicans on this in terms of -- what would they prefer the Democrats do?

GORMAN: Kasie, the Biden interview being like the third, fourth thing we talk about today. How much news has been packed in the last 24 hours --

HUNT: Wow, yeah.

GORMAN: -- that we have just like kind of not really thought about?

But you're absolutely right. Those states -- Minnesota has been in kind of the sights of Republicans for such a long time, just tantalizingly out of reach. Is this year with Biden possibly showing some weakness there and we can get it? You're absolutely right.

And I think you're right. You hit the -- on the head. There was a lot of defensiveness in this interview from Biden even when Lester Holt confronted him about the debate performance -- did he watch the debate. He kind of went on a little tangent and tried to throw it back on Lester, kind of clumsily, by talking about Trump and his performance, and his behavior. He still hasn't found kind of a steadiness in these interviews yet for how much he's doing them in the last -- in a week or so.

And you're right. Again, this -- these last 96 hours have solidified, at least temporarily, Joe Biden is the leader of the Democratic Party.

HUNT: Yeah.

Mychael Schnell, I mean, what is your latest reporting on -- again, like I said, John King's reporting -- it actually -- he actually really focused in on the pollster Stanley Greenberg, who is probably not a household name to many of our viewers but is for anyone for works in politics, right? He was Bill Clinton's pollster. He is widely respected inside the Democratic Party.

And John King reported that he has been sending these memos near daily to Biden's inner circle to try to show them just how dramatic, in Greenberg's view, the collapse has been. It has not been as dramatically reflected in the public polling. But I think it's worth noting that campaigns make decisions based on their own numbers primarily.

SCHNELL: Right. I mean, to Meghan's point, President Biden has been very clear since the day after the debate that he has no intention of leaving the race. He's going to remain in the race. He has said it's a bad -- was a bad night.

But people like Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers are just not taking that answer -- that answer -- you know, they're not taking that no as an answer. No, he's not dropping out. They're not accepting that, at least at this juncture.

I spoke to a House Democrat last week before the assassination attempt who suggested to me that they wanted Biden to drop out of the race but said I don't want any movement to happen until after the Republican Convention. I want Americans and voters to be focused on what's going on in Milwaukee. I want them to see what they described as an extreme MAGA Republican agenda. They wanted the focus to be on Trump and on Republicans squarely to have voters understand what their platform is about and then be able to deal with what's going on with the Democratic ticket afterwards.

LUCEY: But, of course, the one problem with that is that the thing that Biden wants to do and his team wants to do is run down the clock. The longer this goes the harder it is to make a change. The Democratic National Committee meetings that set up the rules and other procedures of their convention start in the coming days. And so, the timeline just doesn't advantage people who are trying to make a change.

HUNT: Well, and it -- the reality, too, is that they may do some sort of virtual roll call --

LUCEY: Yeah.

HUNT: -- as well that would accelerate the timeline, no?

LUCEY: Exactly. Things could move very quickly ahead of the convention. And so, the Biden folks are just -- they are trying to stabilize and certainly the last several days have shifted the attention away from this drumbeat of calls for him to exit. You haven't really seen any new people coming out.

HUNT: Yeah.

LUCEY: The conversations have moved a little more privately. That's not to say it's gone away but it certainly has quieted some of that conversation. HUNT: Yeah, all right.

Thanks to Catherine Lucey, Mychael Schnell. Matt Gorman is going to stick around. And Meghan Hays, my thanks to you as well.

Coming up next here, Donald Trump bandaged and triumphant, arriving at the Republican National Convention just days after an attempt on his life.

Plus, Democratic Congressman Greg Landsman joins me to weigh in on President Biden and the presidential race, and whether or not the president has done enough to stay at the top of the ticket.

[05:55:00]

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HUNT: It's Tuesday, July 16. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- the United States, Donald J. Trump.

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HUNT: Donald Trump makes his first public appearance at the RNC in the shadow of the aftermath of the assassination attempt against him.

Plus, the Secret Service and local police at odds over who is to blame for the deadly shooting at Trump's rally.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: It was a -- it was a mistake to use the word.

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HUNT: President Biden says it was a mistake to call for a bullseye on Trump in his first primetime interview since the assassination attempt.

Then, Donald Trump's classified documents case tossed out, but facing an appeal from.