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RNC Rallies Around J.D. Vance As VP Nominee; Biden Makes Appeal To Black Voters At NAACP Convention; Sen. Menendez Plans To Appeal Guilty Verdict. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:40]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, July 17th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And then he said, well, J.D., I have to ask, do you accept? And I said, yes, sir. Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: J.D. Vance taking the main stage, how he plans to try to appeal to Republicans across the country as Donald Trump's running mate.

Plus, President Biden back on the campaign trail criticizing Donald Trump for the first time since his attempted assassination.

And this --

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NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORID: Let's send Donald Trump back to the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Once Donald Trump's rivals, now, they're changing their tune on the RNC stage.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: Four a.m. here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as we gear up for day three of the Republican National Convention.

You're looking at the outside of the Fiserv Forum where, of course, we're going to hear from the Republican vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance later tonight. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

The Republican Party rallying around the man that they hope will soon become vice president, Senator J.D. Vance appeared alongside side Trump for the second night of the Republican National Convention. The new apprentice of the Trump-led party from the Trump family to Republican lawmakers, the praise has been effusive.

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ERIC TRUMP, SON OF DONALD TRUMP: We know obviously J.D. Vance incredibly well. Same thing, incredibly successful, incredibly articulate, has risen through, obviously the governmental system incredibly quickly, did well in the private sector military, everything, right? I mean, I happen to love J.D., and I also see the chemistry between J.D. and my father.

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): I'm glad J.D. Vance was picked. I think -- I'll miss him in the Senate. He's been a great colleague. He's been a good supporter of mine. But I think he'll do a great job as VP.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): As the life story of our next vice president, J.D. Vance, reminds us, we are all descendants of ordinary people who achieved extraordinary things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Vance's life story, how does it factor in his rise to become VP nominee? It's pretty significant. CNN has learned from a source the J.D. Vance's speech tonight will focus on how he, quote, rose from nothing. It is a story that was made popular in his best- selling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy". He talks about growing up in an abusive home.

The story was also turned into a movie that starred Glenn Close as Vance's grandmother.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She got to go to school. You got to get good grades to even have a chance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mom was the best in her class. What's the point?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm talking about a chance. You might not make it, but you sure as hell won't if you don't try.

UNIDENTIFIED: Why do you even care what I do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I ain't going to live forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP

HUNT: Trump's campaign also tells CNN that they are calling Wednesday the VP's night. Joining us to talk about what to expect tonight, Margaret Talev, senior contributor at "Axios", Shelby Talcott, politics reporter at "Semafor", Matt Gorman, the former advisor for Tim Scott's presidential campaign, and Karen Finney, the former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Welcome to all of you, previewing tonight, I feel like -- I feel like its still last night. If I'm being completely candid.

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: People still think it is a mystery.

HUNT: Yeah, exactly yeah, were kind of in that space here but look, this is -- we're kicking off what is really the heart of this Republican National Convention Wednesday and Thursday, always really the two big days here.

Matt Gorman, let me start with you, since it's -- it is your party and what we do expect to hear from J.D. Vance tonight. Obviously, there are some controversial things he said in elected office Democrats are eager to seize on them. I'm sure Karen is going to tell us all about it.

But he's really -- this is first chance. I mean, most Americans have no idea who J.D. Vance is.

GORMAN: No.

HUNT: And this is going to be their first chance to get to know him.

GORMAN: He's a name in a book cover for a lot of folks.

And look, both Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were relatively famous, had a modicum of a famous success before they ever entered elective politics. So there's a little bit of commonality there. It's rare in today's day and age.

However, you're right he has to tell the story like any VP nominee would in his own words. And that could be how he rose from nothing, his military service, and how that through line extends to what he would do as vice president.

[05:05:03]

And as far as I know, talking with his folks there, because you said eagerly writing even up until the last couple of hours, but I think its up a really good speech and I think it's going to really kind of shine a light and defined J.D. as best as they possibly can.

HUNT: So, Karen, there are -- there's a CNN poll that we conducted late last month on people's opinions of J.D. Vance, 51 percent of Americans told us they'd never heard of him, right? Fifteen percent said they had no opinion of him, 20 percent have an unfavorable opinion, favorable opinion, 13 percent.

He's obviously -- this is a big stage, an opportunity for him to do this. Democrats are obviously going to try to push back against some of it, but he's going to get this first clean shot.

What is your view of how this has played so far in these first couple of days since he was picked?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So forth -- so far, I think they've done a great job and actually to what Matt said, I think probably a lot of people they may not know that they know J.D. Vance, but they know "Hillbilly Elegy" or they've seen the movie. And now, he's got the task of how do you turn that into a political speech at a convention that ultimately is about how do you win over voters and how do you win an election.

I think, you know, they did a great rollout. There was clearly a lot of excitement about him, but sure, part of the as we know, in a political campaign, part of what happens is people get defined and they are accountable for their records just in the same way, there's a narrative about him that the Trump campaign wants to tell.

There are sort of what I would call fact checks -- look, the Democrats want to share about him particularly in this moment when were talking about unity, we're talking about how do we lower the temperature in our political discourse? He's someone who has not really done that in, in a lot of what we've seen from him online in the last, certainly a couple of years.

So it'd be interesting to see tonight, does he -- is he able to hold it? Because already we've seen some of the speakers have not been able. I'm thinking Marjorie Taylor Greene, not quite able to get on that memo, but this will really be his big opportunity both to introduce himself to the country and to send the signal about whether or not this ticket is sincere and this lowering the temperature.

HUNT: So to that point, Margaret Talev, Chris Christie entered the chat yesterday night with an op-ed in "The New York Times". Christie, of course, has been basically silence since it was clear that Trump is going to win the nomination.

He writes this: Mr. Trump has the opportunity to rein in some of the worst impulses of the Republican Party at its convention this week. But then he says early indications less than promising. Mr. Trump's selection of J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate, doubles down on the portion of the party already completely devoted to him, rather than reaches out to the broader party and beyond.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And Chris Christie, notably not in the team of rivals on last night's stage, Kasie.

HUNT: Gee, I wonder why.

TALEV: Right. I was speaking to a woman last night, a delegate from Western Pennsylvania and she told me impromptu. She said so excited that former President Trump had chosen J.D. Vance and I said, why? And she said because he's everything that he's not, and this is a woman who loves Donald Trump and supports him.

But her point was that J.D. Vance has military experience. J.D. Vance came from nothing. J.D. Vance is from the Midwest. J.D. Vance is young.

That for anyone who is on the fence about Trump personally, but likes the Trump era policies and promises that J.D. Vance offers a counter point to the idea of things that people might not like about Donald Trump.

Now, what does that going to do to swing voters in the suburbs? Two women who support abortion rights, to those Republicans, the Nikki Haley Republicans, who may be on the fence? Probably nothing.

But in terms of turnout and attracting new era of, or sort of first- time voting people in the Trump base, this woman at least felt the J.D. Vance is a very strong candidate.

HUNT: It's interesting. And, Shelby, I mean, the generational contrast with the one that just keeps sticking out to me.

SHELBY TALCOTT, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Absolutely. I think that's one of the things when I talk to some of Donald Trump's aides and people close to him and his supporters, that they've brought up time and time again, that whether or not this was intentional, J.D. Vance -- picking J.D. Vance is sort of its generational. It means that Donald Trump's legacy and that sort of MAGA movement could theoretically live on in a post-Donald Trump, in a post-Donald Trump era.

And that's really interesting because we were unsure if that was something that Donald Trump was really focused on, that he cared about. So some people see him picking J.D. Vance as an indication that he does want his sort of movement to be solidified and become, you know, the Republican Party of future generations, not just of his generation.

[05:10:09]

FINNEY: But I also wonder again on the Democratic side, when you have Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, some of the research we did in 2020 before she was selected was voters were saying we like the combination of a younger woman of color who represents the future of our party, the changing demographics of our country. Her lived experience with his lived experience, which is again, maybe the bridge is longer than we might have thought it was going to be a bridge.

HUNT: Yes.

FINNEY: And Bill Clinton had the whole live bridge the future things, so it's just like in my mind, but so, you know, but the same idea of -- and exactly what Margaret was saying, and people do like to see that -- does the VP bring something, some lived experiences that the presidential candidate does not? And that's always an important part of the argument.

TALCOTT: And a presidential race where age has been such a huge topic, it is obviously notable that he's --

(CROSSTALK) GORMAN: You're nominating a guy for the third time in a row, what's the new kind of thing that you're bringing into the equation here that can be a little bit of a variable here? And you're right, a 40-year- old man who can, you know, for all intents and purposes, notes that open a PDF. Unlike a lot of older prison case, may not know how to do on both sides of the aisle.

TALCOTT: I actually know how to do that.

GORMAN: OK.

I think it's a little bit story for a little more excitement. And he was taken his son in -- his kids down to the Walgreens in downtown Milwaukee today. So I think it was a little something different. I think the third time nominate the same presidential --

TALEV: But, you now, Kasie, like, there -- there's a lot of other contenders. Was it going to be Doug Burgum? Was it going to be Marco Rubio?

HUNT: Yeah.

TALEV: I was in this past few days have really thought that Glenn Youngkin was the contrast because those would have been to really distinct choices. Do you go for a more establishment Republican is really successful with businesses and in swing states and suburbs and can ease those Republicans minds about another Trump term, or do you go to the base, and to the core and to the next generation.

And this choice will tell you a lot about how Trump wants --

HUNT: It does. Well, and the Biden debate performance likely opened up a little bit more space for Donald Trump to pick the person that he wanted for himself as opposed to what he may have wanted to expand his electoral map.

All alright, coming up next here on CNNT THIS MORNING:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I love this phrase, Black jobs. Tell us a lot about the man and about his character.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Biden making an appeal to Black voters as he criticizes Donald Trump's character and policy.

Plus, an about face from the head of the Secret Service, as she faces intense scrutiny after Trump's attempted assassination and a first look at the damage after over a dozen tornadoes touched down across the U.S.

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[05:17:28] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does that my good side?

BIDEN: I don't have a good side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Biden quite literally doing retail politics at a grocery store in Las Vegas yesterday. He made that stop after he spoke the NAACP convention where he made his pitch to Black voters and called out former President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: He thinks of Black jobs. I love his phrase, Black jobs. It tells a lot about the man and about his character. Folks, I know what a Black job is. It's a vice president of the United States.

I know what a Black job is, the first Black president in American history, Barack Obama.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Margaret Talev, obviously, back on the campaign trail, during the Republican National Convention, he's not the first person to do that, although historically sometimes, the opposing nominee would go or president would go dark during this period of time, clearly, they know they have to kind of keep up the pace for him because the pressure behind the scenes is still there on the president.

TALEV: Yeah, he doesn't get to take a break this week to put it mildly.

So, a couple of thoughts about his visit yesterday. One, he's obviously going back to basics. He's courting the base. He's courting African-American voters. He's trying to ensure Latino voters don't think they're feeling -- taken for granted. Those are really important things to do right now.

From a policy perspective, he's moving to the left. We saw that with some of the Supreme Court, you know, conversations that have been on ice.

HUNT: Right. He's called for term limits or is going to call for term limits and an ethics code.

TALEV: I think the most interesting thing he did yesterday was he started talking about what a new term would look like, what a second term would look like. For the last, since the debate fiasco, one of the big criticisms is why are you talking about the past, why you're re-litigating, why are you living in the moment? Tell voters what you would give them if you were elected to a second term. We started to hear him talk about that to the NAACP.

HUNT: I mean --

FINNEY: He started that last week in Detroit. He started to lay that out and, look, at the NAACP convention. And one of those both happened to be this week in Nevada and not option.

HUNT: Not option.

[05:20:00]

FINNEY: So, but look, I mean, I think Black voters, despite what the public polls are saying, I can tell you the internal polls are saying there is no way Donald Trump is getting 20 points. That's just not happening.

And all the data that I've seen suggests Black voters are still very much behind Joe Biden, particularly even in this conversation about whether or not he should step down or not, and feel very strongly though, that there are issues like voting rights, like criminal justice reform, that where there's more that needs to be done. He wasn't able to get done in the first term.

So he was talking about those items as well, and I think certainly we need those. To go hear him talking about some of the same core issues in terms of the economy, in terms of immigration, in terms of reproductive freedom, and what a second term would look like.

HUNT: Yeah, I mean, I think candidly the issue is that -- the problem is that I don't think a lot of voters think that he's actually going to manage to be present through an entire second term, right? Like isn't that the whole issue? The problem with focusing on the future for the president is that people come in, they're like, if I vote for you, you're probably not going to be president for the next four years.

GORMAN: That's the hard part about making these long-term plans, right? It's very hard for Democrats with a straight face to say that they believe that Joe Biden can be as effective, even today, as he will be the day he leaves office, and what, 2029.

HUNT: Okay. Up next here, a police shooting about a mile from where we are right now at the RNC in Milwaukee. We'll explain what happened.

Plus, this --

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HUNT: Yikes! What was that? The meteor passes right over New York City? Hopefully, we will explain this further because I now would like to know. We'll be right back.

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[05:26:18]

HUNT: All right. Twenty-five minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. A man was fatally shot by police about a mile away from the Republican

National Convention Tuesday. Police say he had knives and both hands and was trying to attack another man at the time of the shooting. Thankfully, no one else was injured.

Senator Bob Menendez says he is planning to appeal after he was found guilty on all counts in his federal corruption trial Tuesday. The New Jersey Democrats sentencing for October 29th, just a week before the election, where his seat is up for grabs.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we heard a loud boom. My wife and I looked at each other like did you hear that?

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HUNT: NASA is saying that that loud boom over the New York City area yesterday was likely a meteor. There were no reports of any meteorites produced as it passed by. I understand why that would be rather alarming.

All right. Time now for weather. New video from Upstate New York, the damage following storms that passed through yesterday afternoon. Oneida County remains under a state of emergency this morning.

Let's get to our weatherman, Derek Van Dam.

Derek, good morning to you.

This damage obviously very difficult for these communities. What are we looking at today?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, you can almost follow the path of the severe weather since Sunday. Look at this, nearly 1,000 reports of severe weather, 15 tornado reports since Sunday.

And when we put this all into a seasonal perspective, you can see just how well above average to date we are in terms of number of tornadoes across the U.S., 1,400 so far. We average roughly about 1,000 for this year to date.

And along with that band of severe weather that moved through, let's say, Illinois on Monday and then Upstate New York into the rest of the workweek, this is some of the resulting wind impacts. In fact hurricane force gusts for some locations that knocked out power for 450,000 customers from Illinois through northern New England.

Now, there is still a round of severe storms possible today across a major metropolitan of the East Coast. That includes New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. So we're talking about over 50 million people impacted by this slight risk, even larger when you look at the marginal risk. Not much going on right now, with the exception of some heavier rainfall, we do have flash flood watches and warnings in place across portions of Arkansas and into Missouri. You can see rainfall totals there, exceeding two to four inches in some way locations.

But the good news is that this is the last day of the heat for many. And in Milwaukee, you're sitting pretty the rest of the week -- Kasie.

HUNT: I have to say, it feels great out here. I'm thinking about all the different East Coast.

VAN DAM: Yeah.

HUNT: All right, our weatherman Van Dam, Derek, thank you very much.

VAN DAM: Okay.

HUNT: Coming up next here, Donald Trump's former for political rivals now singing out of his hymnal.

Plus, the Secret Service director talking more about that massive security failure, that's an understatement, at Donald Trump's campaign rally.

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