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CNN This Morning

Trump Accepts Nomination With Marathon Speech; Mass Outages Hit Airlines, Businesses Worldwide; Sen. Tester Latest Democrat To Call On Biden To End Campaign. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 19, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:39]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, July 19th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm not supposed to be here tonight. I'm not supposed to be here.

CROWD: Yes you are! Yes you are! Yes you are!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Less than a week after an attempt on his life, Donald Trump back on center stage, his message unity that quickly veered into his divisive old ways.

Plus, the walls closing in on President Biden. Top senior aides now believe he might abandon his campaign and in not too much time.

Plus, breaking news, right now -- mass outages worldwide, airlines, stock exchanges, and banks all being impacted. What could be behind it?

(MUSIC)

HUNT: All right. It's 4:00 a.m. here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 5:00 a.m. on the East Coast, where we have a live look at Hartsfield, Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia.

Flights around the world are grounded this morning. Major carriers including Delta, United and American Airlines, all impacted facing a total ground stop. It's due to a worldwide I.T. outage.

We are monitoring this situation. We had expected an update around this time this morning. We're still waiting on that, but we're going to let you know as soon as we do any updates as we get them.

But in the meantime, good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. We are here inside the convention hall now emptied, balloons, popped

balloons scattered all over the floors, as we break down what happened last night where and we did hear from former President Donald Trump who of course had that brush with death on Saturday, now triumphantly cementing his place as the leader of the Republican Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States. Thank you.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That, of course, was the beginning of a speech that spanned more than an hour and a half, making it the longest televised nomination acceptance speech ever.

The speech beats the record that he himself set in 2020 and in 2016 before that, Trump went into great detail about what he was going through, what was in his mind during the assassination attempt against him, telling us all why he gave that now iconic fist bump pumped to the crowd that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Therefore I will tell you exactly what happened, and you'll never hear it from me a second time because it's actually too painful to tell.

When I rose surrounded by Secret Service, the crowd was confused because they thought I was dead, and there was great, great sorrow. I could see that on their faces as I looked out. They didn't know I was looking out. They thought it was over. But, I could see it. I wanted to do something to let them know I was OK. I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people that were breathlessly waiting and started shouting, fight, fight, fight.

CROWD: Fight! Fight! Fight!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Fight, fight, fight, the crowd started to yell that chance before Trump could even get those words out of his mouth.

Donald Trump went on to honor the life of the rally-goer who lost his life that day. On stage with Trump during the speech where the helmet in uniform of firefighter Corey Comperatore which Trump walked over to, embraced, he kissed the helmet before he continued his speech -- a speech which his campaign says he extensively rewrote in the days following the attack to try to strike a new tone, one of unity.

But by the end of the marathon address, it was pretty clear that Donald Trump was back to business as usual, even going off the teleprompter numerous times and then once again claimed false -- falsely, that the election was fraudulent.

[05:05:02]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We had that horrible, horrible result that we'll never let happen again, the election result. We're never going to let that happen again. They used COVID to cheat.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: We're never going to let it happen again.

We have people that are a lot less than fierce, except when it comes to cheating on elections and a couple of other things. Then they're fierce.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Very unifying that.

All right. Joining me now to discuss, Margaret Talev, senior contributor at "Axios", Mychael Schnell, congressional reporter at "The Hill", Lance Trover, former spokesperson for Doug Burgum's presidential campaign, and CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers is also with us.

Welcome to all of you.

Bakari, I'm going to come to you in a second. It's more normal hour over on the East Coast. Here, they're still cleaning up. I think a lot of the people on the floor probably been up all night.

But, Margaret Talev, let's kind of start by looking at what Trump did or didn't accomplish with this speech, because I will say my sense of it was that if he had stopped after that first section where he was talking so personally about what happened that day and buttoned it up and walked off the stage. It would have been a completely different reception than the one he ended up receiving after then continuing to talk for over an hour and-a-half.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Kasie, the first half-hour was like the kind of masterful stagecraft that Democrats are really worried about to be able to frame and energize and capture those kind of moments. I mean, it was like "The Apprentice" and "The Bachelor" and five other shows all rolled into one, like Trump come the gate comes up in, Trump comes out and its all lights in his name is huge and then there's a fake white how set.

And like -- and then about half an hour in it just starts to turn in the second half is maybe the only thing that gives Democrats a window of hope, which is that he cannot help but revert to his own instincts about rambling and talking about himself often going after Nancy Pelosi and stuff.

But I do think the way that so many Americans consume media these days, you're not sitting down watching 93 minutes. You watch a few minutes and you're like, oh wow. And then you watch the rest on your phone and bits and there were 1 million bits and bytes to cut depending on what you're into.

If you want to see Hulk Hogan ripped open a shirt, and that's why you're voting for president, you're going to get that one. If you want to see someone who looks somber and circumspect than his has got his grandchild on his lap, that's the clip you're going to see and it was pretty powerfully crafted and carried out until the moment when he went off and did his own thing?

HUNT: Yeah. No. It and you could see where I was. We were actually sitting I was sitting right here as he was speaking stages, right. You can actually see the teleprompter. It's off at the moment, but it's a big, it's about the size of the TV on most people's living rooms now, right?

It's huge and you could see it what just it just stopped for like minutes at a time, was just saying the same thing as he's talking and talking and talking.

And, Mychael Schnell, I mean, one of the things I noticed and if were able to put up on the screen some of the wider shots of what Trump did when he first I came out and was been talking about the assassination attempt. They covered the screens down here with some of those now iconic photos from the day.

And when you watched him come out after he was in front of this, as Margaret points out to me, was like a Vegas marquee, right. With Trump in lights and then he stops and he poses for we call them the snap pack right there. The photographers that travel with the president and both Doug Mills and Evan Vucci to the people who took these photos, were right there on the stage. You can see them in that wider shot.

And Trump quite literally stopped and post right in front of them, right? I mean, this was someone who you can see some of them right there. He's walking out pass them. Eventually he stops and turns and lets them shoot him from mere feet away, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing that as Margaret notes it gave us the instinct to stagecraft is kind of what Trump, what Trump is.

What is -- what is your reporting been so far about the reaction to the speech and how this plays into this dynamic?

MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE HILL: I mean, I think that this gets back to the Donald Trump, who we knew before he was president of United States. He was, of course, he created "The Apprentice". He came up and television, he knows how to be a producer, and he quite literally produced this picture that everybody watched with the lights in the background.

As you mentioned, he knows to turn to the cameras to get that perfect shot that he's looking for. The pictures that were shown from Saturday shooting. It was such a striking image. I thought the one that was most striking was in for President Trump is talking about the moment when that bullet whizzes by his ear and pierces his ear, and they put up the photo that actually shows the bullet moving through the air.

[05:10:00]

It was such a striking moment and I was on the floor for that entire speech. I can tell you it was an -- and I've been on the floor for all four days of the convention. It had never been as quiet then that throughout the convention than it was during those moments when he was talking about the shooting.

I spoke to a number of House Republicans after the speech and I asked what they thought, and they thought that it was a fantastic speech, that it was really touching when he spoke about his experience with a shooting.

I spoke to 100 Republican who said, they think that they saw that Donald Trump changed and softened up a little bit following the shooting over the weekend. Now arguably were they just talking about the first half, probably because we've mentioned the second half sort of went into your marquee, typical Trump crazy Nancy Pelosi railing on the media.

But again, going back to what Margaret said, people are going to remember what they want to remember from that speech. And I think a lot of Republicans are going to hope that it was just the first half.

HUNT: Well, and, Lance we had heard ahead of the speech that he didn't plan to mention Biden's name, President Biden his name at all. He ended up doing it more than once and then he said he wasn't going to do it again.

What did you make of it? What are your hearing in your Republican text chains this morning or maybe people, they're still up, maybe still up getting overnight.

LANCE TROVER, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR NORTH DAKOTA GOV. BURGUM: If we're talking text chains with my buddies, it's all about Hulk Hogan, and how he was able -- if you're my age range that was like, oh, my gosh.

He did what he needed to do, right? And it's really -- it was not just about the speech last night when I'm hearing from operatives, I mean, Republicans went into this week in a pretty good mood. They left last night operatives, you name it in a quite a jovial state.

You couldn't go to a Republican operative who does House and Senate races and said, sit down on a laptop and script for me what you would want to July of 2024 to look like, and they couldn't script it any better than where we are right now, given what is going on on the Democratic side and where we are.

HUNT: Speaking of that, Bakari Sellers, let me bring you in on that. We're going to dig into what's going on in the report and what's going on with the president, President Biden, in just a minute, but id like to get your take on the speech because Chris Wallace, who's sitting next to last night, I came on the air afterwards and said, well, it looks like we have ourselves a presidential campaign again that Democrats are going to look to that speech and find reason to be hopeful after a pretty tough couple of weeks.

What was your view?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. I mean, I respectfully have to throw a little water on what's on my colleagues are saying this morning, it was actually the best day for Democrats in a very long time. It was -- there was nothing about that speech, which I think excited anyone who is watching, very low energy, and it was -- it was typical Trump.

I mean, this is the reason why Trump is extremely beatable. What you saw was President Trump has a very, very low ceiling and a high floor and he is a 43, 44 percent candidate. You see it in all the polls, it gets as high as 46. That's about it.

And you see what the challenges and you see how beatable that Donald Trump is just from that speech. I will also tell people that the RNC this week reminded me a lot of 2016 DNC, mainly because of the over- confidence and exuberance that was displayed.

I remember in Philadelphia, you had people who were picking out ambassadorships. You have people who were talking about their roles in the administration. And then we saw what happened November of 2016.

And so, while July has been a great pumpkin, Republicans as they believe, I'm not sure we actually elect presidents in July. I haven't seen that done in America.

Trump -- Trump last night, there was a lot of showmanship but people dig deeper than just Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off.

HUNT: Yeah, measuring the drapes is usually -- usually ill-advised, generally speaking.

All right. Bakari, stand by for us.

Up next here, widespread acceptance in the West Wing. Many of President Biden's own people now believing that he can't win. We'll bring you our latest reporting.

Plus, wins and losses that historic week that was in politics that could have changed everything. And we'll get an update on our breaking news that global outage that's grounded flights and disrupted the businesses around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:18:20]

HUNT: All right. We've got breaking news this morning. Mass outages worldwide have caused systems across the globe to shut down this morning. And by systems, we mean basically all of them or at least a lot of them, the outages have led to delays and issues across airports around the world.

The FAA says flights from several major us carriers, including Delta and American have been grounded here in the U.S. In Europe and Asia, airports, banks stock exchanges, all experiencing similar outages.

CNN's Marc Stewart following all this for us from Beijing.

Marc, I will say this is the talk of a panel in between our segments about the politics that are going on here in the U.S.

What do we know about what's causing this and what's affected?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Kasie. Good morning.

First and foremost, I cant stress enough just how significant of an issue this is and the tremendous impact its having on peoples everyday lives, not only here in Asia where I am, but also in the United States, and, of course, Europe.

As far as why these outages, why this disruptions are happening, according to industry experts, people who watched these kind of things, they are citing an issue with the cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike.

Microsoft is one of its clients. We are still waiting official response, but that's what the industry experts are telling us. A big point of problem is with air travel. We know a lot of our viewers at this hour are getting ready to go to the airport.

If you are flying, call ahead because there is more than a good chance that your flight is either canceled or delayed.

[05:20:00]

This is, of course, impacting airlines and air travel across the United States with many domestic routes, but also internationally. Some of the biggest carriers in the world, such as Cathay Pacific our reporting issues, KLM in Europe, reporting issues.

This is extremely widespread. People are having problems even with the most simple of tasks, checking in on airport kiosks. So the problems with air travel are not only going to be in these next few hours, but we are definitely seeing the problems mount its going to impact people, perhaps throughout the day, if not, the days ahead. So if you are traveling today, be prepared for some heartache and some hardship.

This is, of course, also impacting financial institutions such as banks. We heard of some problems at the Malaysia stock exchange. Interesting to see what is reported across Europe. It's even having problems at grocery stores and grocery stores in Australia chain there as having a problem for people to conduct some of their orders.

I'm bringing that up because was a problem now, here in Asia will likely be an issue in the United States. As the hours move ahead, the real problem though, really started here in Asia around 2:00 just after the lunch hour when people started seeing balloon screens on their computers, that indicated a problem, it's now 5:00 in the afternoon, and these problems are still continuing.

So, Kasie, we heard on top of this, but I'm telling -- I'm just putting the information out there. It's going to be a rough day, especially when it comes to air travel.

HUNT: Indeed, while we've got thousands of people trying to get out of not terribly large airport here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for this Republican National Convention, just one small microcosm, though, of what you are describing, Marc, really appreciate your reporting. I'm sure going to he back to you throughout the next two hours with more.

Thanks very much.

All right. Let's get back to politics though. New this morning, a doom loop. That's how one leading Democrat is describing the situation surrounding President Biden's reelection bid. The list of Democrats calling on Biden to step aside only getting longer, despite Biden's public assurance and insistence really that he is staying in the race.

Yesterday, Senator Jon Tester, who is a key vulnerable Democrat facing a tough reelection battle in a red state, was the latest to publicly call on Biden to withdraw from the campaign. And as those walls seem to close in, CNN is reporting, quote, more than two dozen sources familiar with the dynamics inside the West Wing and campaign said there's now widespread acceptance that Biden remaining in the 2024 race is wholly untenable.

It's still, of course, uncertain what Biden will ultimately do. But when asked whether the president is getting closer to dropping out, here is what one Democratic lawmaker said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): It seems to be moving in that direction. I think there are still conversations being had, but look, the big change that happened just in the last 24 hours, as I think everybody is now getting the impression that the president and those around him are taking the concerns very seriously, and looking at the challenges going forward. And I think that is a very welcome development.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Very interesting.

Bakari Sellers, let me start with you on this -- what is your sense? What are you hearing? I know you're talking all the time with people in your party and there are so many questions buying about not just what the president is going to do, there does seem to be at least from my reporting and acceptance that he is going to be changing things.

So it's also leading to all these other conversations behind the scenes about what happens next, the process of the Democratic National Committee. Is it Kamala Harris? If it is Kamala Harris, who's down on the ticket with Kamala Harris? Is it somebody else?

Can you bring us into where the conversation that you're a part of stands?

SELLERS: Yeah. I mean, I think the first thing is the president isn't going anywhere this weekend, 48 hours. I mean, I think that reporting, you can -- you can call that not accurate. I mean, I've spoken to people who are around him in Delaware, speak -- spoken to people in the campaign everybody will tell you that he's kind of dug in and that's just not something that's going to happen.

Let me also be extremely clear --

HUNT: Might not happen until it does. I don't want -- I don't want to leave our viewers with the impression that, you know, let's not rule anything out, but I do take your, Bakari, I'm sorry, continue.

SELLERS: Let me be extremely clear. Like it's not happening in the next 48 hours. I mean, people -- you've seen the reports that it's going to happen this weekend, is happening Saturday, is happening Sunday, that's just not the case, but also want to be extremely clear about Joe Biden and why he actually gives Democrats the best chance to win is because he's winning white seniors, white women, white college and white suburbs. And you've had turnout with Joe Biden. Be with white voters at a number which is, 70 percent of the electorate that gives you an opportunity to win and all you have to do as buffer that with voters of color, and younger voters, et cetera.

[05:25:01]

The state of play is this: If Joe Biden decides to drop out the race, which that decision has not been made yet, contrary to what people may believe, then Kamala Harris will take the reins and Kamala Harris has a legitimate shot based upon what we've seen last night with whomever she chooses as a running mate to be president of the United States. The convention is where the convention is, but I can also tell you this, that the donors who were putting pressure on an individuals, on leadership, et cetera to just be slowly intimate medical, political malpractice they're not going to drive the discourse in this party and they're not going to skip over Kamala Harris if Joe Biden decides to get out the race.

HUNT: Margaret Talev, let's -- I take Bakari's point. We love him. Bakari, you're a great friend of our show. I want a reality check a little bit because I think some of what I'm hearing is a little bit different than what Bakari has been hearing in terms of kind of where hearts and minds are inside Biden world.

I know you've covered the White House for many, many years. What are you hearing and how do you understand? I guess what I would say the texture I'm getting is that people who previously were reaching out to the White House, reaching out to the campaign in moments where the president was having a hard time, people that are allies of the president wanted to know what to say, how to go out and defend him. They're getting a totally different response or lack thereof from those people than they were in the previous instances of a new cycle like the one that we seem to be in now.

TALEV: And there are a few things that happened that led to that point. There's the consistent directory of the polling, not just national polling of U.S. adults, but of Democratic voters. There's the outreach by Chuck Schumer, by Nancy Pelosi, by Hakeem Jeffries. There's the foreign President Obama outreach also. And despite the very tight circle around President Biden, there is a growing understanding that you have got the enthusiasm among the Republican base and a circular firing -- we're not using those words anymore.

HUNT: Yeah, I appreciate it.

TALEV: A circular situation on the Democratic side, and an understanding the weight of the responsibility that President Biden does not want to be the figure who drags down not just his own race, but the control of the House and control of the Senate. I do think the conversation has turned much more to if not him, than who is Vice President Harris electable, if she is electable, who's the strongest running mate, those configurations.

I just think that's where things are going. And you're right. We won't know until we know but there has been a clear shift in the last few days.

HUNT: Yeah.

Mychael Schnell, Jamie Raskin wrote a letter to President Biden. He wrote it apparently before the assassination attempt of this past weekend, but we learned about it yesterday, along with over the course of the week, we've learned a lot about things that happened several days ago.

It sort of tells me like they tried to do this -- tried to do all this behind the scenes. It didn't really work. So all of a sudden some of it started to become more public. The letter from Raskin really stuck out to me. It's a long one and it starts out with just profuse praise for the president calling him one of the greatest leaders. And then ends with the reminder about what happened and to the Red Sox pitcher, the great Pedro Martinez, who stayed in too long and lost -- lost a critical game at the end of the day.

SCHNELL: Yeah, this is sort of the sentiment that were starting to hear from a lot of folks that they're concerned that President Biden's going to lose. But also even more than that, their concern that Democrats could lose who -- could miss out on taking over the house with President Biden at the top of the ticket. That's a what were hearing a lot of these vulnerable house Republicans and even vulnerable Senate Democrats. Jon Tester, a big name right there coming out and saying the president should step aside.

I spoke to a house Democrat yesterday who had some really interesting insights essentially, he said that its talking about somebody like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is sort of been quiet, guarded rather than what she's saying publicly, but behind the scenes, we're told that she's really maneuvering things to have Biden rethink his decision.

He said that Nancy Pelosi is a great vote counter. She worked really hard during her 20 some odd years in as a speaker and then as the Democratic leader to win the majority. She knows how it's done and clearly she is seeing that polls say that it cannot be done with Joe Biden on the ticket, which is why she's maneuvering behind the scenes, but he also had another interesting to say that the way to deal with a president is not necessarily to bombard them with this public pressure, but rather to work behind the scenes. So, lawmakers have been trying to work behind the scenes to privately talk to the president about their concerns about this polling. Some of it has spilled into the public.

I think the big question is, as this gets -- continues to drag on and as we get closer to the convention, will some of that private pressure begin to go public as a last-ditch effort?