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Polls Show Status of Harris-Trump Matchup; Biden to Deliver Oval Office Address about Leaving Race; Wildfire Smoke Blankets Denver. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 24, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, July 24. Right now, on CNN THIS MORNING --

[05:59:18]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS (D), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You all helped us win in 2020. And in 2024, we will win again!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kamala Harris officially on the trail, holding her first rally of the 2024 campaign, if you can believe that, in front of a raucous crowd in Milwaukee.

Plus, an address to the nation. Tonight, President Biden will speak from the Oval Office to explain why he's not running again.

And a not-so-warm welcome. Protestors filling the Capitol rotunda and nearly 90 members of Congress saying that they won't attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address tonight.

Plus, outdoor rallies could soon be a thing of the past for Donald Trump. A warning from the Secret Service after the attempt on his life.

All right, it's 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the White House as we continue to cover one of the most unprecedented campaigns in any of our lifetimes as now, Donald Trump battles Kamala Harris to get the chance to live there for four years.

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

Forget the rematch. The new 2024 presidential campaign is joined, and the race to introduce Kamala Harris is on. Here she was at her first campaign rally as the presumed Democratic nominee touted her record as an attorney general and a prosecutor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds; cheaters, who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!

HARRIS: And in this campaign, I promise you I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The crowd there chanting both "Kamala" and "Lock him up" at the same time. We'll dig into that in a moment.

But first, if the last three weeks have taught us anything, it's that 24 hours can be a lifetime in politics. And the reality right now is one even the Trump campaign just can't ignore.

Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio wrote this in a memo. He's trying to get ahead of what he dubbed the "Harris honeymoon." Quote, "We will start to see public polling, particularly national public polls, where Harris is gaining on or even leading President Trump."

Well, here it is. A new Reuters/IPSOS poll shows Kamala Harris two points ahead of Donald Trump. That is within the margin of error. So here at CNN, we characterize that as having no clear leader.

But let's compare it to the same poll, the Reuters IPSOS/poll, conducted on July 16 so that you can see how this poll has moved. So, look, there on the left of your screen, it's July 16, days after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Trump is up by two points. Of course, again, no clear leader in that poll.

But look at the movement July 22, July 23, Harris plus two. That's a swing of four points.

Now, Fabrizio, the Trump pollster, argues it's going to go away as the Trump campaign works to tie Harris to Joe Biden. But this is a reality shift for former President Trump.

Now, he did not have a public event scheduled, but apparently, he feels the need to get into this conversation here. This was a rare move from a candidate. He used a press call to try to launch an attack on his new opponent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via phone): As a result of her dangerously extreme immigration policies, the largest invasion in history is now taking place at our Southern border. And it's getting worse, not better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining us now, Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters. We also have Brad Woodhouse, Democratic strategist, former DNC spokesman; and Scott Jennings, CNN senior political commentator, former special assistant to President Bush. Welcome to all of you.

BRAD WOODHOUSE, FORMER DNC SPOKESMAN: Good morning.

HUNT: Brad and Scott, we were joking when we were sitting next to each other on Friday, and everything we said is now out the window because of what's happened.

What -- look, the reality here -- I mean, and Scott, let me give this to you. I mean, there are -- Fabrizio is saying, look, this is just a honeymoon. This is going to go away. She's going to have all this money, all this excitement. But we're going to ultimately define her and change that game.

But, you know, Trump hasn't been behind -- these national polls, you know, do not matter at the end of the day. The swing-state polls matter. But they do tell us something about the state of play.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, he's a little ahead in the Marist poll that came out yesterday, as well.

Look, I -- I would anticipate the polling between the two of them head-to-head is going to be nip-tuck for the rest of the race.

And the reality is a tied race for Donald Trump in the national head- to-head probably means he wins the Electoral College. So, they don't have to have a huge margin of lead or victory of the national popular vote.

But there will be Democrats. I mean, it's obvious. I think the Democrats were like, you know, if you have, like, this terrible itch in the center of your back, and finally, someone handed you a back scratcher. I think you're hearing relief from Democrats that they finally shed themselves of Joe Biden.

HUNT: I don't know about that image at this time of the morning. But I understand your point.

JENNINGS: And my personal -- and my personal view is there's a bit of a rational exuberance going on about Harris, who's never proven to be all that skillful of a politician.

And so, we'll -- we'll give it seven to ten days and see where we are after her -- after her record is exposed.

WOODHOUSE: I mean, I really think you're underplaying what we've seen over the last 70, 72 hours and how fundamentally this race has shifted.

I mean, your folks were in -- in Milwaukee saying that this was going to be a landslide victory for -- for Donald Trump. That you were going to expand the map. You had -- New Mexico would be in play, and Colorado would be in play, and Minnesota would be in play.

Look, some of that might -- might actually happen. HUNT: It was true at the time.

WOODHOUSE: But there -- there is -- there is no landslide talk coming -- coming from Donald Trump, coming from this campaign, or coming from the Republican Party.

[06:05:06]

Look, if you want to know how freaked out the Republican Party is about Kamala Harris and this change and the fact that they didn't get to run a convention against her; all that money spent in Milwaukee last week was flushed down -- flushed down the toilet. Just look at -- look at Donald Trump. Look at Donald Trump.

He wants a -- he wants to be reimbursed for the money that the Republicans spent running a race against -- against Joe Biden.

This race has fundamentally changed. No one on your side is talking landslide anymore. It's a tossup race. It's close.

But we have about 300 million reasons to be pretty pleased in terms of 150 million has come into the super PAC supporting Harris. It was just reported this morning, $126 million have been raised by the Harris campaign --

JENNINGS: Yes.

WOODHOUSE: -- since President Biden endorsed her. So, you want to -- you want to sneeze away almost $300 million in 72 hours. And you know --

JENNINGS: I -- I acknowledge it. I mean, she's always been better at getting money than votes. I mean, not a single person's ever voted for her for this.

And yet here she has it. So good job.

WOODHOUSE: Well, we'll see.

HUNT: This is -- Scott -- Scott is giving you the spin, OK? That is what they are going to say. And that's -- that's fine.

Jeff, let me bring you in here. You know, you've covered the White House and presidential campaigns for a long time. I think we're all -- I -- my head is still spinning a little bit, because, you know, we have -- we're going here hear from President Biden tonight.

But I think, as much as these two guys are trying to say, look, this is how the race is. If we've learned anything, it's that we have no idea how these following weeks are going to play out.

We do know it's going to be a close election, because this country is closely divided. And in that Reuters poll, I want to, I want to bring this up, just because I think it's really interesting.

We don't want to underestimate the impact of third-party candidates on this race. And so, in this instance, you see Harris actually pretty much holding -- she drops from 44 to 42 in this one. But Donald Trump drops from 40 to 38. So, he's lost four points to her 2 points. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. polling at 8 percent.

I think we should note this doesn't include some candidates that might pull from Harris, including Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate; Cornel West, who's also running in this race.

But this -- I think that there is a significant amount of uncertainty here, now that this has changed so fundamentally.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Un -- absolutely. Starting -- starting to get -- I just got back from Rehoboth yesterday. I was there for a week on Biden watch. And so, I've got to warn everyone that I'm a little --

JENNINGS: Watch. What a terrible --

MASON: A little tired.

JENNINGS: What a terrible assignment.

MASON: Watch being like what he was going to do. And we found out what he did on Sunday.

But yes, to your point, Kasie, I think it's -- it's changed. That changed everything, and yet there are lots and lots of unknowns.

I think it's absolutely right that the polling right now is showing shifts, but it's going to be a close election. I think it was going to be a close election either way.

And the -- the impact of a third-party candidate is interesting in that poll. There are question marks about whether RFK Jr. would take away more from the Democratic side or take away more from the Republican side.

Certainly, it makes you wonder if that call between RFK Jr. and Donald Trump would have been any different if this kind of polling was clear. That and maybe it was.

But yes, lots and lots of questions still.

I also agree that Vice President Harris is having a terrific moment, but it's also almost certainly a honeymoon. We'll see how long that lasts. The momentum that's showing in the money is clear. But will that enthusiasm continue in the states that really matter?

HUNT: Yes.

I mean, Scott Jennings, one thing we have seen from Republican candidates -- House members, I should say, a pair of them so far -- is this claim that she is a, quote, unquote, "DEI candidate."

And you know, I had heard from one Republican who is close, who used to be very close to Donald Trump, isn't in the circle anymore. But he talked about how it's going to be hard for Donald Trump to resist some of his baser tendencies here. We've seen him, as a candidate, attack people based on race and gender.

And you've got both Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy out there saying that is a really bad idea. Don't do that. It is bad politics. How do you see it?

JENNINGS: Yes, I don't know what Trump personally is going to do. I don't think the campaign is going to touch it, because they don't have to.

I mean, look, first of all, it's not the Republicans' fault that Joe Biden tagged her with this, to some degree, in 2020. I mean, it was Joe Biden who laid out the criteria for choosing a vice president, and his two principal criteria were race and gender.

HUNT: I'm sorry, you're saying that Joe Biden is -- he made a DEI pick?

JENNINGS: He -- I'm saying that he unfairly, because she's qualified, tagged her with that in the first place. And that's not the Republicans' fault that Biden did that to her.

She is absolutely qualified. She's vice president. She was a senator. She was attorney general. She's absolutely qualified, but being qualified doesn't make you the best choice.

And the way to correctly argue the case against her is to let her positions and her record speak for themselves. And there's plenty of tape from her 2019 presidential campaign. And there's plenty of record from her vice presidency to run on. You don't have to go down this route.

WOODHOUSE: Well, it's just -- let me just say this. It's disgusting, this DEI charge. And it wasn't just the two people that said she's a DEI hire. There's another one said she's only in this position because of her -- her ethnic background.

[06:10:10]

And we had another person at the J.D. Vance rally say, well, if they win, we're going to have a civil war. So --

HUNT: We showed that yesterday.

WOODHOUSE: So, you know, it's -- it's pretty extraordinary. It's not -- you know. And Donald Trump, will he go there? I mean, almost certainly he will -- he will -- he will go there.

He started trotting out yesterday what he normally does. He's road- testing invective and name-calling. She's nasty, she's a liar.

You know, which tells me -- opposite of what Scott is saying -- that they don't know how to run against her on -- on the issues. And they don't know how to defend her, prosecuting him as a convicted felon, as a rapist. You know, and you go on, you go right on down the line. I mean, I think her presentation so far contrasts with him. The

message that she's leveling against him is very effective. And all he's come back with is she's nasty.

JENNINGS: But there's already an ad on the air in Pennsylvania detailing her record on energy, fracking, immigration. It's the McCormick people over there. They've got it, right? Don't worry. They'll find a way. Believe me.

HUNT: I'll just say that, you know, the voters -- look, voters -- voters get to do what they want. And they elected her from one of the biggest states in the country as senator from California. There's no-- there's no DEI there.

All right. Come on.

Coming up next, President Biden preparing for his second address from the Oval in less than two weeks.

And this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: that were effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via -- via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Uh-huh. Why this strange take from J.D. Vance three years ago is suddenly back in the conversation this morning.

And a whale leaps over a boat, capsizing it. That's one of the five things you have to see this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:16:06]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back.

Tonight, President Biden set to share more about his decision to drop out of the presidential race. He announced yesterday he plans to address the nation from the Oval Office this evening and will discuss how he plans to finish out the job over the next several months.

Biden has been out of the public eye the past few days since announcing his decision to step aside as he has been recovering from a case of COVID. Wow. Look at that.

Still, he has maintained he is up for the job -- for finishing the job that he has as president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to be out there on the campaign with her, with Kamala. I'm going to be working like he'll, both as a sitting president, getting legislation passed, as well as campaigning.

I want you to know I won't be on the ticket, but I'm still going to be fully, fully engaged. I've got six months left of my presidency. I'm determined to get much done as I possibly can, both foreign policy and domestic policy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, Jeff Mason, you have been with the president in Delaware for the past bunch of days as all this was unfolding. Can you sort of bring us all the color and texture behind the scenes that we haven't been able to see as we, you know, prepare to listen to what he may have to say tonight?

MASON: Sure.

Well, for starters, when you're a pool or you're in the pool, pool reporter, you normally see the person that you are covering on a -- on a semi-regular basis.

HUNT: And this is the pool that's -- it's a tight group of reporters --

MASON: That's right.

HUNT: -- that goes everywhere that the president goes. And you do. You see him get in and out of the car, and on and off the plane. And when you go -- when he goes and gets ice cream, you're there.

MASON: Bingo.

And normally when he goes to Rehoboth, when President Biden goes to Rehoboth or Wilmington, we see him go to church. We see him go out for ice cream. We see him go out for something.

And this last week, we didn't see him once. The night -- the clip that you just played was of him arriving in Dover, Delaware, on Wednesday night. I was in the motorcade that picked him up. We drove him back to Rehoboth. And then we didn't see him again until yesterday.

And that's because he was sick. And he was sick with COVID, and he stayed in and was recovering, but also dealing with, of course, the political crisis that was the Democratic Party just a few days ago.

And in terms of other color, you know, we didn't have any warning about the decision that was coming on Sunday. All of us were waiting for something, or not waiting for something, when it dropped. And I think that sort of was emblematic of a lot of people around the country.

But in -- we didn't see him much. And that's why yesterday's return was actually, for many people, quite interesting, just to see how he's doing, how he's looking. And I think that's something that people will be watching tonight, as

well. Not only what does he have to say, but how does he look and how is he dealing with this momentous decision that he's made?

HUNT: Well, because the reality is he's going to have to deal with -- you know, Republicans are already saying, well, if you can't run for reelection, how can you continue to do the job as president?

Now he has insisted that that's the case. I mean, what is his imperative tonight as he tries to both explain this decision, but also demonstrate that he's still a commander in chief who has -- is steering the country correctly?

MASON: Yes, I think that last piece is a really important part of what he'll have to do tonight. Just a little over a week ago, he was talking about what he would want to do in his first 100 days of a second term. I think now you'll hear him talk -- talking about what he wants to do in the last six months of his last term. This current term.

So, he'll talk about that. He'll talk about why he made a decision that he made. But he'll -- he'll also focus on what he has left to get done and what he -- what -- I mean, it's a legacy. It's all legacy at this point, right?

He's not going to have a huge runway for getting major legislation passed. That's certainly true. But what other foreign policy, domestic policy imprints can he make? I think you'll hear him focus on that.

HUNT: He -- you -- you heard him note specifically he wants to do domestic and foreign policy. Of course, we know that he really relishes that particular -- that world stage role --

MASON: Yes. He does.

HUNT: -- has been very important to him.

All right. Coming up next here, later today, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the U.S. Congress.

Plus, in our five things, how an old pay phone saved a couple from near tragedy. Oh my gosh.

[06:20:04]

This is one of the five things you have to see this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning.

Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(WATER SPLASHING)

(CREAKING NOISES)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A terrifying moment for two fishermen off the coast of New Hampshire when a humpback whale leaps out of the water and capsizes their boat.

The two men were able to leap overboard. They were rescued by this other nearby boat. How lucky is that? Wow.

A Milwaukee couple narrowly avoiding serious injury after a car is sent flipping off-road after a crash.

[06:25:05]

Surveillance video shows the car was knocked off course, thanks to an old payphone standing nearby. I guess we should just leave all those up. You never know. Wow.

Heavy rain causing severe flooding in Atlanta. Rescue crews with boats had to be brought in to help people evacuate from their homes. Yikes.

And this. Have you ever seen so much luggage in your life? Baggage claim backups at airports across the country as airlines, particularly Delta, struggle to recover from Friday's global I.T. outage.

We are told the cancellations at Delta showing signs of slowing down this morning. But yes, at Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is currently a hellscape. Good luck to all of you.

Then there was this. A typhoon closing in on Taiwan is sweeping people off their feet quite literally.

The typhoon is packing winds of almost 145 miles per hour, enough to knock several people to the ground. The typhoon also bringing more than 20 inches of rain to some parts of the island.

Maybe just stay home. Maybe just don't go outside. Oh, boy.

All right. Time now for weather. Wildfires continuing to cause plenty of problems out West. Denver's air quality among the worst in the world right now. The blanket of smoke that has blown in from other states is so bad that you can see it from space.

Let's get straight to our weatherman, Derek van Dam.

Derek, good morning to you. Pretty remarkable.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Good morning, Kasie.

So, here's the deal with Denver. Right now, we have moderate air quality, but yesterday, it actually had the eighth worst air quality in terms of large cities across the entire planet. So really puts it into context, how smoky it has been. And of course, this is all a result of the wildfires that are ongoing,

not only from Western Canada, but into the Pacific Northwest, specifically across the state of Oregan.

You can see kind of the evolution of the smoke going forward, much of that smoke concentrated across Eastern Oregon. We have poor air quality alerts, including Denver, stretching Northward towards the Canadian border as nearly 70 active large wildfires continue to burn.

Here's our risk areas today. This is where we're concerned about dry lightning that could spark off more fires. This is, of course, on the backdrop of extreme heat.

Quickly, along the East Coast, we've had a lot of rain from Atlanta all the way to Houston. We have a slight to moderate risk of flash flooding across those regions today -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Our Weatherman van Dam. Derek, thank you. I really appreciate it.

VAN DAM: OK.

HUNT: Still to come here on CNN THIS MORNING, a shakeup at the Secret Service, finally, after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

Plus, a senator resigns from Congress, but it sure is not soon enough for some.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]