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Obamas Officially Endorse Kamala Harris For President; "Malicious Acts" On French Train Lines As Olympics Begin; Harris Vows She "Will Not Be Silent" On Gaza Suffering. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 26, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:28]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, July 26th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT (via telephone): Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kamala Harris securing another major endorsement this morning as the momentum before for campaign rolls on.

Plus, the vice president taking a tough stance on Israel after meeting one-on-one with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

We'll show you what she said.

And Donald Trump tapping the brakes on a possible September debate against Harris.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: All right. Five a.m. here in Washington, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Friday. It's been a very long couple of weeks. I don't know about you. I am very glad it's Friday.

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

Just in to CNN: Kamala Harris landing her biggest endorsement to date, her ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket, all but complete.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY (via telephone): I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic. B. OBAMA (via telephone): We call to say, Michelle and I couldn't be

prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, my goodness. Michelle, Barack, this means so much to me. I am looking forward to doing this with the two of you, Doug and I both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama both giving Vice President Harris their endorsement at the conclusion of her first whirlwind week as the presumptive nominee. They join a long list of Democratic Party leaders who are giving Harris a boost, including President Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, the Clintons, congressional leaders, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi, the whole lineup.

The Obamas had remained on the sidelines until now. Obama had said earlier in the week, he wanted to see how the process played out inside the party, but now, they're ready to put their weight behind Harris.

The new statement on the endorsement, they say, quote, at a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all a reason to hope.

My panel joins us now, Stephen Neukam, congressional reporter for "Axios", and Cheyanne Daniels, race and politics reporter for "The Hill".

Good morning to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Stephen, let me start with you. I mean, look, this was expected, right? We didn't expect this to go any other way but it is kind of the button on the end of a rollout of Democratic endorsements that really show the party is united behind her, as I will say some attacks from Republicans say that this is something that Democratic leaders have orchestrated but at the same time, there's no real opposition to Harris at this point.

What do you make of the Obamas move here?

STEPHEN NEUKAM, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Yeah. It was a rollout, but it was also sort of breakneck speed from last Sunday when the president dropped out of the race to -- by Tuesday, Wednesday, she was the presumptive nominee, and now she has all of party leadership from Capitol Hill, you know, the donors, former party leaders, who are behind her now.

And look, I think this shows that the party is relieved. They were in free fall for about three to four weeks after the debate, trying to figure out what they were going to do at the top of the ticket and the conversations that I've had specifically with Democratic senators, it is a feeling of relief. Senate campaigns are relieved to actually have something to be enthusiastic about, and not have to have this conversation about what are we going to do at the top of the presidential ticket? HUNT: The five shift is real, shall we say.

Cheyanne, one of the places where we've seen a lot of excitement. Karen Finney has been on with us a couple of times this week and she's talked about these calls that she's been on, Zoom calls should -- she said they had 44,000 people on these calls, fundraising calls, and of course, the Obamas have a -- have a critical role to play with these communities as well.

What are you hearing in terms of how this may change the game in states that Harris would need if she wants to get to 270 at the end of the day?

CHEYANNE DANIELS, RACE AND POLITICS REPORTER, THE HILL: Absolutely. You know, I think what's really interesting and we hear the Obamas message about this being a moment of hope or that she's giving hope to folks, is that's what were hearing from folks on the ground, that's what we're hearing from organizers, is that she is offering a step forward, particularly for Black voters, and in this moment it's still important for Black men. They're saying that she is going to be able to bring Black men back into the Democratic Party, especially actually in these swing states.

And without those voters, without suburban women voters in these swing states, she would not be able to win and Democrats would lose the White House.

[05:05:04]

HUNT: Yeah, it's -- it's one of those things where its not clear that she's really going to be able to have enough information yet to figure out if Georgia, for example, it's going to be back in play based on enthusiasm from Black voters. But that's certainly what people I'm talking to are watching for.

Stephen, let's touch on veepstakes, so to speak. I want to show you what Senator Mark Kelly, who is floating around somewhere near the top of that list right now, it had to say recently about whether or not he would be willing to do the job if asked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): I've been a public servant since I was -- even before I was in the Navy. I drove an ambulance when I was in high school. You know, I was an astronaut for 15 years (INAUDIBLE). You know, the job of the United States Senate is, you know, the highest service I've had to my country.

And this is not about me. But I've always, always when I've had the chance to serve. I think that's very important.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, of course, Kelly, the senator from Arizona possible possibly someone who could help Harris shore up her immigration- related credentials, which is something that Republicans are going to attack her on as well, are already seeing that day in and day out.

What is your sense of where this stands?

NEUKAM: Yeah. There's a few theories right now. Democrats were talking to about who the best VP pick is. Yes, the argument for Kelly is trying to bolster the argument in Arizona. There's some that is skeptical that the party would take a Democratic extend our out of the Senate with how important that majority is going to be. Yes, there's a Democratic governor who would appoint a Democrat, but you have, you get into a situation with a special election.

And then you have the governors. There's a lot of talent and the governors mansions. So I think there's a lot of conversation around Shapiro in Pennsylvania. Locking up Pennsylvania would be huge for the party, the Keystone State.

And then there's a question about expanding the map in North Carolina with Roy Cooper.

So, all these are options that are on the table. But I think were going to get a decision pretty quickly by the beginning, early August from the Harris campaign.

HUNT: Yeah, they're looking at August 7 because that's when that virtual roll call is set to take place.

Cheyanne, I also wanted to show -- I mean, this is one thing where you're seeing kind of celebrities come out en mass for Harris. There was a Zoom call that included singers, actresses, sports stars. It started this one starts with Megan Rapinoe, U.S. soccer star.

Let's just watch a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN RAPINOE, SOCCER STAR: White women, this is our opportunity to show up not only for ourselves, but for Black women. They've given us the whole playbook on how to show up and energize and be organized.

PINK, SINGER: I'm just really grateful that us women are going to have a voice and we've always made our voices heard and now its time to just get extra loud.

CONNIE BRITTON, ACTRESS: Interesting, white women, I mean, here we are. I have to admit when I was writing stuff down, I was like Karens for Kamala, I don't know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Karens for Kamala per Connie Britton.

An interesting way to frame it that this was a bunch of white women, celebrities who got together to say, hey, were on board with this, but clearly, welcome from the Harris campaign.

DANIELS: Oh, yes, absolutely. So this is something that we have seen Donald Trump campaign be able to do pretty successfully, which is get celebrities on their side and be able to have particularly Black celebrities be able to say, hey, were endorsing him and that's, you know, were thinking about Ye, formerly Kanye West. We think about Amber Rose showing up, although, you know she dated some folks.

So it all started depends on who you're looking at, but this is something that Democrats have struggled with us to get these big names behind them. So, definitely a step in the right direction for the Democrats.

HUNT: Well, I mean, look, I would say that the Trump campaign at the RNC brought out the people that they had. Typically, we've seen a lot more in Hollywood.

Jeffrey Katzenberg has been out promoting President Biden before this but you definitely have a kind of more voices speaking out now that Biden has stepped aside.

All right. Stephen Neukam, Cheyanne Daniels, thank you both very much. I really appreciate it.

All right. We got to get to this developing story now, Paris police are stepping up security following coordinated malicious attacks on French train lines ahead of the Olympic opening ceremonies.

France's state railway company is asking all travelers to postpone their trips, if possible. And not go to the stations.

CNN national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, joins us live now from Paris.

Juliette, good morning to you. What do we know about this and what are you -- what are you watching for here?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So everyone was focused on Paris and the opening ceremonies that start in just a few hours. They are on the Seine river just a very concentrated effort on the safety and security side, and then of course, outside of Paris 33 successful attacks. There were there was one that was thwarted on the high-speed rail, which is going to impact, you know, 700,000 to 800,000 passengers at this stage.

[05:10:05]

We don't know to what extent those are commuters, although Paris, I was just walking around, is pretty quiet. I think it's mostly just Olympics -- people related to the Olympics right now but people are staying outside the city. There are trying to get in and then you also have the concern of the athletes and to make sure that they can get to where they need.

We're hearing now -- I mean, two things have happened. One is that the Paris Olympic Committee just canceled their press conference about the opening ceremonies because I think they don't know what the impact is going to be. This just happened a couple of hours ago. And second is they are going to anticipate this disruption at least through the first weekend of the Olympics and that's going to impact of courses success of the Olympics, and then what the spectator -- expectations are, all these people are here now hoping to see these events that are -- that are throughout Par -- throughout Paris in the suburbs, not just in the city center.

HUNT: All right, Juliette Kayyem for us with that update -- Juliette, I'm sure we'll be coming back with you. Keep us posted. Thank you so much.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

HUNT: Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, Vice President Harris delivering a message to Israel that reportedly angered Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Plus, Donald Trump accused of backpedaling on his pledge to debate his opponent.

And how the Trump campaign is looking to shore up support in America's Rust Belt.

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[05:15:39]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Mr. President, we've known each other for 40 years. And you've known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years, from Golda Meir. So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Biden, hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House yesterday, Biden smiling as Netanyahu called him an Irish American Zionist.

Vice President Harris also meeting with the prime minister yesterday.

It seems her meeting wasn't quite as cozy.

Harris had this to say afterwards.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters. I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. CNN's Max Foster joins us now from London.

Max, were learning this from "Axios", Barak Ravid, who has really strong winds into the prime minister's office in Israel. They say quote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was upset by Vice President Kamala Harris's on-camera statement after their meeting and is concerned it will harm negotiations over a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. An Israeli official said in a briefing with reporters.

Harris's statement after the meeting was much more critical than what she told Netanyahu in the meeting, one Israeli official claimed.

What do you make of what she said there? What the Israelis are saying afterward? Honestly, her on-camera statement makes a lot of sense to me in the political context of what she is dealing with here now at the top of the Democratic ticket, where she is trying to unite the Democratic Party that has been very divided by the way President Biden has been handling this war.

But what do you see from your vantage point?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're watching it, won't we, because it's such a profound issue and we need to know where she stands on it. Is she completely in lockstep with Joe Biden, well, largely but there was a difference in tone, I felt to Kamala Harris and Joe Biden on this issue.

So, yes, she recognizes Israel's right to defend itself, but then she spent a lot of time saying there are conditions that should be applied to that, how you defend yourself and the amount of civilians that are dying there, and how she will not remain silent.

So very clear message as she was quite subtle when she gave it, you know, very tough and I think that was quite telling because there's been a lot of talk in diplomatic circles that she's going to be more sympathetic to Palestinians, you know, an over-simplistic way of looking at it.

I think what she was doing there, were saying she's going to have a much more balanced view between Palestinians and Israelis when it comes to this.

In terms of the "Axios" common, it's going to frustrate Netanyahu because one of his ongoing issues is when other countries criticize -- when they give equivalents to both sides, he feels that isn't equivalence to both sides. I think that was reflected actually in Kamala Harris's speech there.

So, for a lot of people, it's quite subtle, but I think the tone was very punchy.

HUNT: The tone was very different. I completely agree with you on that. Now, the one thing that's also interesting here is that obviously now

it's Harris versus Trump. And while Donald Trump's administration was very pro-Israel, when he was in power, and Trump campaigns on this, and honestly criticizes Jewish people for voting for Democrats around this, which is, you know would set that aside for a second.

One thing Trump does seem to be acknowledging now is the public relations challenge that Netanyahu is facing. That's how he frames it.

Listen to what he told Fox on Thursday.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

TRUMP: I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You got to get it done quickly because they are getting decimated with this publicity. And, you know, Israel is not very good at public relations.

[05:20:02]

I'll tell you that. Israel for whatever reason, you have Jewish people out there wearing yarmulkes and they're, you know, pro-Palestine, you've never seen anything -- people have never seen anything like this. Their public relations are not good and they've got to get this done fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So this of course, the longtime brand marketer Donald Trump saying this. It would seem to me that it seems like no matter which one of these candidates, Bibi Netanyahu, ends up with, he's going to face some pressure on the war question.

FOSTER: Well, you know, Donald Trump is probably very tuned in to what many people in Israel feeling right now. It is bad PR, a lot of what Netanyahu is doing as far as they're concerned, he's not very popular. He wouldn't win an election according to the polls if he was there now.

He does have a bad PR and, you know, getting it done is exactly what many Israelis want. They want an end to this war. Obviously this -- they want a certain end to the war, but they want it done sooner rather than later.

We've been talking about this all week, how that so many people think it was inappropriate that Netanyahu was even in America, but it should be focusing on the deal.

So I think actually Trump is speaking to what a lot of people think that its get the deal done and consider Israel's brand really on the world stage because it's being -- it's a confused brand at best, isn't it? Because were hearing so many mixed messages from within Israel about what they think about government policy, doesn't feel cohesive.

But I had a question for you about the Trump meeting, which was I've been reading about some beef between Biden and Trump because Biden didn't support Trump in a certain election. And -- sorry, Netanyahu and Trump because Netanyahu supported, gave congratulations to Biden, rather went out of that election. So it wasn't very clear on that.

So I'm interested in the attention they might have in that meeting based on what you know about Trump.

HUNT: Yeah. That Netanyahu was too quick to congratulate Joe Biden. Yeah, this is of course, one of Donald Trump's driving grievances throughout all of this.

I do think it's going to be a very -- the tenor of the meeting will be very interesting. I think, you know, behind closed doors. Netanyahu has been willing to hug Donald Trump in a way that is, at the time when this was all starting out with something of an unusual way to deal with an election from the Israeli perspective, it was very clear, I think to Democrats and frustrating that he was willing to do that.

But they clearly have had some issues between them that Netanyahu feels he needs to resolve. Otherwise, why would he be going down there?

Max Foster for us this morning, Max, thank you. I really appreciate it.

All right. Coming up next here. A wildfire in California quickly burning out of control, no end in sight.

Plus, we continue we to follow a developing story in Paris, coordinated sabotage French train lines targeted by multiple malicious acts on the day of the Olympics opening ceremony.

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[05:27:27]

HUNT: All right. Twenty-six minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.

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HUNT: The DOJ announcing two alleged leaders of the Mexican -- of a Mexican drug cartel were arrested in Texas yesterday, included putting a sign of the notorious kingpin El Chapo.

Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki answering questions again, this time from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Later today, she'll discuss her role in the Biden administration's withdrawal all from Afghanistan. Psaki, now a host on MSNBC, got approval for the appearance from the White House.

Falcon Nine, the grounded SpaceX rocket has been cleared for take off. The FAA, giving the green light after the company said it identified and a fix the issues that caused a premature satellite deployment earlier this month. Falcon Nine launch again as soon as tomorrow.

All right. Hot, dry weather continues to fuel wildfires out west. The Park Fire in northern California burning nearly 125,000 acres in 30 hours. To put that into perspective, the fire has burned about 50 football fields per minute since Wednesday, and fire crews in Oregon are battling the nations largest active fire, the Durkee Fire now at 280,000 acres.

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

Derek, good morning. What are you seeing out there?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, you can see the rapid fire growth from the Park Fire here in northern California, by the way, in that 30-hour period, its burned the equivalent of about roughly the size of the city of Atlanta here where our headquarters space. So that's really saying something. You can see it from space. Look at that growth of the fire and, of course, the resulting smoke plume that that is just putting in the degraded quality of air across northern California and into neighboring states.

Here's a look at some of the other fires ongoing, but the park fire really standing out only 3 percent containment right now, we have red flag warnings for the central valley of California, but this expands elsewhere across western parts of the U.S. including much of Montana and then to Idaho. Eighty-nine active wildfires across the western U.S.. Of course, we've got the air quality issues associated with these fires and the fires that are ongoing across western Canada.

So smoke will be a concern and that will also bring some interesting sunshine and our -- sunsets and sunrises over the horizon for the next several days.

Now, of course, all eyes on Paris today with the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Right now, there are some rain showers moving through Paris. We are hopeful though that this will move on and we hopefully have a dry opening ceremony that will occur.