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Trump: The Vice President Does Not Have Impact On Election; U.S. Reaches Plea Deal With Alleged 9/11 Mastermind; Katie Ledecky Breaks Olympic Record in 1,500 Meter Freestyle. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired August 01, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is 5:29 a.m. here in Washington, D.C. Here's a live look at New York City this morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean. I'm in for Kasie Hunt, and it is great to be with you.

Donald Trump slighting -- appearing to slight his own running mate, telling reporters J.D. Vance won't tip the scales one way or another this November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS FAULKNER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: When you look at J.D. Vance, is he ready on day one?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Does he what?

FAULKNER: Ready one day one, if he has to be.

TRUMP: I've always had great respect for him and for the other candidates, too. But I will say this, and I think this is well documented. Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact. I mean, virtually no impact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Now, when he was asked about Trump's comments about his readiness for office Vance seemed to brush it off.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: That's what the president said a year ago. That's what the president said a few months ago. That's what the president said to me privately when he was thinking about selecting me or somebody else. And it's just true most people are going to vote for Kamala Harris or for Donald Trump."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Vance has spent the first few weeks as Trump's vice presidential pick on defense, and now he's dismissing the widespread criticism, telling NBC News, "The price of entry of being on the national ticket and giving me an opportunity to govern is you have to take the shots. And so, I sort of expected it."

Joining me now, White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Catherine Lucey. And race and politics reporter for The Hill, Cheyanne Daniels. Good morning to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

CHEYANNE DANIELS, RACE AND POLITICS REPORTER, THE HILL, HOST, "THE SWITCH UP" PODCAST (via Webex by Cisco): Good morning.

DEAN: All right, let's start first -- Catherine, let's start first with J.D. Vance because we just heard those clips. And it has been a rough and rocky rollout for him, I think is fair to say. And now you have Donald Trump saying what we just heard him say there.

Do you agree with that? Do you think that Vance doesn't matter one way or the other?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, certainly, it is true that ultimate, people are voting for who is at the top of the ticket. But vice presidential candidates are selected to benefit the ticket, right, whether it's to help with certain states, help with certain voter groups.

Vance definitely was brought in because they saw him as somebody -- he'd be useful in the key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And the plan was to really try and park him in those places and have him connect with white, working-class voters there.

So there is always a reason you're picking someone to put them on the ticket.

But they are -- they are trying to move forward. He is currently on this big western swing. We had a story out there talking to a lot of voters who had come out to a Vance event there. They don't seem that troubled by it. They largely seem to be OK with him on the ticket.

So we'll have to see if this -- if these comments continue to percolate and present problems for him.

DEAN: Yeah.

And, Cheyanne, at that event that we just played the clip of where they were talking about -- they were talking to Trump about Vance, it was also an event with Black journalists where the former president went after Kamala Harris saying she "turned Black," really denigrating her heritage.

As we now have a had a few -- about 12 hours for all of that to set in, how do you think that is settling in? And it was interesting to see the vice president's response to it, which is essentially, America deserves better. This is the same old show.

DANIELS: Yes, that's exactly right. Donald Trump was speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists convention to a roomful of Black journalists who many of them report for Black voters, Black Americans.

And so he kind of went out on a limb. He tried to speak to Black voters. It didn't really go over very well if you listen to the audience reaction in there, and that's a roomful of journalists.

So we do hear from the Harris campaign that this is nothing new from Donald Trump. You know, we know about his birtherism conspiracy against former President Obama, as well as now we see that happening with the vice president.

And so it will be interesting how this plays out with Black voters themselves because from what I'm hearing it's not going to play out very well.

DEAN: Yeah.

And Catherine, what's interesting is the Trump campaign was really -- before the assassination attempt and the RNC, and even during the RNC, really trying to go after voters of color where they really saw Biden's numbers slipping.

LUCEY: That's right. They saw Biden's numbers slipping there. They really felt they had opportunities, particularly with Black men.

DEAN: Um-hum.

LUCEY: But one of the things we've seen -- and we saw this, this week, with the vice president's event in Atlanta -- is we're seeing a lot -- a lot of enthusiasm among Black voters. We see that at events. We see that in polling.

She had a huge rally in Atlanta this week. I was there. The energy there was really off the charts. Obviously, we'll have to see how she converts that.

She has work to do, but that really changes the dynamics here in terms of trying to appeal to those voters.

DEAN: Yeah.

And so, Cheyanne, now that the dynamics have changed and, to Catherine's point, there is really boosted enthusiasm that we've seen since Kamala Harris has entered this race -- we saw her in Georgia earlier this week -- how does the Harris campaign forge ahead and really try to make the -- make the best of this moment and get back, maybe, some of those voters who had softened on the Democratic ticket previously?

[05:35:08]

DANIELS: So Kamala Harris has a very unique opportunity here, right? She is seen as a little bit more progressive than Joe Biden, which is going to play very well with younger Black voters.

But she also really has a moment to speak with Black men. They are the most vulnerable of the Black population right now when it comes to Black voters and whether or not they're going to cast their ballots. So she needs to talk to the issues that are at the top of the mind for Black men, which aren't that different from Black voters, which aren't that different from your regular, everyday American voters.

So she really needs to nail down on inflation. She really needs to nail down on jobs and opportunities. And that way, she'll be able to really lure in Black men and those who have kind of become a little bit disillusioned with the Democratic Party over the last four years.

DEAN: All right, Catherine Lucey and Cheyanne Daniels. Thanks to both of you for getting up early this morning. We appreciate it.

Three defendants accused of plotting the 9/11 terror attacks have reached a plea deal with the U.S., and that includes the alleged mastermind behind the 2001 attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The pretrial agreement coming after 27 months of negotiations, and it takes the death penalty off the table.

CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen noting the unusual nature of this trial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Everything that could go wrong with this trial did go wrong. But the fact that we were still in pretrial hearings more than two decades after he was captured, I think speaks for itself. So this plea deal is sort of probably the least bad thing that -- the least bad case for the prosecution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And joining me now is the founder of the National Security Institute at George Mason University Law School, and former associate counsel for President George W. Bush, Jamil Jaffer. Jamil, good morning.

JAMIL JAFFER, FOUNDER, NATIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTE AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL, FORMER ASSOCIATE COUNCIL FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Good morning.

DEAN: Nice to see you here.

JAFFER: Yes.

DEAN: Walk us first through how we arrived at this point. This has been a long time.

JAFFER: Yeah. Well, you know, what happened was we captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on the battlefield in Afghanistan -- actually, Pakistan. We took him into custody. He then went to a CIA facility for a while and was eventually transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

And we've been trying these (INAUDIBLE) for a while. They went up and down to the Supreme Court a couple of times. And now there's a question of the evidence being -- that's being used against him. Was it obtained through enhanced interrogation methods and the like? We've seen two judges in the military trials drop out.

And so we've had real challenges in this trial. So Peter Bergen is right. This trial has gone on for a long time -- or this attempted trial has gone on for a long time. And now the question is how can we resolve it? Do we need a full trial or a plea deal? It looks like the Biden administration decided a plea deal is the way to go.

DEAN: And what is significant about this plea deal besides the fact that it hopefully -- it's like getting to an endpoint in all of this? But the plea deal itself.

JAFFER: Two key elements. One, no death penalty for these three defendants. But second, that they've agreed to plead guilty to all the charges in the indictment, including the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on that fatal day on September 11, 2001.

DEAN: All right.

And so let's put that to the side for a second because we do have what's going on in the Middle East right now, and it seems like a situation where it could boil over. It's been simmering now for months. The U.S. has been trying very hard to do what it can to keep this from going into all-out war.

How do you see things playing out?

JAFFER: Well look, I mean, the hard question is what else should Israel be doing but going after the people that conducted and built these terrorist attacks, right? Over 1,100 killed in Israel on the fateful day in October. Three hundred -- nearly 300 hostages taken, including Americans, who remain in Gaza.

They took out the leadership of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, right? They just announced this morning that a few weeks ago, they killed Mohammed Deif, the military leader of Hamas. And they took out a key Hezbollah leader who just killed a bunch of kids in Israel on a playground in the Golan Heights.

So they're taking out leadership just like we took out Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. It's what we do to defeat a terrorist group. It's what Israel is doing. So the idea that they shouldn't undertake those attacks -- you know, hard to understand. At the end of the day, though, it is going to cause tensions to increase, particularly because the strike was taken in the heart of the Iranian capital on the day of the inauguration of their new president.

DEAN: Right. I mean, I think that's what also, too, adds such a layer to it, right, is that it happened in Tehran.

JAFFER: Yeah. I mean, it demonstrates real Israeli capability.

DEAN: Yeah.

JAFFER: You think about getting a drone or some sort of missile capability into the heart of the nation's capital -- their nation's capital -- and take down a senior leader who was, in the words of the Iranian supreme leader, a guest in their country, right?

DEAN: Um-hum.

JAFFER: I mean, it's provocative but it also demonstrates Israeli capability and puts everyone on notice: you come after Israel we're going to get you when the time is right for us.

DEAN: And the Biden administration really trying to land the plane as it were on these ceasefire talks and hostage deal. They've been in Rome this past weekend.

And now, there -- you kind of have two ways of thinking about it that I've heard, which is from one perspective, this puts more pressure on those talks. It amps up the pressure on Hamas, on Iran to come to the table and actually negotiate. The other side is that the man they assassinated last -- in Iran -- that he was a part of those talks and that without him there it makes it more difficult.

[05:40:10]

Where do you come down on all of that?

JAFFER: You know, Jessica, that last argument made by the -- by one of the leaders in Qatar that you take out the key negotiator --

DEAN: Yeah.

JAFFER: -- right, during the negotiations doesn't help negotiations.

This is a man who architected not just this terrorist attack but dozens of terrorist attacks before it. So the idea someone that taking him out is a problem in the negotiations, he -- I mean, the negotiations only happened because he killed 1,000 Israelis and kidnapped 250 people, including Americans.

So, you know, look, the reality is you want to be a terrorist group leader, you're going to get got, and that's what happened here. And nobody -- not the Qataris and not anybody else should be saying well, it's really unfortunate. It might mess up the negotiations. We wouldn't be in this place if we didn't have this terrorist group going after innocent civilians.

DEAN: All right, Jamil Jaffer. Thank you so much.

JAFFER: Thanks, Jessica.

DEAN: Good to see you.

Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, as the Democratic Party looks to formally make Kamala Harris its nominee, we look back at how women in history helped her get here.

Plus, U.S. Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky does it again, laughing (PH) the field in Paris.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [05:45:13]

DEAN: Today, the DNC begins its process to formally make Kamala Harris the Democratic nominee for president. And with her nomination she has a chance to not only become the first female president but also the first Black woman and the first of South Asian descent to rise to that office.

Harris is making fundamental rights for women a central part of her campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We fight for a future with equal pay for women because we know when we lift up the economic status women, we lift up the economic status of children, of families, and all of society benefits.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: It's an issue women have been fighting for for decades and it's the same fight that's helping Harris gain momentum that she has today.

And here to help us put it all into perspective is Clara Bingham. She's the author of "The Movement: How Women's Liberation Transformed America 1963-1973." Clara, this book is so amazing and so pertinent for right now. Really important to kind of tie together.

We're seeing Harris rise as a major party nominee. And, of course, many women have paved the -- paved the way for this to happen.

In the introduction, you write about the voices in the movement teach us the colossal debt we owe to these second wave warriors. It is so easy to take for granted the seismic changes they made but knowing this history will give us the knowledge we need to continue the struggle for freedom.

One of those women is Shirley Chisholm who -- when I worked on the Hill, there's a beautiful portrait of her that I would walk by all the time on the House side of the Capitol.

What should people know about her and her connection to this moment in time?

CLARA BINGHAM, AUTHOR, "THE MOVEMENT: HOW WOMEN'S LIBERATION TRANSFORMED AMERICA 1963-1973" (via Webex by Cisco): Well, good morning, Jessica.

Shirley Chisholm is one of the great heroes of the second wave feminist movement and the civil rights movement. And she, in so many ways, paved the way for Kamala Harris to be who she is today.

And she was the first Black woman elected to Congress and she was elected from Brooklyn in 1968, sworn in January of '69 at time when there were only 11 women in Congress out of 535, and 10 Black members of Congress. So she was an absolute anomaly. I mean, she was elected only three years after the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.

So when she walked into the Halls of Congress, she faced an enormous amount of misogyny and racism. And she had this particular quality of holding her head high and confronting people with humor and never, ever backing down.

One of -- one of her funny stories I love -- not funny, but really brave -- is when she was assigned the Agriculture Committee. And she -- because she was a freshman, she was supposed to accept this role which she, of course, thought was absurd because she was from Brooklyn. And she used to say everyone knows a tree doesn't grow in Brooklyn.

DEAN: (Laughing).

BINGHAM: And she staged (audio gap) and managed to get off of that committee and get onto the Veterans Affairs Committee. And that was much more relevant to her work.

But she kept on just systematically breaking down barriers and she became this incredibly important agent for change, and that's how she saw herself.

DEAN: Yeah.

BINGHAM: She then, of course, ran for president in a very audacious move in 1972.

DEAN: And so, I want to play a clip of what she said during her announcement and how people might try to define her. Here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SHIRLEY CHISHOLM, (D-NY): I stand before you today as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am Black and proud. I am not the candidate of the women's movement of this country, although I am a woman, and I'm equally proud of that.

I do not intend to offer to you the tired and glib cliches which for too long have been an accepted part of our political life. I am the candidate of the people of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And Clara, it is so interesting to watch that in 1972 and here we are in 2024. Just to take that all in and to see Kamala Harris running now.

And obviously, with Hillary Clinton, in 2016 -- and she's even talked about it that she was -- she didn't want to lean in all the way to being the first woman. She didn't want to make it all about that.

[05:50:03] There seems to be a little bit more of an ease with Kamala Harris talking about that. It's one of many things.

How do you see it all?

BINGHAM: Interesting. I think it's very interesting to analyze the difference between 2016 and 2024 in America. And one of the -- for women politicians, in particular.

And I think that the Me Too movement, which really broke out in 2017 just a year after Trump was in the presidency was a -- it was another wave of feminism that was -- that was really enormous and had a huge political impact and cultural impact on the country as women came out of the closet and discussed the sexual harassment that so many of them were facing at work. And so many men who were the perpetrators of this lost their jobs.

So I think that there's now much more comfort in talking about women's issues.

The other enormous change is, of course, the reversal of Roe v. Wade and with the Dobbs decision in 2022.

And so these two historic events have really changed what it means to be a woman politician in America and a woman running for president. Because there is so much more AEs in terms of talking about women. It isn't necessarily a dirty word to say that you represent women's interests anymore because there's more validity and, sort of, honor in that. And also, there is urgency.

And so there -- now, for the first time in 50 years, the freedoms that women fought for in my book, during the decade of '63 and '73, have been rolled back. And this has never happened before.

And as Kamala Harris has showed us you can't put the genie back in the bottle. You can't just present as if all of the freedoms that women have earned in the last 50 years can just be wiped away with some sense of false nostalgia about making America great again. Well, we know what great again used to be. It wasn't so great for women at all.

And so I just think that this is the moment and that just be serendipity and amazingly unusual turns of events we have probably the perfect Democratic candidate that the party could ever ask for.

DEAN: Yeah. It is -- it is such an interesting moment in history and thank you for helping us put it into perspective, Clara Bingham. We appreciate it. Author of "The Movement: How Women's Liberations Transformed America." Clara, thanks again for joining us.

BINGHAM: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: Um-hum.

In sports, American Katie Ledecky making her case for being the greatest female swimmer of all time.

CNN international sports anchor Amanda Davies is in Paris with the latest. Amanda, this is exciting stuff.

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: It is, indeed, Jessica. We do often overuse the word "legend" in sports, don't we? But there's no doubt it is a moniker that Katie Ledecky deserves with bells on.

She said she was disappointed with her showing in the 400 freestyle where she took bronze, but more than made up for it in the 1,500 -- an event that has become her own. And she claims her eighth Olympic gold medal in an Olympic record time. It was a time seven seconds faster than her winning time in Tokyo three years ago. And again, they pretty much had to adjust the camera settings because she finished so far ahead of the rest.

It was win that made her the most successful swimmer in Games history. And she's aware of what that means in terms of inspiring the next generation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE LEDECKY, 8-TIME OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I try not to really dwell on history or the magnitude of things. Those women that I'm up there with now -- they're people that I've looked up to for so many years. People that I was watching swim when I was just starting out in the sport. So that's very special to me so share that with them and they've definitely inspired me. So I hope that some little girl out there is watching and will come along and get up there with all of us someday, too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAVIES: Yeah, and how about this as evidence of that? Check out the adorable reaction from this young fan in the stands after Ledecky's victory. Look at that. She got a wave from the swimming legend herself. It was a moment that went viral on social media with one post saying Katie Ledecky just made this girl's life. Well worth the trip to Paris.

But why win only one medal in a session when you can win two? That is something that France's newest superstar Leon Marchand did last night that not even Michael Phelps tried. In the space of two hours he took victory in the 200 meter butterfly, beating world recordholder and defending champion Kristof Milak. He got the medal around his neck and then came back and did it all again in the 200 breaststroke. It was incredible.

[05:55:02]

And both Ledecky and Marchand still have gold medal hopes to come.

So, to the U.S. men's basketball team. Lebron and co, you might remember, were given a massive scare in their pre-games matchup against the new kids on the block, South Sudan. Just a point to split them that time. This wasn't easy but it was easier. Jayson Tatum back in the lineup and they took it 103 points to 86 to book their place in the quarterfinals. But a warning to all Olympic favorites who aspired in the men's all-

around gymnastics competition. Japan's Shinnosuke Oka upsetting the odds to take gold, something both Simone Biles and Suni Lee will be looking to avoid as they go head-to-head for the women's title later on. It's the first time the past two Olympic champions have gone head- to-head in the event, and I cannot wait to be there to watch it, Jessica.

DEAN: I know. I think a lot of people are very excited about that one.

All right, Amanda. Thanks so much. We appreciate it.

In our next hour on CNN THIS MORNING --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question so -- in such a horrible manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: A combative Donald Trump pushing back at journalists in a roomful of other journalists.

Plus, battleground Georgia now back in play in the 2024 race. We're going to talk to the state's former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan about his support for Kamala Harris.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)