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Trump Backlash After Questioning VP Harris Racial Identity; VP Harris Responds to Trump's False Attack on Her Race; Trump Facing New Criticism After NABJ Convention; Severe Storms and Dangerous Heat. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 01, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: It is Thursday, August 1st, and right now on "CNN This Morning."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black?

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DEAN: Donald Trump sparking backlash after questioning the vice president's racial identity during a combative interview with black journalists.

And --

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KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: We deserve a leader who understands that our differences do not divide us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: -- Kamala Harris responding to Donald Trump's false attacks on her race.

Plus --

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TRUMP: The vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact.

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DEAN: -- Donald Trump also downplaying the effect his vice- presidential selection is having on his campaign. Then the fallout in the Middle East after the assassination of a top Hamas political leader heightens fears of a broader war. It is 6:01 here in Washington. This is a live look at the White House on this August 1st. Good morning, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in for Kasie Hunt, it's great to be with you this morning.

Donald Trump is getting called out for making false and misleading claims about the ethnicity of his 2024 opponent, Kamala Harris.

In front of a group of black journalists, Trump was asked about how some in his party have attacked Harris, derisively calling her a DEI hire, bringing this response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now, she wants to be known as black. So, I don't know. Is she Indian or is she black?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Those remarks stirring up a firestorm of criticism. But Trump allies, like vice-presidential hopeful J. D. Vance, quickly rallying to his side, even doubling down on the comments in some ways.

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SEN. JD VANCE (R-OH), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala Harris is a phony who caters to whatever audience is in front of her. I don't know if you saw this, but earlier this week, look up the clip, she went down to Georgia and started talking with a fake Southern accent.

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DEAN: Vice President Harris herself is dismissing Trump's newest claims, calling it the same old show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. And it was the same old show. The divisiveness and the disrespect. And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.

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DEAN: Potential vice-presidential picks like Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona were also quick to call-out Trump for those comments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): This is the reaction of a desperate and scared old man. He's afraid. He's probably afraid to debate her. He's certainly afraid to lose an election to her in November.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DEAN: Joining me now to discuss all of this, Toluse Olorunnipa. Let's get it right, Jess. White House Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. Mike Dubke, former communications director for the Trump White House, and Kate Bedingfield, a former communications director for the Biden White House. Good morning to all of you. How's everybody doing?

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good morning.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, THE WASHINGTON POST: Good morning.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good morning.

DEAN: Watching all of that. We have plenty to talk about today. Mike, let's start first with you.

DUBKE: Of course.

DEAN: Sorry. But we're watching all of this and people are starting to comment, loOK. this is almost like birtherism 2.0 in a way Making questions about where she comes from, trying to other her. What do you think he's getting at in these remarks?

DUBKE: I think what he's getting at or where the campaign is right now, is they've had a week of this Harris mania that's been going on, and Donald Trump's trying to get back into the conversation. One of the ways he knows to get back into the conversation is to say things that are going to be picked up on cable news and especially saying things in front of a black journalist audience that are going to be picked up and make news.

So, I think part of this is really getting back in front of the cameras and being relevant to the campaign again after the news media has shifted focus. He had a pretty good month of June, July, and then, we had the switch in candidates, and he took a back seat. Now, I think he's trying to get back into the driver's lane.

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DEAN: And, Kate, after the assassination attempt during the RNC, all the promises of a changed man --

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

DEAN: All the promises of he really has been changed and he's not the same man and he's all for unity.

BEDINGFIELD: The new Trump. The new Trump.

DEAN: Is this the new Trump?

BEDINGFIELD: This is the same old Trump. This is the only Trump. This is the only Trump there is. You know, I thought that Vice President Harris' response here was really pitch perfect in a couple ways. One, she made the response about the American people, right? Less about herself and more about, you know, America deserves better than this.

You know, I thought she also approached it -- she called it out directly, but she, I think, has been smart and I'm watching her campaign and the surrogates go out and, I think they're being smart about not taking the bait here. I mean, kind of, to Mike's point, this is what Trump does, right? He tries to be incendiary. He tries to draw the conversation back to him. And I think by -- you know, by not letting these kinds of things go unchallenged, but by not suddenly reorienting your entire message into like high outrage about this, they're not playing into his hands in there.

And I think that's smart. And I think we're seeing from her, just generally, a sense of, you know, the kind of happy warrior sort of joy that I think is part of why she's connecting so directly with people right now, because people are so hungry for that. Our politics have been so divisive, so ugly, you know, since Donald Trump came down that escalator almost a decade ago. And so, I just think the way she's navigating this so far is really, really smart.

DEAN: Yes, Toluse, to that point, we -- it is -- if you back up and go to Hillary Clinton in 2016, trying to find the right line of attack against Donald Trump, even President Joe Biden had his own way and evolved beyond that. And now, it's like we've evolved into how Kamala Harris is going to deal with it. And to Kate's point, it is a little bit different than we've seen. It's not, hair on fire, outrage, you know, it's kind of them and, you know, it's about her turning it back to the American people.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, it's also the context of this election, which is wild and crazy and different from any election that we've had in the past. She has less than a hundred days to introduce herself to the country, to make her argument about why she should be president. If she spends 50 percent of that time or 75 percent of that time responding to Donald Trump's antics, you will never have an opportunity to tell people why she should be president.

We have to remember that a lot of what Trump is trying to do is to otherize her, like he did with Hillary Clinton, tried to talk about why she shouldn't be president, why people should be uncomfortable with the idea of having a woman president, having a black woman president, having someone that has South Asian heritage as president. And he's trying to remind people about that because we've never had it before. He's done it in the past. He even did it with President Obama and tried to question his qualifications for the presidency, saying things like, someone should look into, that's what he said yesterday.

I think it's very clear that he's trying to appeal to the people that are uncomfortable with Kamala Harris as president, for a number of different reasons. And giving these dog whistles makes it easier for people like that to question their choice, question the enthusiasm around Harris. And so, she has to introduce herself without getting sidetracked by those kinds of arguments.

DEAN: Right. And, Mike, to that end, there is now this race to define who Kamala Harris is, both by the Harris campaign and by Donald Trump. And obviously, those are very competing narratives. DUBKE: Right.

DEAN: How do you reach -- because I'm thinking about the voters that are no matter what going to vote for Trump and the voters who are no matter what going to vote for Harris. It's that sliver in the middle. How do you reach them and how do you win?

DUBKE: Honestly, I think you reach them by talking about the issues. That there is failed immigration policy by the Biden-Harris administration. There's failed inflationary policy by the Biden and Harris administration. There's failed, I'll call it Israel policy, because I like my three I, by the Biden-Harris administration.

Talk about the failures of the previous administration and define the fact that -- you know, the vice president was a lightly regarded vice president. I don't mean that derisively, but she was not -- she has become the savior of the Democratic Party, I think, because she's not Joe Biden, not because she's Kamala Harris, and there's a big difference there.

So, I think you can define her by painting her with the policy failures of the Biden-Harris administration. That's a better place to start than where the president has gone. But again, that may not be as sexy and interesting as what he did yesterday.

DEAN: Right. And -- yes?

BEDINGFIELD: Well, no, I just think the other thing that this shows, in addition to putting on display Trump's racism and willingness to just go to the ugliest and most divisive place, it also shows how thin skinned he is. I mean, this is clearly -- I cannot fathom that his, you know, campaign staff sat around with him before this event and said, you know, here's the best and most effective way for you to use this time in front of the National Association of Black Journalists.

[06:10:00]

But because Trump is so thin skinned and because he feels threatened by what he's seen happen over the last now, a little over a week and as he's watched the polls move and he can also, I'm sure, feel the momentum moving, this was his natural reaction, is -- and it just shows that, you know, yes, there are, you know, 95 days left in this campaign and he is not going to be able to run a disciplined campaign, because there is no discipline to Trump, right? There's only this Trump.

And so, for the Harris campaign, I think this is really -- this reinforces for them. We have a plan, stick to our plan, and let the chips fall, because Trump is not going to be able to execute effectively over the next 95 days.

DEAN: And, Toluse, just as we're talking about all of this, cable news is talking about all of this, how is, do you think, this kind of is digested by a voter who's evaluating these candidates?

OLORUNNIPA: I think voters are trying to wade through all of the drama to get to what actually matters to them. I think it's one of the reasons Kamala Harris didn't spend a lot of time defending herself, defending her identity because she needs to be talking about the issues in part because voters are looking for issue-based results and issue-based solutions to the challenges, and there are very real challenges in the world right now.

They're really major challenges on inflation and on immigration and on the world stage. And these are distractions to a number of voters who are looking for someone to provide actual solutions. And so, it does open an opportunity for Kamala Harris to lay out her policy platform.

She has not yet done an interview with someone and detailed her policy stances on some of the things that she said in 2020 and 2019 when she was running for the presidency and the difference between where she was then and where she is now. It doesn't give her an opportunity to lay out her policy platform on actual issues that people are thinking about. Not very many voters are going to be swayed about questions about her identity. And so, it does give her an opportunity to do that. We'll wait and see whether or not she takes that opportunity.

DEAN: It's funny, we keep saying maybe voters care about issues. There's an idea. Coming up on "CNN This Morning," Donald Trump facing new criticisms after that heated interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention.

Plus, hopes of an end to the war in Gaza grow dim after two assassinations in the Middle East to the brink of all-out war.

And vice-presidential candidates make their case for Harris ahead of her announcement next week.

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[06:15:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL SCOTT, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Now, that you are asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that?

TRUMP: Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question so -- in such a horrible manner, a first question. You don't even say, hello, how are you? Are you with ABC? Because I think they're a fake news network. Then you were half an hour late. Just so we understand, I have too much respect for you to be late. They couldn't get their equipment working or something was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: A combative start to Former President Donald Trump's interview at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention yesterday. And his appearance prompting a wave of backlash after he questioned Kamala Harris' identity as a black woman and repeated his claim that undocumented migrants are taking "black jobs." Trump's interview comes as he tries to build momentum with black voters, and he was making inroads with that group until Harris entered the race. And on that note, our panel is back to discuss this.

Toluse, I want to stick with those numbers we were just looking at, because the Trump campaign was really zeroed in on trying to go after black voters, especially black men, where they saw Biden's numbers softening. And that whole dynamic has really been turned on its head in the last 10 days.

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, we saw Kamala Harris in Atlanta with a largely black crowd. A lot of young people, really enthusiastic, more than 10,000 people in that crowd. It showed how much the race has changed, how much the enthusiasm is behind Harris, not only as the first woman potential president, but also the first black woman to potentially be president.

And Donald Trump has having to deal with that shift in vibes, that shift in enthusiasm.

DEAN: It is a vibe shift.

OLORUNNIPA: It's a bit of a vibe shift, specifically when it comes to, you saw, tens of thousands of black women on the Zoom call, then followed by tens of thousands of black men on a Zoom call supporting Kamala Harris. And that is sending some fears into the Trump campaign that was starting to make some of the inroads and starting to see the numbers increase.

You have to remember, states like Georgia and Pennsylvania and North Carolina, just 2 or 3 percent shift in the black vote could be the ballgame in some of those states. And so, the fact that we're starting to see those numbers trend towards Kamala Harris, the enthusiasm, the energy trending towards Kamala Harris, it does really call into question some of the Trump campaign's strategy of trying to separate black men and women, trying to appeal to black men and peel off some of the votes that had gone to Joe Biden because there was less enthusiasm behind Joe Biden.

Whether or not President Trump -- Former President Trump can get things back on track that remains to be seen, but what he did yesterday did not help him in that effort at all.

DEAN: OK. And so, Mike, here he is at the National Association of Black Journalists, and we saw how it -- the start that it got off to.

DUBKE: Yes.

DEAN: Why do you think that he made those choices? Because he was already there in the room. You could make a lot of good use at that time to try to make your case.

DUBKE: Well, he was already there in the room, though, you know, interestingly enough, there were members of the organization prior that were upset that he was even invited, which is surprising to me because it's a group of journalists. Wouldn't you want a newsmaker on stage? So, that part I never really understood. So, I think he felt like that this is walking into a hostile environment.

[06:20:00]

But, you know, one of the points here that I thought was interesting is the Rachel Scott from ABC News.

DEAN: Who was asking that question at the beginning. Yes.

DUBKE: Who was asking the initial question. And ABC News is the organization that's supposed to have the next debate. So, part of this may be, from their perspective, is setting up ABC. They have said they don't want to go on ABC. Is setting up -- you know, setting it up that we are going to do the debates, but we're going to try to do it on a different network. So, that's -- you know, that's one aspect of this.

DEAN: Yes, that -- to keep in mind.

DUBKE: That I think was happening.

DEAN: And there, Kate, like this back and forth about Trump is coming, and Harris was invited, but she's been on the road and she tried to do something virtual and they didn't want to do virtual, and it was all a back and forth, but that's why she wasn't there.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes, yes. I mean, look, there -- the demands on a presidential candidate's time are mind boggling. Then add on top of that, she just became the presumptive nominee 10 days ago. She's in the middle of make -- trying to make a decision about a vice- presidential nominee. I mean, there -- like you can't even fathom how much is on her plate at this moment.

So, their campaign is battling all sorts of the balancing, I should say, all sorts of different competing interests. I think -- you know, I think they made clear that they want the opportunity for her to be able to address the group. I think they were discussing trying to do something virtually, either maybe after the convention.

So, you know, there's -- I don't see a world where Kamala Harris doesn't want to speak to the National Association of Black Journalists. It would be a great opportunity for her. Part of what is -- why Democrats have reason to be so optimistic is not just the shift in enthusiasm, which, of course, is significant, but, you know, Kamala Harris also has an opportunity to grow with some of these voters who had very hardened calcified views of Joe Biden, positive or negative, and know less about her, and there's even more opportunity for her to define herself, obviously, doing that in front of a group like NABJ is great. I would imagine they'll find a way to do it at some point.

DEAN: It is interesting that you note that her not being as defined, it could really be a benefit here.

BEDINGFIELD: Absolutely. I think it absolutely could, especially as you see her, you know, over this last 10 days, kind of putting forth a really affirmative message, a forward-looking message, which is, I think, what voters have really been hungering for. So, the fact that they don't have a lot of preconceived notions about her gives her space to make that case.

So, yes, it is a battle right now to define her, and we see what Trump is trying to do. I think where she's being really smart is in making this argument about the voters, that is something Trump has always struggled to do. For Trump, everything's about Trump. And even in the way he was attacking her yesterday, you know, that -- attacking her along the lines of ethnicity, race. What does that say to somebody in, you know, a Midwest state who's trying to make a determination about who they want to be president?

What is that -- how does that help their lives? What's the case? You know, I should vote for him because, what, he uses really hateful language to attack his opponent?

DUBKE: Well, you should admire the fact that he went in front of a -- what turned out to be a hostile crowd, but he actually put himself out there to take questions from journalists. We haven't seen that from the vice president yet. We haven't seen her put herself in anything but a favorable situation, a set stump speech, a friendly group. And so, when they're ready to roll her out, I think that's when we're going to see, you know, some of this debate come.

Now, the argument could be with 94 days, just keep her in that, you know, safe zone. And then, we don't have to find out. But that is one thing I think -- you know, if you look at, regardless of what the president said in front of the group, the fact that he opened himself up and does take questions from journalists, I think is a big difference between these two right now.

BEDINGFIELD: But I don't think you can say regardless of what he said. I mean, yes, it matters. And yes, candidates should take questions from journalists, but it matters what they say when they answer those questions.

DUBKE: Yes.

BEDINGFIELD: And what he said yesterday was appalling.

DEAN: All right. We're going to leave it there for one second and take a quick break. Up next, the teenager behind Monday's stabbing at a U.K. dance school now facing murder charges.

Plus, severe storms tear through the Central Plains and more than 100 million Americans are experiencing now a dangerous heat wave.

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DEAN: Twenty-seven minutes past the hour now. Five things you have to see this morning. Stunning footage of the moment just Kansas first responders rescued a toddler who fell 10 feet deep into this 12-inch PVC pipe. Rescuers were able to pull him out by using a makeshift catch pole. And that boy is unharmed and OK.

At least 178 people have died including 26 children following devastating landslides in Southern India. A third day of rescue operations continue with more than 8,000 people still in relief camps there.

And flash flooding devastating the Vermont Town of Lyndonville. Rescue -- recovery efforts are underway after the village sustained its second flood in just a month.

An English town is on edge following riots and a deadly stabbing spree at a dance school. A vigil for the stabbing victims turned into a riot in Southport as far-right protesters threw rocks at police and set vehicles on fire. And more violent demonstrations spread to London just outside the prime minister's residence. The 17-year-old suspect in that case is appearing in court today charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.

A wildfire in Boulder, Colorado is forcing evacuations after destroying at least one home. The Lakeshore Fire erupted Wednesday, but officials hope to have it contained soon. Investigators say it appears the fire was accidentally started by somebody who was working on their property.

And we are seeing more dangerous high temperatures across the country today with 100 million Americans under heat alerts. And in the Central Plains, severe storm slamming Omaha. Let's go now to meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

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