Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

V.P. Contenders Cancel Plans Ahead of Harris Announcement; Americans Freed in Prisoner Swap Reunite With Families; Sen. J.D. Vance ()R-OH) Slams Harris on Border Policy. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 02, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: -- in this tropical wave, moving across Cuba, that will enter the eastern Gulf of Mexico through the early parts of the weekend, overspread heavy rain into the Florida Peninsula, eventually impacting the coastal areas the Carolinas and into Georgia.

[06:30:12]

We're not exactly sure how the storm will develop, but we need to be very agile this weekend across Florida, because this could develop quickly into a tropical storm. Jessica?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Derek Van Dam, thanks so much for that update.

Up next on CNN This Morning, who will the V.P. pick? That's her V.P., the ticking clock to the Harris campaign.

Plus, the breaking news overnight, as three Americans held in Russian prisons are back on U.S. soil this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:35:00]

DEAN: Well, if you need an excuse to cancel some weekend plans, maybe you're going to be the vice presidential nominee. A number of Kamala Harris' final vice presidential contenders are canceling events this weekend ahead of her highly anticipated V.P. announcement on Tuesday. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear calling off a planned stop at a local distillery, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg canceling a trip to Indiana due to, quote, unforeseen scheduling constraints, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro scrambling a scheduled fundraising swing through New York. Then there's contender J.B. Pritzker cracking this joke when asked about his weekend plans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): Lalapalooza is happening this weekend here in Chicago. And my kids and, I mean, tens of thousands of others are going to be there. You know, I've heard other governors talk about how they've canceled their weekend plans. I was going to perform, of course, with Blink 182 on Sunday, but I've canceled in order to clear my schedule. (END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining us now, Michael Smerconish, he's the host of CNN Smerconish and a CNN political commentator. Michael, good morning to you.

Worth noting, Mark Kelly says he's going to be in Arizona all next week. Just, you know, they're on recess. So, it's going to be -- the countdown is on. We were just talking about it here during the commercial break. It's been such a compressed time to vet these candidates and for them to meet with Harris. How do you see this all shaping up in the next few days?

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Jessica, nice to see you as well. I would be floored if it were not Josh Shapiro at this point. I think that Josh Shapiro makes sense geographically. I think he makes sense ideologically. I think there's also just a practical consideration. I can't imagine that the vice president comes to Philadelphia on Tuesday, has Josh Shapiro on that stage and introduces someone other than Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

Geographically, everyone knows the importance of Pennsylvania in the 19 electoral votes. Ideologically, he provides balance to her, and I think it helps contend and limit some of that perception of her as being far left and a progressive from San Francisco.

DEAN: Yes. And, you know, interesting, sticking with Pennsylvania for a second. We've seen Vice President Harris, to your point, that her record in that primary, especially in 2019 into the 2020 race, when she took some of these positions that she's now being criticized for, for being too far left. She's in recent days disavowed her past support for banning fracking, which is a huge issue in Pennsylvania? How do you think that is playing? And, again, how would somebody like Josh Shapiro maybe work into that equation?

SMERCONISH: Well, I think she has some explaining to do. I mean, there have been any number of positions on which it seems in the last couple of months that it's a different Kamala Harris than she who ran initially as a candidate herself. Shapiro brings the necessary ideological balance.

It's interesting to me because the very thing that some progressives are raising and saying are problematic for him, I think, are advantageous, for example, his support of school vouchers, or some of the words that he has used in being critical of anti-Semitism and some of the protesters in the last several months on college campuses.

I think it's great for Kamala Harris because every time she's perceived as or portrayed as being very far to the left, there's Josh Shapiro who's going to lend some ideological balance to that ticket. She has other choices. I mean, Mark Kelly is central casting good, and he provides what she needs in terms of a response to her border policy, and whatever that role is that she had in the border.

So, she's got a lot of good choices, but I'd be floored if it weren't Shapiro. DEAN: And in your mind, there's a lot of different ways to kind of look at this and picking a running mate. Are they balancing out? Are they going to bring their home state with them, like you're talking about with Josh Shapiro? Are they going to balance out the ticket? Maybe in terms of in this case, it's a white man with a black woman of South Asia -- South Asian black woman.

What do you see in terms of your Kamala Harris and her team? How are you balancing out the ticket? What are you looking for?

SMERCONISH: There is one objective, to win.

[06:40:01]

I mean, who is going to help me win? And maybe the first criteria is the Hippocratic Oath, like don't do any harm, don't pick somebody who's going to make a comment about cat parenting or some such thing that you're now going to be on defense for the next couple of weeks. Like do no harm.

And then, you know, who gives you an edge? Who's going to be a balance geographically? Who's going to be a balance ideologically? Who's going to be good on their feet? Because I assume there's going to be a debate with Senator J.D. Vance. That's going to be a much watched event as well. So, all of those are the factors, but mostly help me win.

DEAN: Michael Smerconish, all right, thanks so much. We'll be watching you this weekend.

Don't forget to tune in to Smerconish at 9:00 A.M. Eastern tomorrow, right here on CNN.

And the mad scramble that has been Kamala Harris' veepstakes is entering its final phase with the big announcement scheduled to take place Tuesday when her running mate, possibly one of these four men, will join on a stage at a rally in Philadelphia. Then they'll embark on a swing state blitz together, covering Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, among others.

The panel is back. I just want to let you all react to kind of what Michael was just saying. Do you agree with him? Do you not agree with him?

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: 100 percent agree. Josh Shapiro. I hope is the pick. Pennsylvania is too important. But I will say, look, no, no bad choices, really. Everybody's going to have something, you know, that they've got to deal with. The best thing about this vice presidential audition, though, man, the thing that Biden had been lacking for so long that I would come on the show and complain about all the time is where are the surrogates? Where are the surrogates? He's not a super strong communicator. Where's the rest of the Democratic Party? They got this deep bench. Why aren't they putting them out there? A V.P. audition was apparently how you did it. Suddenly, there's Gretchen Whitmer. There's Pete. There's Tim. Who knew about Tim Waltz? We didn't know. And so to have all of them out there, you know, putting on a show so that they got the attention that they needed, but what I am curious about is they're going to bring them all together. And she's only going to choose one of them. I don't know if they're going to have a fist fight or what they're going to do. What is happening? But I hope that on the other side of this thing (ph), they all continue the surrogacy with the same enthusiasm with which they've auditioned for the vice presidency.

DEAN: Mo is it that obvious that it's Pennsylvania and you have to win it and it needs to be Shapiro or do you think there are other ways to think about it?

MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, DNC: No, I think there are other ways to think about it. I think, you know, yes, do no harm first and foremost. But there are really three reasons -- three things -- three directions you can go when you're looking at a running mate. If you think someone can bring you a state, historically that actually hasn't really worked very often, but could Shapiro really help in Pennsylvania, maybe when it's this close.

Number two, to balance out a weakness of yours, and, you know, maybe Mark Kelly on immigration helps there as voters still think Republicans are stronger. Or the third option is double down on your strength, double down on the contrast you want to make with the other side, like when Bill Clinton picked Al Gore, and people were like, wait, there's no geographic balance there, but if they were presenting change, generational change, someone like Shapiro, someone like Buttigieg really could underscore that whole part of it.

So, I think there's a few different ways she can go, but I don't think she can go wrong with any of them.

DEAN: Yes. And she does have a lot of choice. Molly, there are -- it's not just, oh, maybe this person or this person. It seems like she does have at least some options here that she can pick from. And it comes to -- this choice comes as they're trying, of course, to look at the map and say, how do you win? As Michael was just saying, as Mo was just saying, how do you win? And the Democrats in the Harris campaign really hoping now that they've opened back up the Sun Belt and that it's not just Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: That's right. There's a sense that having Harris at the top of the ticket may have put Georgia back on the map, may have put North Carolina back on the map, the western swing states, Arizona, Nevada, not really clear if there's an effect there. And I think we're all waiting for another cycle or two of polling just because this is still very new to voters, as quickly as this has all happened and as we've been able to process it in the political sphere, you know, most people are not as tuned into this and it's not still sort of dawning on them that the whole contours of the race have changed.

So, I think, you know, I want to see more information about sort of how this is all registering, because what we do see is sort of across the board nationally, an increase in enthusiasm among the Democratic base. And so does that change the composition of the electorate in various states? And the flipside of that also is, you know, is she weaker in those Rust Belt states than Joe Biden was because he did have a special appeal to a lot of particularly older white voters in the Rust Belt and we saw him overperforming versus the rest of the coalition with those voters. She may have a tougher time with those voters between her liberal positions and the profile that she represents.

[06:45:05]

There may be a higher hurdle for her to convince those voters that she can do the job, that she's ready to be president. And so I think that also increases among a lot of Democrats the idea of bringing in someone like a Josh Shapiro, who already has credibility with voters in Pennsylvania. He's got a very high approval rating in a very politically divided state. And Democrats certainly see him as a very compelling campaigner.

DEAN: All right, stay with us. Still ahead, thousands mourn the death of a Hamas leader in Iran, as Israel braces for potential retaliation.

Plus, inside the negotiations that led to the biggest prisoner swap since the Cold War.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:50:00]

DEAN: It is 49 minutes past the hour. Good morning. Let's take a look at your morning roundup now.

Later today, the Secret Service will deliver an update following the acting director's congressional testimony about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The agency says it wants to provide additional transparency.

A California judge throwing out a jury verdict, ordering the NFL to pay more than $4.7 billion for antitrust violations surrounding its Sunday ticket television package. The NFL saying it is grateful for that ruling.

And the body of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh arriving in Qatar on Thursday ahead of his burial in Doha. This comes after his funeral service in Tehran, where he was killed on Wednesday.

And turning back now to this long awaited prisoner swap that freed three Americans from Russian captivity yesterday, Wall Street Journal Reporter Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and Russian U.S. journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, all arriving back home after a combined eight years in the brutal Russian penal system. Their release, the culmination of a complex arrangement involving 24 detainees and 7 countries, and President Biden underscoring this lesson from those years' negotiations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter. Today is a powerful example of why it's vital to have friends in this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining me now is the president and founder of the Eurasia Group, Ian Bremmer. Ian, good morning to you. Thanks so much for getting up early with us.

We just heard from President Biden there talking about the importance of friends and really leaning in, as one of our panelists, Molly Ball just said, leaning into his version and his belief that it's this sort of diplomacy that can really move the needle.

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, EURASIA GROUP AND GZERO MEDIA: Yes, this has been going on for, at a minimum a long months, and we're talking about countries who, especially whose Russia policy are very different. I mean, Poland, for example, who wants, to hit the Russians really hard, more weapons, maybe even troops on the ground in Ukraine, Germany been much more cautious about it, Turkey, which, of course, has a direct relationship with the Kremlin. Not only do you have to coordinate those diverse interests, you have to keep it from leaking.

And it was only two nights ago, and I worked with all these governments that I actually heard about it. I mean, literally not a peep that they had created a deal had actually transpired. So, I think that it's not just that the Biden administration deserves a lot of credit here, NATO deserves a lot of credit here. NATO is stronger. It is more coordinated. It is more aligned than it was when Putin invaded Ukraine two and a half years ago.

DEAN: And it's ironic, isn't it, that Putin invades Ukraine and the result is a more united NATO. Although, of course, here in America, there's been a back and forth over sending aid to Ukraine, but to see NATO come together and be strengthened in the intervening years, what does that mean globally, and as Putin continues to try to join forces with China and Iran?

BREMMER: Well, of course, Biden gets some credit for it. Trump gets some credit for it. But Putin gets the most credit for it. I mean, if you want to know why it is that after 30 years of the Europeans not caring much about their defense and not coordinating much with each other or the United States on security matters, that changed immediately on February 24th in 2022 when the Russians decided they were going to try to take Ukraine out and literally overthrow a democratically elected government. That was seen as an existential threat, not just for the Ukrainians, but for a lot of NATO members, and suddenly they took it very seriously.

And you asked, what does that mean for closer relations of Russia with other countries, other American adversaries? It's a great danger. The fact is that today, the Russian alignment with both Iran and North Korea is far stronger than it's been in the past. And these are countries that the U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with. These are countries that the Americans are actively hostile with together with their allies, both in Europe and in Asia. And they're providing military support and intelligence and technology back and forth between the Russians, the Iranians, and the North Koreans. That's a very dangerous environment.

And if China becomes closer to those countries, well, I mean, then you have something that feels more like a cold war. And I can tell you that no one really wants that, right? It's a very dangerous place to be. And, clearly, China has big decisions to make because Russia's not all that useful to China as an ally.

[06:55:00]

And China wants stability in the world as opposed to chaos. They need that for their own economy. The Russians, the Iranians, North Koreans actually want the United States to be defeated on the global stage. And they want international chaos. They benefit from that. So, I mean, it's a very challenging backdrop for what has been quite a multilateral success.

DEAN: Yes. And I want to read you two contrasting thoughts about what the deal means for Vladimir Putin. First, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy Magazine writing this, it is the contrast drawn by Thursday's events that will be remembered. There was Washington fighting for the freedom of not only its own citizens, but also Russians who dared to criticize their own government. And in stark relief, there was Moscow openly trading journalists for criminals and Nobel winners, for fraudsters. The symbolism of the movement will not have been lost on Russian President Vladimir Putin. This exchange isn't a great look for him.

And then you have Tom Nichols in The Atlantic writing, more important and more dangerous is the fact that every successful hostage deal is a signal from Putin to the people who do his bidding overseas, that he will rescue them if they are caught. Make no mistake that Kremlin is getting what it wants.

Where do you land kind of in those two ways of thinking about this?

BREMMER: Look, they're both right. I mean, we have to -- we can't forget the fact that, I mean, Putin is a war criminal, he's a thug. And the people that he is getting back are criminals. They are cyber hackers. They've engaged in espionage. In one case, he's an assassin, in the case of the one that was arrested in Germany. And these are not people that we should in any way be happy are getting freed and going back to Russia where they can continue to engage in that criminal behavior. That's a win for Putin.

But the reason that Putin gets that win is because we in the United States and our allies care about freeing our citizens. We care about getting them back to their families, that we place an even greater value on their lives than we do on Russia scoring this win. And I personally am proud to live in a society that acts that way. I think that's the way we should act. But we need to recognize that Russia is getting what they want here.

And there's a reason why Russia has hundreds of billions of dollars of their assets seized and now used for Ukraine's defense. There's a reason why there are such heavy sanctions on Russian oligarchs. There's a reason why someone like me can be sanctioned by the Russian government just for writing the honest truth about what's happening in international relations around the world. And that's why we're fighting with this country. It's a dangerous, again, dangerous environment with a country with that many nuclear weapons, that behaves with such impunity on the global stage with allies who are also powerful. We can't forget about that.

DEAN: All right. Ian Bremmer, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

BREMMER: Yes, sure.

DEAN: Let's turn back now to the 2024 race, J.D. Vance visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona yesterday, criticizing Vice President Harris' role in the Biden administration's immigration policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The bipartisan border deal was actually a massive giveaway to illegal immigrants. It would not have solved any of the problems that Kamala Harris has caused.

They have the tools necessary. They just need to empower Border Patrol to tell people who want to come in illegally you're not allowed to do that. They just need to use the authority that the border czar, Kamala Harris, has.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: The panel is back. Mo, can Republicans successfully tie Kamala Harris to the Biden administration's policy at the border? Do you think that's going to work?

ELLEITHEE: One of the things I love this week was watching Kamala Harris go on offense on this issue. For too long, Democrats have been in a defensive crouch. And she went on offense out on the campaign trail, drawing a distinction between the Biden administration, which actually worked on this bipartisan deal, and Republicans, Donald Trump, who killed it.

The fact that the Border Patrol Union supports the plan that J.D. Vance was just railing against shows that there is room here for Democrats to take the fight to Republicans on immigration, and they need to do that aggressively.

DEAN: Yes. So, how do they shore that up then?

LONGWELL: Well, I mean, look, here's the thing. This is an enormously important issue to voters. I hear from people all the time. Why do people in Pennsylvania care so much about immigration? The fact is they do. A lot of it has to do with fentanyl. It is all over a lot of the states in the Midwest. And so Democrats need an answer on immigration, and they haven't had one for a long time. And it's just such a weak spot and a real vulnerability. But I have been incredibly excited to see Kamala Harris saying, no, we're going to have to fund the border.

I do think what she's going to have to do, though, just with a lot of her positions from back in 2019, is figure out how she explains the American people why she's had an evolution on them, what she saw as vice president, what she learned as vice president that brought her to the positions that she holds now.

[07:00:02]

And I think if she can articulate that clearly and make what feels like an authentic case for border security and not just, oh, hey, it's an election, I might need to talk about the border a little bit, and get Americans to trust her on that and be able to talk about executing the plan, talk about the way that Republicans stood in the way of a very conservative senator, James Lankford, that they talk about them working on it together and how Republicans scuttled it, yes, then I think she's got -- I think she neutralizes what is a very potent issue for Republicans.

DEAN: All right, we are out of time. We're going to leave it there, so good to see all three of you. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for joining us. I'm Jessica Dean. CNN News Central starts right now.