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Gov. Shapiro Riles Up Crowd At Philly Rally; Gov. Walz Shares Family's IVF Journey; Harris Campaign Leans on "Coach" Walz for VP Pick. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 07, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:33:12]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D-PA): And I want you to know, every single day, I go to work for you. I put my shoulder to the wheel, and I focus on three simple letters in our alphabet, G-S-D.

(APPLAUSE)

SHAPIRO: I focus on getting shit done for all of you!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro introducing his good friend now VP candidate Tim Walz in Philly last night. He's the hometown hero there.

Shapiro had been a top contender for the role, but ultimately his vetting conversations with Harris just didn't go as well as they did between her and Tim Walz.

Regardless, they showed a united front at last night's rally. When Shapiro took the stage, hyping up the crowd. And look, this was a performance that underscored why Shapiro is going to be someone who is a rising star in Democratic Party, why he was considered for this role. It also may tell us something about why he ultimately wasn't chosen. His mannerisms and his delivery reminded us quite a bit of someone else.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAPIRO: Let's just remember, because I think there's some folks out there that still have a little bit of brain fog

BARACK OBAMA, (D) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Listen, Pennsylvania, let's remember what century it is.

SHAPIRO: Over the last two and a half centuries, it's been ordinary Americans taking up the baton from those patriots.

OBAMA: There's a reason why generations of Americans fought and died for our democracy.

SHAPIRO: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz believe in a real freedom where you can marry who you love and be who you are.

(APPLAUSE)

[06:35:03]

OBAMA: Joe Biden stands for values that were enshrined in our founding documents. A few miles from here, a clarion call for freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, it is pretty inescapable, Mo, who he is modeling himself after. And I know he has said when people have pointed this out, like hey, Barack Obama is one of the best orators that we've seen in politics, certainly of his generation. But the ambition is right there at center stage. Is that why Kamala Harris went with Tim Walz instead of Josh Shapiro?

MO ELLEITHEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE OF POLITICS & PUBLIC SERVICE: I mean, first, I got to say, I'm such a huge fan of Governor Shapiro. He is so good out there. And you're right, he is a rising star in the party. And his -- his voice is going to be one that -- that is heard for a while to come.

But look, I got a hot take on this.

HUNT: OK.

ELLEITHEE: My hot take on this is what if the decision to overlook Josh Shapiro actually had nothing to do with Josh Shapiro, and it was just that Kamala Harris clicked better with Tim Walz?

She had two great choices there at the end. She's got to pick one. And what if she just said, I like this folksy guy from the Midwest. I like this guy who grew up in rural America. I like his joyful vibe. I think he can speak to people in a way that -- in an authentic way that's different than any other voice that's out there right now. I like his progressive populist policies and the juxtaposition against the other guys running. What if it was an affirmative choice for Walz and not so much any of the concerns that people keep voicing about Josh Shapiro?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that's entirely possible. I mean, it's even probable. It doesn't -- first of all, I just think it was weird. It turned out not to be as a false note as I thought it might be to do this rollout in Shapiro's home state if you're not going to pick Shapiro.

They could have done this rollout in Michigan. They could have done this rollout in Wisconsin, someplace where one of the finalists wasn't from, so it wouldn't seem like an, you know, in-your-face kind of move.

But also, even if it's a second-order or third-order, you know, issue, the fact that a lot of people, sometimes boosted by the Trump campaign, we're now learning, but a lot of people in the Democratic Party and on the very online left, singled out Shapiro because he's Jewish. And they did single him out because he's Jewish. He doesn't have any positions on Israel that are different from any other people he's competing with or from Kamala Harris.

But that whole genocide Josh thing, the fact that Walz seems like the safer pick than Shapiro tells you something about the problems running through the Democratic Party.

HUNT: Well, and there has been some polling that has shown that there are higher negatives among -- especially young Democratic voters for Shapiro than there were for some of these other choices. And I -- one of the things that stood out to me the most, Jonah, about Shapiro's dress last night was when he looked at the camera and talked about his faith and the role that it played. Let's watch that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAPIRO: I lean on my family and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve.

(APPLAUSE)

SHAPIRO: And I am proud of my faith.

(APPLAUSE)

SHAPIRO: Now, hear me. I'm not here to preach it, y'all. But I want to tell you what my faith teaches me.

(CHEERING)

SHAPIRO: My faith teaches me, my faith teaches me that no one, no one is required to complete the task but neither are we free to refrain from it.

(APPLAUSE)

SHAPIRO: That means, that means that each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part.

Are you ready to do your part?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I mean, Jeff Mason, he clearly saw this as something that he wanted to address directly. And I will say that crowd, when he said, I'm not going to preach to you, the crowd started yelling, preach, preach.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Yeah. No, he absolutely wanted to address it. And I think he also wanted it to just not become a thing for this party and for Vice President Harris.

I remember just briefly thinking yesterday morning when the news came out that it was Walz, wondering, oh, I wonder if Shapiro's going to show up to the rally tonight. And he did. And not only did he -- but he did in a big way, which makes you almost wonder in some ways whether, wow, she's going to -- she's going to be able to benefit from him even without having him on the ticket, because he made very clear that he's all in for her despite being passed over.

HUNT: Well, I mean, and if being -- it's very clear he has presidential ambitions, right? And there is no way that you buttress those ambitions if you don't go all in for the ticket.

One thing that I think was also interesting about this is that, you know, we're reporting here at CNN that one of the reasons the conversation didn't go so well between Shapiro and Harris was that he was asking about the extent of his role as vice president, wanting -- making clear that he wanted more responsibility. And this was a contrast with what Walz said to her.

[06:40:16]

I asked Cedric Richmond about Tim Walz's personal ambitions, how that came across in their meeting. And he had a somewhat startling admission. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: One of the things that Governor Walz said was that he actually didn't have ambitions to be himself. Is that the case? And what role did that play in her decision?

CEDRIC RICHMOND, CO-CHAIR, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN: Well, I'll tell you what the most important thing was. She wanted someone who would always put the American people first. She wanted someone who understood the role of the vice president of the United States. And she wanted someone she had chemistry with, because they're going to have to do a lot of bold things and they're going to have to be on the same page. And Governor Walz fit that mold, and he expressed that he didn't have ambition to be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So there you go. Someone who understood the role of vice president.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, look, I mean, I take all of Mo's points about how they probably just clicked better, and I think that's probably right. But I also think, going back to my vibes thing, which I'm just going to always remember to stick with, is that Shapiro comes across -- I mean, the comparisons to Obama are good and apt, but that's not what you want in a vice president.

HUNT: Right.

GOLDBERG: No, I pity the person who had Barack Obama as a vice president, right, outshining them all the time and everyone saying, oh, I wish he was at the top of the ticket, that kind of thing.

No one looks at Walz and says, oh my God, this guy is going to be the leader of the Democratic Party one day. And that's something you might actually want in a vice president.

HUNT: Yeah, it seems so.

All right, coming up here on "CNN This Morning," the prisoner who didn't come home. American Marc Fogel's heartbreaking conversation with his family from inside a Russian prison.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Under those Friday night lights, Coach Walz motivated his players.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Get ready to hear Coach Walz a lot, why the Harris campaign really loves that moniker.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:46:43]

HUNT: All right, 46 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Marc Fogel: I'm shocked and sickened and ... out of breach and out of energy, and like I said, I just feel like my soul is dead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Marc Fogel speaking to his family from a Russian penal colony. The Pennsylvania teacher was devastated. He was not included in a prisoner swap that brought three other Americans home last week. Fogel is serving a 14-year marijuana smuggling sentence.

Four hotel workers in Milwaukee facing felony murder charges. The workers accused of pinning D'Vontaye Mitchell to the ground for up to nine minutes after dragging him outside the Hyatt Regency hotel. They told police he was trespassing. The employees have been fired.

An Arizona fake elector reaching a plea deal in the state's 2020 election subversion case. Lorraine Pellegrino pleading guilty to a reduced charge of signing false documents in order to get the rest of the counts against her dismissed. She was facing multiple felonies.

All right, let's turn now back to 2024.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We respect our neighbors and their personal choices that they make.

(APPLAUSE) WALZ: Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there is a golden rule -- mind your own damn business.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz hitting on one of the election's most significant issues as his first rally as the Democratic vice- presidential candidate last night, reproductive rights.

For Walz, it's personal. This is something that we rarely see from male politicians. He shared on a national stage his family's journey with fertility treatment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: And this gets personal for me and my family. When my wife and I decided to have children, we spent years going through infertility treatments. And I remember praying every night for a call for good news. The pit in my stomach when the phone rang and the agony when we heard that the treatments hadn't worked. So it wasn't by chance that when we welcomed our daughter into the world, we named her Hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, joining me now to discuss is Democratic Congresswoman Angie Craig of Minnesota. She had endorsed Walz during the vice- presidential selection process because she has long worked with the Governor in their home state.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here.

REP. ANGIE CRAIG (D-MN): Great. Great to be with you this morning.

HUNT: I want to start with that moment from Governor Walz about his family. It was a very personal one. It's something that we have started to see, I know I've spoken with a number of your colleagues, other women in public life who have touched on this. But it's not as common that we hear it from men who obviously are partners to many people who go through this. So, it stood out to me that he mentioned it. And it is also a contrast with how many Republicans talk about IVF. What did you make of how he presented that last night? And how would you like him to see continue -- how would you like him to continue addressing it going forward?

[06:50:00]

CRAIG: Well, this was what we see all the time in Minnesota. It was just Tim being honest. Tim being open with voters. Tim telling his life story. And I think that's what makes him so unique as a candidate for vice president and as a politician, is he's -- he is who he is and just speaking from the heart no matter what situation he's in.

So it wasn't surprising to me at all that he used his own personal connection to IVF to these issues to reproductive rights, to make his point. And I think that's what the country is about to see. They're about to see a man who is going to bring, you know, every bit of himself with a level of energy that has just been extraordinary to campaign with two times while running for Congress.

HUNT: Congresswoman, you are in a frontline district, one of the districts that is, you know, most at risk in this very consequential election for Democrats who are trying to retake the House of Representatives. We've already seen Republicans focus on, what they say, is the liberal nature of Tim Walz' governorship in Minnesota, how that works in tandem with Kamala Harris' record in San Francisco. Is this a challenge? How big of a challenge is this for you in running your own race?

CRAIG: Well, I can say tried and tested and failed in Minnesota. Tim ran for reelection in 2022. He won my swing seat district. And this was exactly what I was saying and why I endorsed him, is because he is battle tested in swing seats, which I think is going to translate really well to battleground states across the country. And he won his own red seat in Congress multiple times.

So, you know, I -- I think Tim can relate to just about anybody and what makes him unique is that, you know, I can remember a weekend where I -- you know, we were turkey hunting in the morning, Tim and I. And then I think there was a sort of a gay rights event in -- in the same weekend.

So Tim can go anywhere. He can talk to anybody. He is somebody who's going to make you feel excited about the future. And this is exactly what I believe we needed, a thrust of hope in the election and we've got it in spades.

HUNT: Congresswoman, one thing that Republicans are already at focusing in on is his decision to call in the National Guard in the wake of the protests, what had been peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd's death that turned violent and there is an argument, his critics say he waited too long. What do you say to those critics?

CRAIG: Well, you know, again Republicans tried that in his reelection and they failed. So that's what has happened in Minnesota. Tim's got just an extraordinary record of working on behalf of all Minnesotans. You know, he truly believes exactly what he says he's going to tell you what he thinks.

And, you know, it wouldn't matter who we ran. They're going to dredge up something and criticize it. That's what Republicans in Minnesota have been trying and failing to do Tim's entire time in office. So I have no doubt that Tim is going to be able to go anywhere in this country. He's going to be able to talk about the issues with them.

And, you know, Republicans are going to do what they do. And it's all for the point of us trying to make sure that Donald Trump is never in the White House again. And I think, you know, Democrats are excited around this country and there's nothing that's going to be able to tamp that down.

HUNT: All right, Congresswoman Angie Craig for us this morning. Congresswoman, very grateful for your time. Thank you so much for being here.

CRAIG: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Let's turn now to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Eric Taylor: This game is not over. This battle is not over. So let's hear it one more time together. Clear eyes, full hearts. Let's go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kamala Harris's camp reportedly hoping her pick of Tim Walz will remind people of that guy. We should put him back on the screen. Eric Taylor, he was the fictional high school football coach from the TV show Friday Night Lights, the Harris campaign.

I have some questions about the hair, honestly, in terms of this comparison, I have to say. However, the Harris campaign really leaning into the coach title at the rally last night. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: They're just getting to know Coach Walz's story. Coach Walz's taught social studies. And to his former high school football players, he was coach. It's like a matchup between the varsity team and the JV squad.

Under those Friday night lights, Coach Walz --

[06:55:005]

Coach. Coach.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Some Democrats telling CNN they think the moniker can help them this fall with the election homestretch overlapping with football season. Allies expect those teacher coach attributes to be on full display, particularly across the South. Who doesn't want someone radiating positivity from the sidelines? One quipped in a text message.

I will say I was texting with Kayla, who wrote this story about -- I mean, maybe, you know, I'm letting my -- my crush on Coach Taylor show a little too much because I'm like a little trouble. I'm a little trouble with this comparison. But it is interesting to me that this is what they seem to want to lean into the most about Walz.

ELLEITHEE: You know, I think you're going to see them lean into a lot about him because I think there's a lot there. But what I like -- look, I'm calling him coach, right? Not for any political reasons. I just think he can connect with people in a way, right? People connect with a coach much more than they do with a governor or a congressman.

HUNT: Than with congressman, yeah. ELLEITHEE: Right. And so I just think he comes across and it's authentic. If what we saw last night, we keep seeing throughout this campaign, it's authentic. He is a very relatable guy. He is a down to earth guy. He is maybe not Coach Taylor, but he is that goofy coach, right?

GOLDBERG: That relatable coach. Cheers.

ELLEITHEE: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, I love it.

HUNT: Jeff Mason. I mean, this is, I will say, a relatively rare biography. We were talking in the break. Mo was pointing out this is the first time in decades that we have seen a ticket that doesn't have a Bush, a Clinton or a Biden on -- on the top of the ticket. This is also a situation where he's not a lawyer. The last time there was a vice-presidential candidate who wasn't a lawyer was back to the 1960s.

You have to go back to Jimmy Carter before there wasn't a lawyer on the ticket. You know, someone who -- who was a non-lawyer who was on one of these presidential tickets. This was a guy who was enlisted in the military as opposed to being an officer. And typically we often see, you know, military officers in public life. It's much less common to see he's the, you know, highest-ranking enlisted person to be -- and this is a picture of him.

He talked about, you know, being able to go to school because he used the GI Bill. He does have a different profile from a lot of the people that we are used to covering here in Washington.

MASON: And I think the -- the piece about not having two lawyers on the ticket is actually a really important detail. People like to see someone on there, on the ticket who they can have a drink with. I mean, how well did that work for George W. Bush when he was running? I think people could imagine sitting down and having a chat in the -- in the backyard and in the drink or whatever it is. And I think that same idea certainly applies to him.

He's a coach. He's a he's a guy you can imagine chatting with your kids, chatting with your wife, chatting with your husband. And it's not -- it's not something that seems unrealistic or seems inauthentic.

HUNT: He's got hot dish recipes.

MASON: Yes.

GOLDBERG: I'll point out that Kyle Chandler, the guy who plays the coach from Friday Night Lights, is only two years younger than Tim Walz.

HUNT: He's had some Hollywood help.

GOLDBERG: But look, the political scientists say that vice presidential picks don't matter, which was kind of a funny point for Donald Trump to be making recently. But the one example where people -- the one-point plays -- the one exception that political scientists debate about was the Sarah Palin pick by John McCain. And some say it didn't matter. Some say it did. People forget that McCain got a big bounce from Palin. It wasn't until later that she turned into a problem.

The extent that she was a problem for McCain, it wasn't that people didn't want to vote for a ticket with her on it. It was that they didn't. They thought it said something about McCain's judgment in picking her, right? And I think that that's the thing to look at here.

I don't think Tim Walz is going to carry by himself Pennsylvania or one of the battleground states. But it's the signaling from Harris that she's leaning into a different vibe, a different messaging about more mamala than career lawyer thing. Having two prosecutors on the ticket would feel like overkill, which Shapiro I think is the thinking. And it's this appeal towards normie voters that I think on the vibes level, Walz says the Republicans are going to have a lot of ammo, though, about his actual progressive record on the policy stuff. And if that does matter, it could -- it could hurt him.

HUNT: Policy vibes, vibes election. Yes, we'll find out.

All right. I want to leave you with these kinds of vibes. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am delicate, authentic, charismatic, sensitive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:00:01]

HUNT: What even are these vibes? You're watching an ad rollout for Dolce & Gabbana's new perfume for dogs. It is called Fefe, I think.

According to the company, it is a tender and embracing fragrance crafted for a playful beauty routine. It has woody, creamy undertones. You can get a 3.4-ounce bottle for your fur baby for just $108. Fear not, it includes a Dolce & Gabbana dog collar and tag.

That's for a kicker. Thanks to our panel. Thanks to you for joining us.

(CROSSTALK)

HUNT: My dog would not like it. He would think it smelled very strange.

Thank you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.