Return to Transcripts main page
CNN This Morning
Trump Backs Down On Threat To Skip ABC Debate; Harris Showing Momentum In Recent Polls; 3 Teens Arrested, Accused Of Planning Eras Tour Suicide Attack; Debby Death Toll Risers As Impacts Spread North. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 09, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:38]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, August 9.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it's very important to have debates. We've agreed with ABC on September 25th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Donald Trump reverses course and commits to squaring off against Kamala Harris on the debate stage in September.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have 10 times, 20 times, 30 times the crowd size, and they never say the crowds is big.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The former president on the defensive when asked about one of his central obsessions really, crowd size.
And as fears of a wider war escalate, pressure mounts on Israel and Hamas to return to the ceasefire negotiating table.
(MUSIC)
HUNT: All right, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at the nation's capital on this Friday morning.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. It is Friday. We made it.
And after this week of back-and-forth, the next critical presidential debate now officially set during a wide ranging press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort Donald Trump back down from his threats to skip next month's debate on ABC, which will be Kamala Harris's first as the Democratic nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She hasn't done an interview. She can't do an interview. She's barely competent. And she can't do an interview. But I look forward to the debates because I think we have to set the record straight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President Harris briefly spoke with reporters on the campaign trail Thursday said she welcomes Trump's change of mind.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad that he's finally agreed to a debate on September 10. I'm looking forward to it. I hope he shows up.
REPORTER: Are you open to more debates?
HARRIS: I am happy to have that conversation about an additional debate for after September 10.
(END VIDEO CLPI)
HUNT: The Trump campaign says that they have agreed to three total debates, but that the Harris team is only agreeing to the terms of the ABC debate for right now. That's September 10th showdown between Trump and his new opponent comes as Harris has seen, notable momentum in polls.
A new Ipsos poll shows Harris with a five-point lead nationally among registered voters, when third-party candidates are included.
Joining us now to discuss, Shelby Talcott, politics reporter for "Semafor", and Stephen Neukam, congressional reporter for "Axios".
Good morning to both of you. Thanks for starting your Friday with us.
Shelby, this wide ranging press conference seems to be an attempt from Trump to get back onto television screens. This past week has been dominated by his opponent, Kamala Harris, his opponent's, vice presidential pick and Tim Walz, even his own vice president -- presidential pick, J.D. Vance has been in the headlines more than he has.
"The Wall Street Journal" editorial board wrote yesterday about his, shall we say, approach. And they write this, quote: Mr. Trump seems to think he's still leading in the polls against a feeble incumbent. That over-confidence is what led them to choose Mr. Vance who hasn't reassured voters who are on the fence. The former president doesn't seem to realize he's now in a close race that requires discipline and a consistent message to prevail.
Did we see discipline and a consistent message from him yesterday? SHELBY TALCOTT, REPORTER, SEMAFOR: I mean, certainly, I think the
argument is no, right? This is a long ranging, I think over an hour long press conference where he talked about everything from serious issues like abortion to January 6, which is a topic that a lot of his aides intentionally tried not to bring up, despite him bringing it up out on the campaign trail.
And I do think the reasoning for this press conference was twofold. As you said, the first reason, of course, being that Harris has been in the news and Donald Trump likes to be in the news himself. And the second reason being that this was sort of another example of how the Trump campaign has tried to push Harris to take more questions and interviews, which we've seen over the past week has become a really big narrative, from Trump's team.
HUNT: Stephen, one of the things that I think struck us here as we -- as our team was kind of watching this press conference, is that it seemed like he's still running against Joe Biden.
[05:05:04]
And even he said directly that he hasn't changed his strategy since Harris became the nominee.
Let's watch that moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I haven't recalibrated strategy at all. It's the same policies open borders, weak on crime. She's -- I think she's worse than Biden because he got forced into that position. She was there long before -- she destroyed San Francisco.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Watching this press conference, you can see just the contrast between Harris, the candidate, and Trump, the candidate. When he was running against Biden, he did come across as the person with more energy around him and that has reversed. It's interesting to me, he basically said, we haven't changed strategy at all.
I mean, is that the right move?
STEPHEN NEUKAM, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Well, he's not changing strategy, but Democrats have. I mean, the Harris campaign is night and day from the Biden campaign and a number of ways. One, going after president, former President Trump in a number of ways personally his policies, his time in office, that's part of the reason why they pick Tim Walz is because he's such a charismatic messenger of that message.
So, yes, I think that they -- they have Democrats have definitely changed course, and so, far publicly, at least the Trump camp. I think are sticking to their word have not changed course.
HUNT: Shelby, let's talk about the debates for a second. We showed at the top Trump actually in his news conference sort of screwed up the dates of which was which, but basically there's this ABC debate that is set for September 10th. There's another one likely with NBC that's an under discussion since for later on in the month.
We haven't seen Trump debate a woman, for example, since he kind of followed Hillary Clinton around on the stage back in 2016, and it obviously is going to have a much different tone and tenor than what we saw between him and Joe Biden.
TALCOTT: Absolutely. And I you know, when I talked to people close to Trump and Trump's aides, they maintain that they want to do these debates because they've seen Harris debate in the past and they argue that this is where she's going to be vulnerable. We will see, of course.
But I think the other big thing to your point about debating a woman, I've talked to campaign aides from other campaigns, particularly in the primary where, of course, Nikki Haley was on the debate stage and they all point out to me that, yes, it is different in general, debating a woman and particularly perhaps for Donald Trump. So that is going to be something that you know, I'm really interested to see how -- how it plays out.
HUNT: Yeah. Stephen, what do you think is going to be the biggest difference in these debates coming in the fall?
NEUKAM: I think it's energy, right? Just the juxtaposition of when President Biden went on that debate stage, the first 15 minutes disaster we aren't at least in terms of stumbling over her words, losing your train of thought. That's not something she's known for.
So I think the juxtaposition of what the Trump campaign was getting with Biden is just not something that they're going to get with the vice president.
TALCOTT: I think that the -- the debate rules are going to be really important for Donald Trump because I actually think the muted mics ended up helping him against Joe Biden because compared to 2021, when I voters were fresh treated by how he sort of kept talking. So that's going to be something to keep an eye out for is, what are the debate rules and who does it end up helping?
HUNT: Yeah, it's a really interesting point. There was this assumption that it was its going to help Biden.
TALCOTT: Yeah.
HUNT: But the reverse --
TALCOTT: I don't think it did, yeah.
HUNT: -- ended up being the case. Yeah.
Shelby Talcott, Stephen Neukam. Thank you, guys both very much. Happy. Friday. Appreciate it. All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING: Donald Trump lashes out
at about the large crowds that the Harris campaign is suddenly drawing.
Plus, the U.S. turns up the heat on Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations around the war in Gaza.
Plus, police questioning teenage suspects in that planned terror attack that led to the cancellation of a number of Taylor Swift shows in Austria.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hopefully, one day, we can be in a society where it's not even a thought. It would be crazy. But for us, it's not crazy. Like this reality is not crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:13:33]
HUNT: All right. New this morning, an 18-year-old Iraqi national has been detained in Vienna in connection with the alleged terror plot targeting a Taylor Swift concert. Three suspects are now in custody. Investigators say they were plotting a suicide attack at the now canceled shows scheduled for this weekend. They discovered chemicals, explosive devices, and detonators at the home of one suspect. A fourth, 15-year-old suspect was questioned then released by authorities.
The U.S. is among the foreign authorities that helped warn officials in Austria about the planned attack. Despite the major disappointment for Swifties, fans were out in the streets of Vienna, seen their favorite songs trying to make the best of a scary situation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just so glad they call it on time and it's not too late and I'm so -- I'm just grateful that they prevented such a huge terror attack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are here alive standing, talking with you, talking with Swifties, which is the biggest part of the whole Swiftie community. And we're just happy to have that connection the able to talk with each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Officials' main concern is that one of the young teens appearing to be radicalized online.
Joining me now from London with the latest is CNN's Max Foster.
Max, good morning to you. Very scary situation, obviously averted. We've seen an increase in the
number of arrests among people who are so young. These are basically teenagers.
[05:15:00]
What's the latest on this investigation? What do we know?
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're seeing a picture being painted of a, you know, quite a wide, relatively wide group. This wasn't a lone wolf, as we call them. This is an organized group. Some of them pledging allegiance IS quite recently.
The Iraqi, we don't know whether he was part of the plot, but he was certainly part of the group. And he had sworn allegiance to ISIS.
So, we're getting a picture of what this might have looked like. We also understand that the target would have been the tailgaters, the people that are outside the stadium, as opposed to inside the stadium?
Not sure if they wanted to target them or whether there was more of a challenge getting into the stadium. But this is one of the security risks that has frankly been created due to her popularity. This idea of tailgating around the events.
So, you know, they the police secure within a stadium that necessarily skew outside the stadium say to him, they're going to have to start looking at that.
But we have to pay credit here, don't we? To what is reassuring about this is how intelligence agencies around the world came together and foiled what was clearly a really nasty plot.
HUNT: Yeah, very, very, very grateful for that. Of course, although frankly this came just days before this was all set to unfold pretty, pretty alarming.
Max Foster for us this morning -- Max, always grateful to have you. Thank you so much.
FOSTER: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING:
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
HUNT: New body camera video giving us a never before seen look at those intense moments before Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.
Plus, Debby is no longer a tropical storm, but the threat of severe weather isn't over.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:21:15]
HUNT: Twenty minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.
Dramatic new body cam video obtained by CNN. It shows the moment of Pennsylvania police officer first spotted the shooter who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. You can see the officer being hoisted onto the roof before quickly jumping back down when he was spotted by the gunman.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
HUNT: About 40 seconds later, the shooter opened fire.
Special counsel Jack Smith wants more time in the 2020 election case against Donald Trump. He wants to wait before unveiling the next steps to the Justice Department as they determine what the Supreme Court immunity ruling means for the case. This would push the case into September, two months before the election.
Three Columbia deans resigning after, quote, very troubling text messages that touched on antisemitic tropes. The deans were removed from power for in May, but were not fired at that point. A fourth dean involved in the conversation is still on the job that's because he publicly apologized, something and that the others did not do.
All right. Time now for weather. Debby has transitioned to a post- tropical cyclone, but it's still accelerating in the Northeast and now another storm death has been reported this time in North Carolina. Officials say a tree fell through the home of these 78-year-old victim while the county was under a tornado warning.
With this death, at least seven people are confirmed dead in this storm across the Southeast.
Let's get straight to our meteorologist, Elisa Raffa, with the latest.
Elisa, good morning.
ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning.
Still tracking multiple hazards from Debby this morning. I mean, look at the flood waters left behind and parts of North Carolina, Fayetteville, you shouldn't really drive floodwaters that look like that, plus the tornado threat.
Look at the wind damage as well. We've had multiple tornadoes are confirmed out of this. Now, post-tropical, meaning it's losing the structure of a hurricane but, it, used to have but it doesn't mean it's not capable of hazardous conditions, are still looking at the threat of flooding and tornadoes as we go through the day today.
We actually just had a tornado warning expire over parts of northern Virginia and these outer bands, you can still get a little bit of a twist. We have a tornado watch effect until 7:00 a.m. including places like D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, and then down through the outer banks of North Carolina, where in some of these bands.
Again, it still has twist in it. It was still a spinning systems. So, as lot of tropical moisture, you can get some of those tornadoes to spin up.
Still looking at flash flood warnings for parts of northern Charleston there. Look at all the flood alerts just as we were inundated with rain. I mean, look at some of these rain totals that we've had well over ten inches approaching 20 inches across parts of South Carolina, even North Carolina as well.
And out today, the flood watch stretch all the way up to the Canadian border. A lot of Upstate New York, parts of New England really under the gun for some of this heavy rain. A moderate risk, that's a level three out of four for flash flooding. Again, Upstate New York and then died wanted to Pennsylvania as the rest of that heavy rain swirls through, as we go through the day today -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Elisa Raffa for us this morning -- Elisa, thanks very much.
All right. Coming up the break, Russia accusing Ukraine of crossing into its territory, the first incursion of its kind in the ongoing war.
Plus, how enthusiasm for Harris's campaign might be getting under Trump's skin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have hundreds of thousands of people in South Carolina, at 88,000 people.
[05:25:00]
In Alabama, I had 68,000 people. No, what she has, 1,000 people, 1,500 people, and they say, oh, the enthusiasm is back. No, no, the enthusiasm is with me and the Republican Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HUNT: All right. Just before 5:30 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at Durham, North Carolina, for you on this Friday morning.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
From massive fundraising hauls to narrowing polling gaps in just a matter of weeks, Kamala Harris --
