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Trump's Personal and Policy Attacks on Harris; Republican Urging Trump to Stick to Issues; Elon Musk Hosts Livestream with Trump on X; Trump Continues to Attack President Biden; Trump Blames Iran for Campaign Hack; One Week Away from DNC. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 13, 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]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Tuesday, August 13. Right now, on CNN This Morning.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We cannot have her. She's incompetent. She's as bad as Biden.

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HUNT: Personal and policy attacks from the former president as fellow Republicans urge Donald Trump to stick to the issues.

Plus, we are less than a week away from the start of the DNC where Kamala Harris looks to mark an exclamation point on her platform.

Plus --

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JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SPOKESPERSON: They're the ones that invaded Ukraine and Ukraine is defending itself against that aggression. This is Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

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HUNT: -- Ukraine ceases hundreds of square miles of Russian territory, pushing Puttin's back against a wall.

And then --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Certainly, when Biden was on the ticket, I was going to vote for Trump. But now, it's a harder call.

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HUNT: -- how voters in a must win swing state are thinking about their choice in November in this reshaped presidential race. All right. 6:00 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the Capitol on this Tuesday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

With just six days until the Democratic National Convention, Donald Trump is trying once again to draw attention away from Kamala Harris. Last night, the Republican nominee joining tech mogul Elon Musk for a livestreamed, quote/unquote, conversation.

The owner of the platform formerly known as Twitter, which he renamed X, saying that the event was aimed at, quote, independent voters trying to make up their mind.

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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to have the largest deportation in history of this country, and we have no choice. One of the things we're going to do is we're going to build an Iron Dome over us. You know, Israel has it. We're going to have the best Iron Dome in the world. I want to close up Department of Education.

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HUNT: The start of the livestream was delayed by about 40 minutes with Musk originally claiming it was because of a directed attack against the site, later acknowledging some unforced errors on the part of Twitter.

The Harris campaign, taking advantage of the technical issues to repost Trump's own mocking of Ron DeSantis, who explained Trump's campaign has experienced similar trouble when he launched his presidential campaign on Twitter last year. At the time, Trump wrote, quote, wow, the DeSanctus Twitter launch is a disaster. His whole campaign will be a disaster. Watch.

Throughout the livestreamed conversation, Trump seemed to be as focused on the man he's no longer running against as he was on his actual opponent.

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TRUMP: Biden's, you know, close to vegetable stage, in my opinion, OK. I looked at him today on the beach and I said, why would anybody allow him? The guy could barely walk. Why would anybody allow him? Does he have a political adviser that thinks this looks good?

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HUNT: Continuing to go after Biden has been a running theme for Donald Trump, and that reality has not gone unnoticed.

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TRUMP: He's going to walk into the room, and he's going to say, I want my presidency back. I want another chance to debate Trump. I want another chance.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's not coming back. We have a -- camera on him. That's him.

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HUNT: Joining us now to discuss, Laura Barron-Lopez, CNN political analyst, White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour. Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director, and Brad Todd, Republican strategist and a partner with the public strategy firm OnMessage. Welcome to all of you.

Kate Bedingfield, you used to work for Biden. Can you confirm he is not coming back.

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I can confirm he is not coming back. Donald Trump needs to let his ex go. It's not happening.

HUNT: Brad Todd, listening to this conversation that Trump had last night with Elon Musk, I mean, it does seem like he doesn't totally know what to do when he can't grab headlines, right? He has been at the center of the conversation for so long. And this sort of shift in attention has been pretty remarkable. He was all over the place in this conversation with Musk last night. Is he doing himself any favors?

BRAD TODD, PARTNER, ONMESSAGE INC., CO-AUTHOR, THE GREAT REVOLT AND REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: He was. It was a long format conversation. So, it did lend a little bit to a broad waterfront, but he's got to get focused. He has to get focused and it's not hard, right? People are disenchanted with how the Biden-Harris administration is going. See how I did that? You have to add Harris to the Biden-Harris administration.

HUNT: I see. I see what you did there.

TODD: Yes.

HUNT: Ye.

TODD: So, it's not hard, right. You know, you saw border encounters, 7.5 million. Like, this is easy. Spending disposable income. Americans had a lot more disposable income when he was president than they do now. That's where he has to go with the campaign. The economy and the border. That's --it's -- he's got to get focused.

HUNT: We could actually probably add you to this. I want to show what some other Republicans have been advising Donald Trump to do. I mean, I think you just kind of added your own voice to that. Let's watch.

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KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA), FORMER U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: You've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position. PETER NAVARRO, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: Trump doesn't need feasts now, he needs votes. And the current rally formula is simply not sufficiently focused on the very stark policy differences, policy differences between him and Kamala Harris that will swing voters in key battleground states.

LARRY KUDLOW, FOX BUSINESS ANCHOR: Don't wander off. Don't call her stupid and all kinds of names. Stay on message.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: The winning formula for President Trump is very plain to see, it's fewer insults, more insights, and that policy contrast.

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HUNT: So, there you go. So, far he does not seem to be listening.

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LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT PBS NEWS HOUR: He's not, at all. I mean, I went to one of his rallies in Pennsylvania after Harris had jumped in, after it was very clear she was going to be the Democratic nominee, and it was very much almost the exact same speech he had given when President Biden was in the race just with more personal insults directed at Kamala Harris. And it was right after he started questioning her racial identity.

So, he's gone from, you know, questioning her racial identity to questioning her crowd sizes and whether they're real or not. He's not focused at all on the things that you say that he -- and other Republicans say that he should be focused on, which is the economy and immigration.

TODD: He spent six months being very focused. And so, that's -- it led him to be ahead in the race. He has to get back to that. And there's an old axiom that candidates -- when the race is about candidates, voters tune out. When the race is about voters, voters tune in. He has to make the race about the voters and the consequences of Kamala Harris winning.

BEDINGFIELD: But he's never really been capable of doing that. I mean, we're kind of seeing -- in some ways, we're seeing the reset to, you know, the essence of Donald Trump, right? Like, he was running ahead for so long this year that he was sort of able to get away with his Trumpiness. And -- you know, and now that he's kind of in the back in the spotlight and the pressure's on, he's sort of back to the kind of worst elements of himself.

HUNT: Well, and winning is easy, right?

BEDINGFIELD: We've never really --

HUNT: Emotionally easy compared to losing.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly. Absolutely. And we've never really seen him be able to deliver a concentrated focus message that's about the voters. The other thing I think is interesting just from a tactical standpoint about this ex-Twitter town hall he did last night is, you know, they framed it as a, well, it's aimed at undecided voters. There aren't undecided voters for the most part on X. There aren't.

I mean, you know, you had Harris and Walz out last week in all of -- essentially all of the key battleground states. You had Donald Trump out doing nothing and then, you know, sitting for 90 minutes on Twitter last night, basically talking to his base. That is not a winning strategy.

HUNT: Brad, why do you think they weren't better prepared, like the campaign wasn't better prepared to run against Harris? I mean, this was looming out there as a possibility even before Biden's complete debate collapse.

TODD: Well, Joe Biden said he wasn't getting out, you know, and I think the voters had nominated Joe Biden in every state. They assumed that that would hold. I think the campaign, by the way, the blocking and tackling things the campaign has to do have continued a pace, and if you look at the message that comes out of this campaign office every day, it's exactly what it should be. The problem is Former President Donald Trump has to focus his message when he's in front of the camera and he's a big, big part of how the campaign communicates. He's got to tighten it up and he's got to focus it on what voters would get if Kamala Harris wins.

HUNT: Laura, one of the things that were kind of seeing in the background, and I'm sort of interested in this because there was a poll yesterday from The Financial Times that showed that Harris may be making some inroads on the economy in particular, because that is something that Donald Trump historically has been given credit for from voters and has been a place where they say they trust him more on that.

What do you think she needs to do? Trump on this livestream criticized her for this taxes on tips, policy that he, in fairness, rolled out. She said she supported it in Las Vegas. We haven't seen -- we're expecting to see a more fulsome economic plan from her later this week. But how much of a risk is -- what's the risk -- the benefit calculation for her on economic issues right now?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think on one hand she's going to clearly run on the stuff that she and President Biden did. Because the thing --

HUNT: I mean, is she though? Because --

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think she is because the thing -- like, you know, capping insulin at $35 and the infrastructure and the jobs that have come with the Infrastructure Act. She is going to run on those things. And Democrats were running on those things and they saw success down ballot. Democrats saw success with that.

They always said the Democrats that were working on campaigns down ballot always would say to me, it's the messenger, not the message that is the problem, and they saw President Biden as the issue. Now, they have a new messenger at the top of the ticket with Kamala Harris, who they think is much more effective, but she is going to have to differentiate herself in little ways. It's going to be the taxes on tips. We're going to see more -- some policy platform stuff from her, but she is going to still run on a decent amount of their record together.

HUNT: Does that sound good to you?

TODD: I think that'd be great. Yes. I mean, we know what Kamala would as president. She told us. When she ran in 2020, she said she would ban fracking. She said she was empathetic to the defund police movement. She said she decriminalized border crossing. There's a lot of things on her record that we know what she needs to -- she would do if she wins.

I think one challenge for Former President Trump, though, is that he always likes to compare leadership styles and leadership characteristics more than he likes ideology. Ideology has never really been his thing. He's not an ideologue, but this is now a campaign about ideology. If he's going to win, he has to paint her as the most extreme candidate for president ever. That's his path.

BEDINGFIELD: But I think that's just not going to hold. I mean, to Laura's point, we -- you know, and I can tell you from my time at the White House, we saw time and again that the economic policies that Biden was able to implement and was running on were incredibly popular, had bipartisan support in a lot of cases. You know, his argument, we took on Pharma, like test off the charts. I mean people love it.

[06:10:00]

So, removing the drag that, you know, his personal, his age and the, you know, personal concerns that people had about him, you know, it does open up a huge lane of opportunity for Kamala Harris to talk about the things she's been able to do. You know, and talk about it in a way that's about, you know, supporting the middle class, supporting working people. I think you're going to see her continue to do that. She has a huge message lane here, and I would expect that she will run in it.

HUNT: Well, and we're going to see a lot of that. We're going to see how they're going to do it at the DNC coming up next week.

All right. Coming up here on CNN This Morning, the probe into the attempted hacking of Donald Trump's campaign and one of his operatives as the former president points the finger at Iran. We're going to speak with former Trump defense secretary Mark Esper.

Plus, Donald Trump's comparison of Kamala Harris' Time magazine cover to his wife Melania. Yes, that's an actual tease.

And the countdown to the DNC begins where Kamala Harris will formally accept the Democratic nomination. Will we see future stars seizing a moment on the party's biggest stage?

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BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states. Red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I've got news for them too, we worship an awesome God in the blue states.

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JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: But I believe that the times require imagination and courage and perseverance.

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Hope is back in America. We are on the right track to the 21st century.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If fighting for affordable childcare and paid family leave is playing the woman card, then deal me in.

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HUNT: All right. Next week, Kamala Harris is going to get to make her own speech, just like those at the Democratic National Convention as her party's nominee. Harris expected to speak on Thursday. The tentative speaker schedule, according to NBC News will include remarks from President Biden, Hillary, and Bill Clinton and Former President Obama.

Chicago is, of course, the Harris-Walz's tickets biggest opportunity to define their platform before a national audience and contrast Harris with Donald Trump. A contrast that, back at the 2020 convention, sounded like this.

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KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE: I took on the biggest banks and helped take down one of the biggest for-profit colleges. I know a predator when I see one.

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HUNT: It's actually really interesting to watch that, Kate, because it really shows how she has evolved and grown as a candidate from when she was delivering that speech.

BEDINGFIELD: Yes.

HUNT: What do you expect in the -- I know Republicans are priming everyone for even more polling bumps after the Democratic National Convention because, you know, it's going to be a week of celebrating Democrats. But as we've learned from the Republican Convention, you know, these things -- they were riding high then and look what's happened since. So, it can kind of fade in the end. BEDINGFIELD: Yes. I mean, races are always fluid. I mean, I think we've -- if we've learned anything over the last month, it's that things change and races are fluid. No question about it.

But she does have a really terrific opportunity here. She's coming off of this incredible couple of weeks stretch where she has been really out barnstorming. We've seen her, you know, kind of delivering what I think is going to be the -- you know, the guts of her stump speech for the next three months in these battleground states. Now, she has an opportunity to do that on a big, you know, national TV platform before a big national audience.

So, you know, I think -- I would expect that the Democrats will use this opportunity to keep defining the contrast on Trump, of course, because that is a key piece of their strategy here, to remind people how unpalatable Trump is, which Trump is helping them do over these last few weeks in particular.

But this is really a moment also for her to -- you know, to be affirmative, to put this joy and energy on display that she's been doing so effectively in the swing state. So, I would expect that Democrats will come out of this week feeling encouraged, feeling emboldened. And then, the task coming out of the campaign is that sliver of undecided voters for the last three months of this race.

H HUNT: Sliver, indeed. Laura, I mean, one thing that is going to be harder to control, I mean, Democrats can obviously control most of what goes on on the stage, but what's going on outside. If we think back to -- and this convention was in Chicago in 1968. We can show a little bit of that, like, what went on outside of the 1968 convention, and the protests that marked that, obviously, it was a different time in American history, a very volatile one, but these were -- this was kind of what defined that.

I think had Biden still been the nominee, it's likely that the protest we are likely to see outside this year's Chicago convention would have been very much the central focus, because we do anticipate thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors outside, it's something they've been very concerned about. How do you think that plays with Harris on the stage and do you think their campaign is prepared for? I've sort of started to ask this question, you know, of the new kind of Harris folks that have come in, like, this is something that they can't control. They're going to have to deal with it. They're going to be asked questions about it in Chicago next week. Are they ready?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I don't know if they're ready. I mean, we saw recently when there were protesters at one of her events that the Uncommitted Movement didn't exactly like her response, which was to say that if you want Donald Trump to win, then just say it. That was her response to them when they were heckling about and protesting about Gaza.

[06:20:00]

And what I will say is that leaders of the Uncommitted Movement have said that I think it's important to note that generally they think that Harris has taken a much more empathetic tone and that they feel as though she has been much more willing to talk to them and engage with them.

That being said, she's not really trying to make herself entirely different from President Biden. She is still trying to help him come to a ceasefire deal and still standing with him when you talk about his core position when it comes to Israel-Hamas war.

TODD: I think it's the most important thing about the convention next week, and it's a big opportunity for Vice President Harris to take, if she will. The thing swing voters fear about her, like they feared about Biden, is that she'd go too far-left. She would not put any brakes on her progressivism. She needs to take a flatbed trailer and a bullhorn and go straight up to those protests and say, get on board with the president and me and Israel or get out of our party.

She needs to be very strong and she needs to dare those protesters to leave. Because it would be a moment of strength for her and it would communicate that, in fact, she is willing to stand up to the far-left. I don't know if she's got the guts to do it, but that's the most important thing she could do.

BEDINGFIELD: I don't think she needs to say get out of our party. I mean, the point here is to try to build as broad a coalition as possible. But I think you did see in her initial reaction to those protesters that Laura was talking about, you saw a real confidence. I mean, you saw her saying, you know, I'm speaking. And if you want Donald Trump to win, then just say that. I mean, she had no problem being very direct.

I don't think the expectation should be -- and I don't think it would be smart for her to spend her time at the convention attacking these people who fundamentally, broadly speaking, share her goal.

HUNT: But if people start getting Hamas symbols outside the convention, the way they did outside Union Station here, it took her a day to respond to that.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, remember -- but I would just say, I mean, remember, this was as -- this was, I think, maybe, what, the day after or two days after she had assumed the mantle. So, you know, there was a lot going on. But I don't think -- I mean, to be fair, there was a lot happening. And she did very forcefully --

HUNT: When it came out, it was very forceful.

BEDINGFIELD: -- you know --

TODD: J. D. Vance got up in his speech and basically declared war on Wall Street. Something you don't see Republicans do at conventions. I think she needs to get up and declare war on the anti-war protesters. It would send a stronger signal that she can push back on the far-left than anything else she could do.

HUNT: I guess we'll see. All right. Still ahead here on CNN This Morning, firefighters in Greece are battling a huge wildfire. We're going to bring you the latest on that deadly blaze. How fire crews have gained an upper hand. Plus, voters in the key swing State of Pennsylvania weigh in on the new state of the race with Kamala Harris atop the Democratic ticket.

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HUNT: All right. 26 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. Caught on camera, a shark scene following a kayaker in California. Oh, my god. This is terrifying. You can see it peeking out from the water, it's like "Jaws" in miniature. The man who shot this video said he was just kayaking with a friend when he noticed this visitor again. Oh, my god. I just -- I can't. OK.

Now, this, you are looking -- now, you are looking at nearly 2,400 pounds of meth. Yikes. This is the largest meth bust on record. DEA agents in Atlanta found $3 million worth of drugs smuggled into Georgia by a Mexican drug cartel. The drugs were hidden in a load of celery at a state farmer's market. I have no idea we had to be on the lookout for large quantities of drugs at our farmer's markets.

OK. Golfer Matt Kuchar was all by himself Monday morning. He was the last player on the course for the Wyndham Championship in South Carolina. He ended up playing less than one hole all by himself after walking off on Sunday night because of poor light on the 18th hole, as the rest of the field decided to play through. But his bet paid off. He got a par on the final hole, doubling his prize money for finishing in 12th place. This explains to me and Andy Scholes, who were confused about why he might do this. There's the answer.

All right. The show must go on.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a bit of an earthquake here in Los Angeles. So, we're just going to make sure that our studio lights, everything stays safe, everything's shaking.

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HUNT: The show must go on. A 4.4 magnitude earthquake in Los Angeles caught live on ESPN during a broadcast. I have to say I was very impressed with her composure in this moment. There were no reports of injuries or structural damage.

The situation in Greece. This is improving after a wildfire scorched more than 150 square miles outside of Athens. At least one person has died.

All right. Coming up here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump blaming Iran for attempting to hack his campaign this summer. As the investigation into the attempted hacking unfolds. We're going to talk with Mark Esper, the former defense secretary.

And now, that Kamala Harris is on the ticket, will Pennsylvania voters turn away from Trump? (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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