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Trump And Harris Look To Sway Voters On The Economy; "Weird" Messaging Takes Off For Harris Campaign; Aaron Judge Becomes Fastest Player To Reach 300 Home Runs. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired August 15, 2024 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[05:30:17]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:29 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at New York City on this Thursday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
There is one issue that has been at the top of voters' minds for this entire election.
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JAMES CARVILLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It's the economy, stupid.
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HUNT: That famed phrase from democratic strategist James Carville from three decades ago is still very relevant today.
A new Quinnipiac poll shows Pennsylvania voters have the economy as their biggest issue and that's come to the forefront on both sides of the ticket this week.
CNN reporting Kamala Harris is expected to call for a federal ban on price gouging in an effort to lower costs for everyday items. That proposal is part of a larger plan that she is planning to unveil in her first economic policy speech on Friday in North Carolina.
Donald Trump was the first to pay a visit to the Tar Heel State this week when he showed up there yesterday. During his own speech that was supposed to be centered on the economy he also offered plenty of attacks.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala has declared that tackling inflation will be a day-one priority. Think of it -- for her -- but day one for Kamala was 3 1/2 years ago. Why hasn't she done it? She cast the tie-breaking votes that gave us record inflation and for nearly four years, Kamala has grappled as the American economy has burned.
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HUNT: All right. Joining me now, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, Akayla Gardner, and New York Times Federal Reserve and economy reporter, Jeanna Smialek. Thank you both for being here.
Jeanna, I actually want to start with you because I can't help but notice that all of the newspapers on the desk this morning -- or most of them, anyway -- have headlines like this one in The Wall Street Journal, "Inflation Hits Lowest Level Since 2021."
And, of course, the big questions overarching the campaign is there's a lot that's outside of both of these candidates' control are on the economy that could make or break either one of their campaigns.
How do you read this inflation news in terms of the broader likelihood or lack thereof that the economy is going to continue to improve for everyday Americans between now and November?
JEANNA SMIALEK, FEDERAL RESERVE AND ECONOMY REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES (via Webex by Cisco): Yes. I think this inflation report was pretty unambiguously good news for the Democrats and the Harris campaign.
President -- former President Trump, as we saw yesterday and as we've seen throughout this race, has really been hammering on this idea that inflation is out of control. That prices are really high. That they're really crushing the American families.
And while price levels are still very high and inflation just means that they are increasing more slowly, it is the case that families aren't seeing those big jumps in prices at the grocery store and sort of the gas pumps in all the places that we were seeing them in 2022 and 2023. That's really, I think in the past and we're really seeing inflation return to much more normal levels. And I think as that sort of sinks in and feels like reality to people it's going to really sort of defang that talking point that the Republicans have been trying to us against the Democrats.
HUNT: Yeah.
Akayla Gardner, one of the things that really shifted here as well is obviously the entirety of the top of the Democratic ticket --
AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG: Yes.
HUNT: -- and that has changed how voters evaluate Democrats on the economy.
We can take a look at this new PBS-Marist poll shows Donald Trump is trusted by 51 percent of people say who can handle the economy is the question. Fifty-one percent say that Donald Trump could do it better. Forty-eight percent say Harris could do it better. But look at how different that is. It is definitely ticking in Harris' direction. It's 48-51 versus 45-54 in this new scenario. There was also a Financial Times poll that came out earlier this week that the Harris campaign was reportedly energized by that showed that she could be the person that voters would trust on the economy.
But that said, she still has yet to put out very many details here.
GARDNER: Yeah.
HUNT: And, you know, the Times -- New York Times reports -- the headline is "Vagueness is a strategy as Harris prepares her economic message."
That -- she -- it seems to me that it would be useful to have some details from her.
How are they planning to move forward here?
GARDNER: Yeah. So we are expecting her to speak on Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina in a speech that is really going to be focused on lowering costs. And as you mentioned, she's going to be unveiling at least one proposal that talks about a ban on price gouging, specifically for groceries. And I think this is very intentional for a couple of reasons, particularly because Americans continue to talk about high prices at the grocery store. This is something that is frankly on voters' minds on a weekly basis.
So she is really trying to blame corporations here, companies here, grocery providers here, and trying to put that specifically on them rather than on President Biden, on the Democratic Party.
[05:35:04]
She's also appearing with President Biden today and I think that appearance is also going to be crucial before the DNC showing unity. But it's also in Maryland, a state that's not on the map. It shows that potentially, Biden could be a weakness for her having too close association with him when it comes to the economy.
And she's really broken the rules here. You mentioned that F.T. poll. It seems like she has had some waves of sort of separating herself from Biden's legacy when it comes to the economy.
HUNT: Yeah.
Akayla, the challenge, it seems to me as well, is that she's got to show -- got to figure out how to put some distance between herself and President Biden on this.
And Axios reported this yesterday. "Harris won't say it this bluntly in public but her advisers do so privately. She wants to break with Biden on issue on which he is unpopular. First up is rising prices. This is part of a highly choreographed effort to define herself -- in some cases, redefine herself -- as a different kind of Democrat."
Are voters going to buy it? GARDNER: It's really interesting though because some of President Biden's policies are popular, like the one that they are talking about in Maryland today about lowering prescription drug costs.
But I think what's really been underscored by the past few weeks is it was Biden specifically. It's the messenger who was unpopular. And I think she's still running on many of the policies that Biden championed, whether it's lowering student debt costs, lowering prescription drug costs. She's still going to run on those things but she's not necessarily going to mention Biden or talk about him when she mentions them.
HUNT: Yeah.
Jeanna, can you give us a sense of how plausible some of these proposals are? Because I know Donald Trump was on local media after his -- or before his rally yesterday basically saying this price gouging plan -- like, she can't do that. It's not possible to do it.
We don't have a ton of details, I realize, on how to address -- on how she plans to address price gouging among grocery companies and others as she outlines, but what is possible in your view?
SMIALEK: Yeah. So I think it's actually one of the most interesting things about the sort of detail-like strategy is it makes it incredibly difficult to figure out what is actually doable here.
I think one thing that we can say about both candidates' proposals is they are talking about things like exempting tipped wages -- tips from taxes. And things like, in Vice President Harris' case, raising the minimum wage. Those sorts of things require legislation so they're very dependent on what Congress looks like and whether they can pass legislation.
And so I think that is an important thing to keep in mind as we look at what happens going forward. I think there are probably some things that if a Trump administration were elected, he could do unilaterally when it comes to sort of putting on higher tariffs. So there are some things that a president can do on their own.
I don't know if we know yet enough details to know if those -- these price gouging things are among them, but I think that the big overarching answer here is we need a little bit more detail before we're going to have a real ability to assess that.
HUNT: I appreciate -- I very much appreciate that assessment of all of this because it really -- it really is tough to get your head around what is possible and whether or not this stuff could actually work.
Jeanna, one of the other pieces of this, of course, that we're seeing -- you know, kind of the back half of all these inflation headlines -- is around interest rate cuts potentially coming in September. And, of course, one of the places where Americans have been most squeezed have been on housing prices. I mean, they've just -- and mortgage rates, which have gone up so high. And they're squeezed in other ways when interest rates are high as well.
What's your anticipation of what the Fed is likely to do, and how might that play into the campaign in its final weeks?
SMIALEK: Yeah. So it does seem like the Fed is barreling toward a rate cut. The big question for investors right now, is it going to be a big rate cut or is it just going to be a little rate cut? So that's sort of -- that's sort of the question at the moment.
I think that what we know about rates cuts is that they do not affect the economy immediately. So it isn't typically the case that you have a rate cut and then everything just goes crazy. But what they do is make people feel a little bit better about their prospects of homeownership and their prospects of affording things on borrowed money because it's a signal to the world that the Fed is sort of turning the corner in its fight against inflation and really going to bring interest rates down.
And so I do think you could potentially see a little bit of a boon. You could see voters feeling a little bit better about the economy as interest rates come down. And that is one reason why I think you've sort of seen some focus on this from political speakers.
President Trump has suggested -- former President Trump has suggested that it would be a bad idea for the Fed to cut interest rates before the election. It means it would be political. He obviously, it's important to note, always consistently pushed for lower interest rates when he was in office.
So I do think that this is going to be -- it's going to be a big talking point heading into -- heading into the election.
HUNT: Yeah, very interesting. It tells you where he thinks the politics of this are for sure.
Akayla Gardner, Jeanna Smialek, thank you both very much for being with us. I really appreciate it.
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All right. Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, messaging obviously a huge part of every political campaign.
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RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Are you better off than you were four years ago?
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HUNT: We'll ask an expert if the language that we're seeing being used in this 2024 race is catching on with voters.
Plus, the Yankees' slugger Aaron Judge setting a standard for power that even Babe Ruth didn't match.
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GOV. TIM WALZ, (D) VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's just a strange, weird dude.
These guys are just weird.
These weird ideas.
These guys are creepy and, yes, just weird as hell.
These ideas that they're putting out there, they are weird as hell. Nobody's asking for that weird crap. N one's asking for it.
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HUNT: You could call "weird" the word of this Harris-Walz campaign at rallies. The term is quickly evolving into that reliable attack and putting Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance on defense.
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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You ask who's weird, right? Is -- I think it's pretty weird to be the border czar and to open up the border and allow fentanyl to come into your community.
TRUMP: No, we're not -- we're very solid people. We want to have strong borders. We want to have good elections. We want to have low interest rates.
We want to be able to buy a house. We want great education. We want strong borders.
I think we're very -- actually, I think we're the opposite of weird. They're weird.
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HUNT: All right, joining me now to discuss, Michael Maslansky. He spends his time working with companies with political campaigns on language, thinking a lot about what works and what doesn't. Michael, thank you so much for being here.
MICHAEL MASLANSKY, CEO, MASLANSKY & PARTNERS, HOST, "HEARSAY" PODCAST, AUTHOR, "THE LANGUAGE OF TRUST" (via Webex by Cisco): Great to be here, Kasie.
HUNT: So clearly, that word "weird" is something that took off. It's something that clearly Kamala Harris and Tim Walz think is resonating with people that they are talking to. And it seems to clearly be under the skin of J.D. Vance and Donald Trump. How would -- how do you see how this has kind of become its own?
Because Walz kind of went out there and started it, right, when he was basically campaigning on television to be -- become the vice presidential nominee, and it stuck. Why?
MASLANSKY: Well -- so, first, I mean, I think former President Trump is the master at this and so it's interesting that this is probably the first time since he's been on the political scene that there's a term that has been used against him so effectively.
And I think the word "weird" has become amazing really for three reasons.
First, Donald Trump hates it. In 2016, Democrats tried to use bullying on Donald Trump, but he loved being called a bully. It was actually a badge of honor and so it didn't work. He doesn't want to be called weird, and so it's definitely getting under his skin.
The Dems have had a tremendous amount of discipline. You see it all over the place as we saw in that opening montage and many other places. So it got repeated to the point that the media picked it up.
And then, the Trump and Vance campaign have tried to rebut it. And the first rule of P.R. really is don't repeat the negative. And effectively, what they're doing is they're saying I know you are, but what am I? It didn't work on the schoolyard and it doesn't work now to try and rebut the term.
HUNT: A very interesting way to think about it.
So one of the other things that we have been talking a lot about since Biden decided not to run again and Kamala Harris has gotten to the top of the ticket is how optimism and hope -- joy is kind of the word that their campaign has used -- how that contrasts with a message that's more fear-based.
And some of that you can see in some of the political slogans that we most remember from our presidents over the years. Let's take a look at some of them going back to Ronald Reagan's "Morning again in America." Let's watch.
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REAGAN: It's morning again in America.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Change has come to America.
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We are here because we are taking the first steps, and we're taking them in a contract with the American people.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That why the second bill is the so-called Build Back Better plan.
TRUMP: We will very quickly make America great again. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So obviously we ended on Make America Great Again, which is a little bit of a backward-looking -- kind of turns it on its head.
But I'm curious what you think and how you see the Walz-Harris campaign taking a sort of positive forward-looking view of the country versus the way Trump is running now and how that plays with voters.
MASLANSKY: Yeah. Well, I would say in those examples and in most campaigns the candidate with the most positive, optimistic vision for the future -- the one that resonates most with the American people is the one that wins.
And I got in a lot of trouble for this time but my take on Make America Great Again was that it was a very positive slogan for Trump voters and even people on the fence.
This cycle in 2024, Trump has been decidedly negative. He has used Make America Greater Than Ever Before, but I don't think it feels like it's new enough.
But the Harris-Walz campaign -- they've really kind of tapped into this joy. They've tapped into kind of a positive fighting for freedom as opposed to threatening democracy, which was the way that the Biden campaign really framed it.
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And so they understand that this -- from her laugh to his enthusiasm, to the words that go with it really have a powerful impact on voters.
HUNT: Well, and the slogan that has clearly resonated with Harris and the people -- the crowds she's talked to is this we're not going back, which was something that she could -- you can --
Let's watch when she talked to the crowd in Milwaukee and she used this, and you can see how people reacted to it -- watch.
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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are not going back. We're not going back.
RALLYGOERS: We're not going back! We're not going back!
HARRIS: We are not going back.
RALLYGOERS: We're not going back! We're not going back! We're not going back! We're not going back! We're not going back!
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HUNT: Well, you can almost see her react there in real time to the crowd feeding off of that. But that "we're not going back" seems to play into this same phenomenon. MASLANSKY: Absolutely. I mean, first of all, it's kind of wildly difficult to predict exactly which phrase, which idea is going to capture the imagination of the people. We -- you know, companies do a lot of testing of it. Politicians do a ton of testing of it. Sometimes it is testing it out on the campaign trail and seeing how people respond to it.
But this -- you can kind of see her at the head of a march with that kind of slogan. And it is -- it is motivating. It feels positive. It feels energizing. It is kind of reminiscent of "Yes, We Can," in many ways, in just that the kind of the feeling that it has behind it.
HUNT: All right, Michael Maslansky for us this morning. Michael, very grateful for your time and expertise. I appreciate it.
MASLANSKY: Thanks for having me, Kasie.
HUNT: All right, time now for sports.
The New York Yankees' All-Star, Aaron Judge, hitting a huge career milestone last night, and he did it in record time.
Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah, good morning, Kasie.
So, you know, we've seen so many great sluggers, right -- you know, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. -- but no one has gotten to 300 home runs faster than Aaron Judge.
The 32-year-old -- he come up -- would come up in the eighth inning last night against the White Sox and he just blasted this ball into the Chicago bullpen, which made it pretty easy for Judge to get that home run ball back.
And Judge getting to 300 in 955 games, beating Ralph Kiner's record by 132. He also did it in 400 less at-bats than Babe Ruth. Just incredible.
The Yankees would win that one 10-2.
Here was Judge afterwards on the achievement.
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AARON JUDGE, NEW YORK YANKEES 6-TIME ALL-STAR: I was hoping it came in win, you know. We were kind of down early in the game, not really getting much going early on except that Soto homer. But, no, it was great. You know, just throughout the whole game, the guys were having great at-bats -- having great rallies there to, you know, kind of pass the baton to the next guy. So in that opportunity -- (Gatorade shower).
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SCHOLES: Oh, they got him. All right. Elsewhere, the Braves' Michael Harris was back in the
lineup for the first time since being placed on the injured list on June 15 and look what he did at his first at-bat. That's a grand slam right into McCovey Cove. This was the first grand slam of his career as well.
The Braves stomped the Giants in that one 13-2.
And the Diamondbacks' Joc Pederson also made a trip around the bases, but not quite like Harris. So he hits this ball down the line for an RBI double. Well then, the Rockies -- they're going to try to get Pederson at second, but they end up throwing the ball all the way into left field. So Pederson gets on his horse and ends up with a Little League home run. The fans there in Arizona just loving it.
The D-backs would win 11-4. Arizona is 18-3 in their last 21 games.
All right, some sad news for Vikings rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy. The team confirming yesterday that McCarthy underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus and he's going to miss the entire season. McCarthy, who was the 10th pick in the draft out of Michigan, was injured during Saturday's preseason game against the Raiders. Sam Darnold is set to be the Vikings' starting quarterback this season.
All right. Finally, the WNBA returning to action tonight after nearly a month off for the Olympics. And Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever -- they're going to return to the court tomorrow and she says she's more than ready.
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CAITLIN CLARK, GUARD, INDIANA FEVER: I think I've been ready to get going again and play against (INAUDIBLE). It's just kind of -- especially this last week where you're really kind of making that push to the Friday-Sunday game. I think it's -- we're all kind of ready. We're kind of beating up on each other, beating up on the boys, and finally want to get back out there and feel like we're ready to play some more games.
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SCHOLES: All right. And fans are also anticipating the upcoming release of the latest NBA 2K game and they got a sneak peek of what some of their favorite players will look like. Releasing -- they released a preview of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
Look -- Kasie, I'll tell you what. You know, I played video games my whole life. How realistic these video games look now. It's kind of crazy there.
HUNT: I will admit I have not played video games for my whole life, terribly, but I agree with you. They do look pretty realistic.
SCHOLES: Yeah.
[05:55:00] HUNT: I've got to tell you, man, I'm so bummed about J.J. McCarthy.
SCHOLES: Yeah.
HUNT: Like, what a loss.
SCHOLES: Yeah, and all indications were he was playing really well and was really pushing Sam Darnold who is going to get -- could have potentially ended up being on the field a lot this season. And yeah, that's just rough to miss your entire rookie --
HUNT: Oh.
SCHOLES: -- rookie season.
HUNT: I'm so bummed.
All right, Andy, thank you.
SCHOLES: Yeah.
HUNT: I really appreciate it.
All right. Coming up in our next hour here on CNN THIS MORNING, Democrats feeling the energy and new polling shows just how excited they are about their new candidate, Kamala Harris.
Plus, Tim Walz agrees to debate J.D. Vance. Vance hasn't gotten on board just yet.
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VANCE: I strongly suspect we're going to be there on October 1, but we're not going to do one of these fake debates, Laura, where they don't actually have an audience there. Where they don't actually set the parameters in a right way where you can have a good exchange of ideas.
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