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CNN This Morning
Obamas Close Out Night Two Of DNC; Second Gentleman Reveals Personal Side Of "Momala" Harris; 20 Million People Under Heat Alerts In Southern U.S. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired August 21, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:43]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, August 21st.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And are we ready to fight for it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: A show of force from Kamala Harris, holding a raucous rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin, calling in to her convention 90 miles away.
Plus, this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We have seen that movie before and we all know that the sequel is usually worse.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Barack and Michelle Obama return to the spotlight to embrace a new era for Democrats and warn of what a second term with Donald Trump could mean for America.
And later --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's very different kind of a guy, very smart guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Donald Trump with kind words for RFK Jr., who may want to join Trump's potential second administration if RFK drops out, that is.
(MUSIC) HUNT: It is 4:00 a.m. here in Chicago, Illinois, 5:00 a.m. on the East Coast. You are looking live at the United Center, right here in Chicago.
It was not very long ago that that stage was alive. This room was full. They're still starting to clean up here. I am feel like people are still wandering home from the bars at this hour here in Chicago.
Good morning to those of you for whom it is actually morning. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
The Democratic Party passing the torch to Kamala Harris in night two of the DNC. They turned to two of their most popular leaders two of the most famous people on the planet quake candidly to help hand it off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY: America, hope is making a comeback.
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Michelle Obama taking the stage, firing up the crowd in her hometown of Chicago. Her speech probably got the biggest reaction of the night. She made the case for her party's new nominee. She also went after Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. OBAMA: To be honest, his limited narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard work and highly educated, successful people who happen to be black.
I want to -- I want to know, who's going to tell them -- who's going to tell him that the job he's currently seeking might just be one of those Black jobs?
(CHEERING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And then there was the night's final speaker.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. OBAMA: I don't know about you, but I'm feeling fired up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Former President Barack Obama arrived to a raucous ovation during his speech. He called his decision to name Joe Biden his running mate one of his best choices as president and he rewrote his own iconic slogan for Kamala Harris. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. OBAMA: We need a president who will stand up for their right to bargain for better wages and working conditions. And Kamala will be that president. Yes, she can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: And joining us now to talk about all of this, Margaret Talev, senior contributor at "Axios", Shelby Talcott, politics reporter at "Semafor", Meghan Hays, former messaging director at the Biden White House.
Welcome to all of you. I don't know if any of you were walking back. I know when I was leaving my hotel. Plenty of people still awake from last night's festivities, but we're here to kind of walk through what we saw last night.
Margaret Talev, big picture here, Michelle Obama is the one I think who really brought the house down here and she did not stick with the vein that she had or the line that she had used throughout the 2016 campaign, which was that when they go low, we go high.
She did have some criticism saying, you know, going small is not presidential.
[05:05:04]
But she clearly took it to Donald Trump in a way that it really alluded to even their personal feelings about how he has demonized the Obamas in politics.
MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, it's like when they go low, go big and punch them in their face.
(LAUGHTER)
TALEV: You think about sort of the idea of the head and the heart. Obviously, Obama is always you know, like --
HUNT: Barack Obama, yes.
TALEV: So, she's -- I would say she's a heart, but she is kind of like the fighter in the heart. She was kind of giving not just the audience, but surrogates and perhaps Vice President Harris herself, the script to use. And it was a script that evolves empowering women, empowering people of color, empowering people who believe in civility, sort of a permission structure for some maybe moderate Republicans or suburban housewives to also vote for the Harris ticket, and the room was electrified.
And Obama himself made a joke saying like a mentally ill person dumb enough to follow Michelle Obama. It was sort of true. It took her leg two thirds, three quarters of the speech to warm up and get the crowd where she had been the room was completely mesmerized by her. HUNT: And Shelby Talcott, I want to show everybody a little bit more of what we heard from Michelle Obama, because the rallying cry -- do something became a call all in response throughout this speech, we can listen to a little bit of what that sounded like. Let's look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. OBAMA: So if they lie about her, and they will, we've got to do something. If we see a bad poll, and we will, we've got to put down that phone and do something.
If we start feeling tired, if we start feeling that dread creeping back in, we've got to pick ourselves up, throw water on our face, and what?
CROWD: Do something.
M. OBAMA: We only have --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, you could hear it right there, right in the crowd, just roaring back at her.
SHELBY TALCOTT, REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Yeah. And it's really a call to action, right? And I think the first part of that is particularly notable because there have been questions about how Kamala Harris and her allies in particular should respond to some of these more personal attacks that we're hearing from Donald Trump.
And clearly, Michelle Obama is saying do something, you have to respond to them, you have to address them, which is a little bit of difference from what some in the party have told us, which is just ignore it, right? Go back to the old sort of Michelle Obama of, of go high, be better.
No, she wants people to do something and address these things. And so it really was a call to action, and it was a call to action that clearly the room was revved up about.
HUNT: One of the other places we saw this husband and wife pair go after Donald Trump was in Barack Obama's speech. There was this moment where you could see on his face, he was officially talking about crowd sizes -- clearly something else underneath it. Let's watch that moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. OBAMA: It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that's actually been getting worse now that he's afraid of losing to Kamala.
(CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
B. OBAMA: There's the childish nicknames. The crazy conspiracy theories. This weird obsession with crowd sizes.
(LAUGHTER)
(CHEERING)
B. OBAMA: It --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Meghan Hays?
MEGHAN HAYS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.
I think that, you know, the Obamas were attacked quite viscerally by Donald Trump when they were in the White House. And I think that this is way to get under his skin. And this is the way to do it in a way that is not so direct and not so obvious. And I think, you know, Michelle Obama probably gave the best speech she's given. I think it's amazing, but she's out here. It's so inspiring.
And also people I think reacted to her speech the way they did because she's not out there all the time. She's not out there talking all the time and she's not in the forefront of the party. And so I think it's just inspiring when people see her out there and she was -- it was probably the best speech I've ever seen her give. It was incredible.
And I also, you know, obviously, Obama gives amazing speeches all the time while, but I think that the way they're doing it and kind of digging under his skin is really going to get a visceral reaction from him. So it's -- the next couple of days should be pretty interesting from Donald Trump.
HUNT: Interesting, indeed.
I should note that typically, we do invite always any Republican onto our panels. We don't want to call it anyone individually, but it is very early and/or late, so hopefully, the said person will be joining us shortly during the show. We'll give him a chance to respond to the Obamas' attacks or to the Obamas' attacks on Donald Trump.
All right. Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, they were once Trump's supporters, and they are now rallying for Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I wasn't just a Trump supporter, I was a true believer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Republicans reaching across the aisle at the Democratic National Convention.
[05:10:03]
Plus, how Democrats continue to put reproductive rights in the spotlight here in Chicago, and a family, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, uses his speech to highlight Harris's personal side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG EMHOFF, SECOND GENTLEMAN: Kamala is a joyful warrior. It's doing for her country what she has always done for the people that she loves. Her passion will benefit all of us when she's our president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. EMHOFF: And those of you who belong to blended families know that they can be a little complicated.
[05:15:02]
But as soon as our kids started calling her Momala, I knew we'd be okay.
America, in this election, you have to decide who to trust with your family's future. I trusted Kamala with our family's future. It was the best decision I ever made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: That, of course, was the man who married Kamala Harris ten years ago, talking about his wife. Second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, taking the stage last night at the DNC, making the case, his wife's greatest strength is her empathy, but also saying that she has no problem standing up to bullies.
He talked about -- one of the things he says he loves the most about his wife, her laugh, which is something that Trump has tried to use against her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. EMHOFF: And we talked for an hour and we laughed.
Well, you know that laugh. I love that laugh.
(APPLAUSE)
D. EMHOFF: With that laugh and that look, with compassion and conviction. She'll lead from the belief that wherever we come from, whatever we look like, we're strongest when we fight for what we believe in, not just against what we fear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Vice President Harris was returning to Chicago from Milwaukee while her husband was on stage. According to the White House, she had Air Force Two circle for about ten minutes before landing, so that she could watch his speech. Meghan Hays is back with us. We did -- we should note that she's also
a consultant for the Democratic National Convention here, in addition to being the former messaging director for the Biden White House.
Meghan, setting aside the fact that it probably was a pain for everyone on the ground to have be held in a ground stop by Air Force Two. They clearly wanted to show that this was a moment where the vice president was watching because she had gone to do this other rally while he made this speech, which I actually thought was interesting that she wasn't here in the room to hear it.
But what was your sense of how Emhoff presented her last night?
HAYS: That's incredible. I think that we just -- you know, a lot of people don't know him, especially and don't really know her and don't know her personal side.
The vice president, you -- you don't really have more most public facing profile. You know, the president always overshadows you. So it's really good to see you that personal side of her and to see that, you know, she is a mom, she's a step mom. She has raised these children with their blended family. A lot of people can relate to that in the U.S.
But I also think the one thing I thought was interesting about Doug, you -- you as the second or the first lady or the second spouse, you have a role in your volunteer position, but people expect you to have a profile and its interesting to see him take more of a center stage out there because it'll be interesting to see if they are elected, what he will do with that position, and what his platform, too.
So it's good to -- for people to get to know him because he is part of this ticket as well.
HUNT: Margaret Talev, there was a little bit of, you know, I'm a cool dad coming.
TALEV: That's always what the cool dads do, right? Yeah.
HUNT: What were your takeaways from Emhoff?
TALEV: Very -- read very Gen X to me. The New Radicals was the name of the band which you would know if you were in your 50s. But I would put them in the anything but radical category like they're like -- its the same song for bar crawls all over the Eastern Seaboard, somewhere between New Jersey and you know, like Washington, D.C.
So, I think he did personalize her. He also so I think part of his shtick was to make her a little bit less scary for people who have heard things like San Francisco radical and like you're looking at Mr. Quarters up and you're like, come on really like totally supportive dad and his extended -- the experiences of his sort of youth is bringing up as he shared them with the audience were not scary to suburban voters in swing states. And I think that was part of the point also. HUNT: Yeah, Shelby, I mean, the reality is this is a pretty -- I mean, this would be if -- if she gets elected really obviously unique reality, we'd have the first, first gentlemen and while obviously Hillary Clinton was nominated in 2016, her husband occupies a much different and particular space in the Democratic Party as a former president, it wasn't the same kind of vibe, I guess, a word that seems to be getting a lot of use this election, as what we saw last night.
TALCOTT: Yeah, absolutely and its interesting because as you both said, he isn't as well known. And so this was an opportunity to introduce himself, but also again to I completely agree with what you said to sort of humanize her against these Donald Trump's -- Trump attacks because the big thing here at that DNC, and its I think particularly important now that Kamala Harris is the nominee over Joe Biden, people, somebody that people already knew is the theme behind all of these speeches is how do we define Kamala Harris?
And that is exactly what Donald Trump's team is doing. This is the DNC's. This is a Democratic Party's time to have center stage to define her.
And so, you're seeing all these different aspects. You're seeing Doug Emhoff talk about her personal side, her family side. You're seeing Michelle and Barack Obama talk about, okay.
[05:20:00]
It's time to unite behind her. She is sort of our next leader.
And so, I'm curious to see in the next two days how different factions and different people continue to pull out different facets and define her in that way.
HUNT: All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING:
The DNC roll call was turned up.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
HUNT: Lil John helping the delegates from Georgia cast the votes in true Atlanta fashion.
Plus, an emotional moment from the Texas delegation, a woman you might remember telling her story about how the states abortion ban upended -- upended her life. We will speak with Kate Cox later on in the show.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:25:17]
HUNT: All right. 24 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning round- up.
Ukraine launching one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow. The city's mayor says Russian air defenses destroyed at least ten drones headed towards the Russian capital. No injuries or damage reported in the aftermath of the attacks.
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz winning his primary election in Florida against a candidate backed by Kevin McCarthy. Gaetz is favorite to win in November against his Democratic challenger in this heavily Republican district.
And then there's this, Bennifer 2.0 RIP officially, no more. Jennifer Lopez filing for divorce Tuesday from Ben Affleck in Los Angeles. The two were united in 2021. They got married two years ago. That was 20 years after their first famous breakup. Very sad, unexpected.
Okay. It's feeling like two different seasons across the country today and whether heat building in the South with temperatures over 100 degrees, while people in the north are experiencing colder than average temperatures.
Lets get straight to our meteorologist Derek Van Dam.
Derek, good morning.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Kasie, if you pick up on a hint of jealousy in my weather cast this morning is because I am.
All right. So Chicago, you've got like the quintessential day today. It's sunny and 75.
HUNT: It's gorgeous here. It is absolutely gorgeous here. I have to say that. It is perfect.
VAN DAM: Get out of the convention center, go Wrigley Field, go check it out, because its going to be another perfect day.
It feels like it's the middle of September in Chicago. Other locations across the eastern us feeling more like autumn versus the middle of summer, the dog days of summer, as we call them. I mean, just take New York for example, 71 today, that is your average high temperature for September 29. We want to take it while we can because we know the heats going to return.
The same cannot be said for people in Texas. This is a difficult day. Again, another heat advisory, excessive heat warnings, stretching all the way to the coast after a day of record breaking heat, the mercury and the thermometer climbing to the triple digits for many locations.
More of the same today and it only gets warmer from here in Dallas, edging towards a hunter greaves by the start of the weekend, you factor in the humidity downright unbearable. We're looking for a cooler than average forecast, but it's not going to be anytime soon.
Above average weather moves to the eastern seaboard, the next six to ten days calls for a warming trend over the eastern half of the country.
So enjoy the cool weather while it can. You can hear pin drop in the Atlantic Ocean right now, this is what we like to see, the main development region where we would typically see this train of waves coming off the African coastline. It has not existed, but just a reminder, we still have two-thirds of the Atlantic storm activity ahead of us between now and October 10, Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Very busy for you. I know this time of year, Derek Van Dam for us, this morning, Derek, thank you.
All right. Still coming up after the break, some unlikely guests at the DNC this week, why some Republicans are speaking on behalf of Kamala Harris.
Plus, RFK Jr.'s running mates says the independent presidential campaign is weighing its options.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLE SHANAHAN (I), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Or we walk away, right now, and join forces with Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
