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CNN This Morning

Tim Walz Accepts Democratic Nomination For VP; Bill Clinton Takes On Trump In 13th DNC Speaking Role; 25 Million People Under Heat Alerts Across U.S. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 22, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:44]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, August 22nd.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

History in the making. Tonight, Kamala Harris will become the first Black woman and the first Asian American to be nominated by a major party. How she is preparing.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, you might not know it, but I haven't given a lot of big speeches like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Tim Walz delivering what could be the most important speech of his career as he introduces himself to America.

And later --

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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But he's been working for RFK's endorsement because RFK represents, I think, an old guard of the Democratic Party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Donald Trump working hard for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s endorsement as new reporting shows, the independent presidential candidate could drop out of the race by the end of the week.

(MUSIC)

HUNT: Four a.m. here in Chicago, Illinois, 5:00 a.m. out on the East Coast. Cleanup still kind of underway here at the United Center in Chicago, home of the Democratic National Convention.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

In the warm up for tonight's acceptance speech from Kamala Harris, night three of the Democratic convention was a night for the man Democrats are calling Coach Walz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: It's the honor of my life to accept your nomination for vice president of the United States.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, introducing himself on the national stage with the biggest speech of his life. It was filled with personal moments, like when Walz opened up about the fertility treatments they used to help start their family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: It took Gwen and I years, but we had access to fertility treatments. And when our daughter was born, we named her Hope.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

WALZ: Hope, Gus, and Gwen, you are my entire world, and I love you.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: You could see his 17 year old son getting emotional right there and yelling out, 'That's my dad!" from the audience.

Walz turned to firing up the crowd by going after Project 2025 with a familiar term from his short time on the campaign trail so far.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: And it's an agenda that does nothing for our neighbors in need. Is it weird? Absolutely.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

WALZ: Absolutely. But it's also wrong and it's dangerous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The former high school football coach then closed out his speech with what he called a pep talk from a coach to his team.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: It's the fourth quarter. We're down a field goal, but we're on offense and we've got the ball. We're driving down the field.

And boy, do we have the right team.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And my team joins us now. Leah Wright Rigueur, CNN political historian, Geoff Duncan, Georgia's former lieutenant governor and a speaker last night. We'll show you some of his speech. Shermichael Singleton, Republican strategist, and Meghan Hays, a consultant for the Democratic National Convention.

Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Geoff, really enjoyed your speech. We're going to show the audience a little bit of it here in just a second.

Leah, let me actually start with you kind of big picture here. You could you could see the crowd embracing this Coach Walz way of putting things.

But Walz cuts a figure that is actually relatively unique in presidential politics. Democrats have talked about how he is the first public school teacher to be on a ballot like this. He brings a working class background and sort of a way of being to it, that's a little bit different from many of the lawyers, quite frankly, and politicians who've come before.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN POLITICAL HISTORIAN: And also Ivy League grads. He made sure to mention that in his speech he's like, I didn't go to Yale, right?

[05:05:00]

HUNT: And neither did any of the 24 kids in his high school class.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Right. And I think part of what he really emphasized and what he did an exceptional job at was the idea of small town values, and that he is a regular, ordinary person who treats his neighbor with kindness and with respect. So, there was this real emphasis on this.

The other thing though, I think that Walsh did exceptionally well, is twofold. The first is that he talked about men and masculinity within the context of reproductive choice and reproductive rights, and that is not a conversation that many people have openly.

So he talked about how those IVF treatments actually gave him hope, and he ended up naming his daughter. He and his wife named his daughter hope. So that was a conversation that I think a lot of men may relate to, but aren't having publicly. The second thing that he did is he put his son in the spotlight. His

son has multiple disabilities, which he has talked about are his sons superpowers, and to see his son, who is nonverbal, right. This is one of his disabilities stand up crying and say, that's my dad.

HUNT: There he is right there. I have to say, I mean, this is sort of -- it's emotional, it's emotional.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: It's emotional and powerful moment. He knocked it out the park.

HUNT: Yeah.

Meghan, let me get you to weigh in on this also, and Shermichael as well, just in terms of -- I mean, I think this part of the speech is really what touched me -- what stood out to me. You also had other emotional moments, like when they brought his former football players up on stage as well.

MEGHAN HAYS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. I mean, I think you know, in Oprah's speech, she was talking about decency and respect are back on the ballot. And that's what people are voting for and their values. And these are the types of moments that really show that, and really highlight that.

And this is probably the first time that we have two candidates at the top of the ticket with the vice president and the governor, that really kind of embody what families look like nowadays. They're not these traditional Ivy League.

You know, it's not the Kennedys that have this like storied past. These are real people with real families who want to lead our country.

HUNT: Well, I will say the Kennedys would argue --

HAYS: Sorry, sorry, they were -- they were breaking barriers as well as I'm just these storied past.

HUNT: Fair enough.

HAYS: Camelot feelings. These are, you know, we have a blended family. We have families that have disabilities who had IVF treatment. I mean, didn't go to Ivy League schools. It's very different than what we're traditional --

HUNT: Very middle of America.

HAYS: Yeah.

HUNT: Shermichael, you've talked a lot over the course of this week about the gender gap and trying to appeal to white working class voters. I mean, this is where Tim Walz comes from.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, yesterday I said that I was a little critical because I thought President Obama would sort of mention or have some thematic elements of his speech that would touch on working class white voters, because they were a surprising part of his original coalition. And I said if he didn't do it, then my expectation was that governor Walz and former President Bill Clinton needed to do it.

And he did. I mean, those thematic elements are there. I thought it was important to make those appeals. My presumption will be that you'll see the continuation of that beyond this week.

So tactically speaking, if I were writing the speech, I think the speechwriters did a great job trying to put the spotlight on the types of voters that he was chosen to help bring into the Harris ticket.

HUNT: Geoff Duncan, I want to show a little bit of what you had to say last night, because another important piece of what we saw on the stage were appeals to Republicans who feel very disaffected by Donald Trump we saw a lot of discussion of January 6th. In addition to there were plenty of political jabs against -- against Donald Trump.

Yours it seemed to me, was a patriotic one, an argument for country over party. Let's watch a little bit of what you said last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Our party is not civil or conservative. It's chaotic and crazy, and the only thing left to do is dump Trump.

These days, our party acts more like a cult, a cult worshiping a felonious thug.

Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: if you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you're not a Democrat. You're a patriot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So --

DUNCAN: And there you have it.

HUNT: I was going to say, would you like to add, revise and extend your remarks?

DUNCAN: And I endorse that statement.

HUNT: What was it like to be up there on stage? I mean, you are a conservative guy from a southern state. This is not necessarily a hometown crowd for you. And yet they did embrace you.

DUNCAN: Yeah. Complete sea of emotions, right? Of course, I'm on the other team. You know, it's like getting traded from the Yankees to the Red Sox. You know but, you know, you had folks back home that were really supportive. You had folks back home that were, you know, trying to send text messages like, what are you thinking.

At the end of the day, this is a heartfelt message to try to convince 10 million Republicans or independents that there's a better way to do this, and we have to play the long play right now.

We've already lost. As common sense conservatives, our nominee is not worthy to be president nor is he going to be president.

[05:10:02]

And so, let's get somebody in there that can be a steady, hand keep the trains on time, and we go back home and take our medicine and fix this party.

HUNT: Harris is going to accept the nomination tonight. What do you hear from friends back home as you put it, about her, their willingness to potentially vote for her?

And, I mean, I know you also see data and you talk to a lot of people who do politics professionally.

Do you think Georgia is actually on the map yet?

DUNCAN: Yeah, the soil is definitely softer now than when she first kind of came on the scene as, you know, replacing President Biden just because I think a couple of those policy positions that she took in the 2020 election and that primary have softened not all of them certainly not a majority of them, but some of them, I feel like she's -- she's taken that and been able to drop that in the laps of us independents and Republicans. So I do think its softening.

As far as Georgia goes, absolutely it's in play. The second Joe Biden came off the ballot, it took the biggest excuse for voting for a Democrat, which was he was too old. Now, you've got a 59 year old energetic, that's just doing everything right.

In addition, Donald Trump comes down to Georgia and tries to just blow up Brian Kemp for no reason other than just a self grievance. And that really carried a lot of weight to it. So in my opinion, and I think you're watching the polling, it is a dead heat.

HUNT: Very interesting.

All right. We're going to take a quick break here. Up next on CNN THIS MORNING: a reminder and a warning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Let us not forget who assaulted democracy on January 6th. He did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Democrats making the January 6th insurrection a focal point on night three of the Democratic National Convention.

Plus, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign could be in its final days. But will he endorse Trump?

And we are -- Bill Clinton takes the stage at the DNC to make the case for Harris, and mocks Trump over his strange obsession, as he calls it, with Hannibal Lecter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: What are they supposed to make to these endless tributes to the late great Hannibal Lecter?

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: George Bush won't guarantee a woman's right to choose. I will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The more things change, the more they stay the same. That was Bill Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in New York City back in 1992.

Fast forward to last night, the former president made his 13th speaking appearance at a DNC. He had a very different speech prepared than the one that he ended up delivering. After seeing the energy of the first night of the convention, he reportedly ripped up the first version, and he started from scratch for more going for more poetry and less prose.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: He mostly talks about himself, right? So the next time you hear him, don't count the lies. Count the I's.

He's like one of those tenors opening up before he walks out on stage, like I did, trying to get his lungs open by singing me, me, me, me, me, me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Shermichael Singleton, Bill Clinton has long been a messenger to many of these voters that you have been talking about. This is how "Politico" described it.

They say Clinton has long compared himself not to a dog, but to a racehorse with his party, the stable keeper. Every two years, he would joke, they let him out of the barn for another lap around the track. Clinton was noticeably slower on Wednesday but he still seemed to relish getting off his lines about Trump, whom he described as a paragon of consistency.

What was your view of how Bill Clinton -- SINGLETON: I mean, I'm biased. I think the world of Bill Clinton, in

terms of his intellect, in terms of his ability to communicate. He's a great narrator, and so I was happy to see him there.

He said, this may be the last one. He's not sure how many he'll be able to speak at in the future.

The problem I think, though, and I was texting with a lot of different people about this last night, the Democratic Party has changed so much since Bill Clinton's presidency. And he alluded to that. He talked about Democrats needing to talk to other types of voters in Arkansas and rural parts of New York and other parts of the country. And he said, you should not demean these people merely because you may disagree with them.

So I was happy to see him there, but I just think he was -- he was looking back at the halcyon days from the past as a party is just -- is just disparate. It's ideologically different from where it used to be.

And I'm not sure if the appeals that a lot of people respect about the former president have the same resolve in today's Democratic Party.

HUNT: Meghan, would you agree with that assessment?

HAYS: No, I still think that Democrats are the party for the working class, and I think that that's the foundation of the Democratic Party. They are about the middle class. They are about making life better for people.

And I don't think that's fundamentally different from the President Clinton. I do think that we are a big tent party, and we are trying to build a broader coalition and bring more people in, but I don't think the basis of our party has changed.

HUNT: Geoff Duncan, here's another little bit of what Clinton had to say about Donald Trump comparing it to -- acknowledging -- Clinton acknowledging his own age in this. But take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Now, let's cut to the chase. I am too old to gild the lily. Two days ago, I turned 78, the oldest man in my family of four generations.

(CHEERING)

CLINTON: And the only personal vanity I want to assert is I'm still younger than Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:20:09]

HUNT: Fair. Well, you were here for Clinton's speech last night.

DUNCAN: What a line.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the only thing that that really kind of kept us away from as a country talking about Donald Trump's age, was Joe Biden's age, because it was obviously -- it was close, but still, the numbers were higher.

But yeah, I think highlighting it. But, you know, Donald Trump's biggest issues are not his age-related issues. It's just his psyche. It's his personality. It's his core and you just watch that play out over and over and over again.

It's really starting to feel like a Ponzi scheme cracking apart for Donald Trump in my opinion.

HUNT: Leah, this, of course, a long arc for Democrats here. I mean, some of it is the changing nature of the country in addition to the changing nature of the party.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Yeah. So I think part of what's going on with Bill Clinton is that Clinton represents an era of Democratic politics that really was about this, this kind of idea of unity, but under the idea of a new vision of the Democratic Party, right? Quite literally. He's one of the founders of the new Democratic movement of the 1980s, and 1990s that comes out of the south and comes out of Arkansas, where he's -- where he's governor. He becomes the face of it.

And I do agree, actually, with Shermichael about this idea that the Democratic Party is starting to shift or may look different, but I disagree on what the face of the Democratic Party looks like. When I say that it's shifting, it has expanded.

Part of what they're doing is bringing Bill Clinton back as a kind of like a herald to a bygone day, right? There is a reason why Bill Clinton is speaking on the night in the lead up to Tim Walz. The theme for the night was supposed to be freedom, but it is also about what kind of tent do we want to have? What kind of people do we want to bring in?

We want to talk about the old Bill Clinton, Chicago, 1992, 1996. This idea of, you know, he's nominated -- when he's nominated, but we also want to look forward to the future and think about the people that we've included in the past and the people that we want to do a good job including in the future.

The other thing that I'll say here, too, is that Clinton, in his heyday, is this remarkable storyteller. But he is also incredibly popular with all kinds of different demographics and I think it is clearly very important to bring someone like that in who has the ability, even if that ability has rusted a little bit, even if it's a little bit older, he can still spin a yarn and he can still relate to people in a way that is deeply charismatic and that speaks to some of those issues that we've talked about on this panel that Democrats really need to hit if they want to win.

It was a perfect tee up for Tim Walz later in the evening.

HUNT: Very interesting way to think about it.

All right. Coming up after the break here, an emotional plea from the parents of an Israeli-American hostage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(CROWD CHANTING "BRING THEM HOME")

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: More on their message at the DNC.

Plus, Democratic Congresswoman Chrissy Houlihan joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:27:37]

HUNT: All right. Twenty-six minutes past the hour. Here's the morning roundup.

A lawyer for the far right Oath Keepers militia now pleading guilty for charges connected to January 6th. Kellye SoRelle admitted to telling members of the group to delete incriminating text messages following the capitol riot. Her sentencing for tampering with evidence is set for January.

President Biden speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday about a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal. Vice President Kamala Harris also joined that call. Key sticking point in the talks, Netanyahu's determination to control an eight mile corridor along the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Taylor Swift breaking her silence following the foiled terror plot planned against her Vienna shows later -- earlier this month. Swift says her silence was a form of restraint and that she waited to express herself to make sure that she could finish the rest of the shows safely. The European leg of her Eras Tour is officially over.

All right. Time now for weather. The Northeast and Great Lakes regions getting an early taste of fall this week. Let me tell you, it's lovely. Parts of the southern U.S., however, continuing to see record levels of heat.

Let's get to our meteorologist, Derek Van Dam.

Derek, good morning.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it's not only the Northeast that's experiencing cooler than normal temperatures. It's out west, too. We actually may see our first flakes of snow across the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

So that's saying something. Maybe the seasons are starting to change. It will feel like cool from Chicago. Cool autumn, I should say. Chicago, all the way to the New England coastline, but for only one more day.

Look at the mercury in the thermometer. It will climb back right into the 80s. Remember, this is still the middle to late parts of August, although it is feeling like the middle of September for many of these locations.

New York's high temperature of 76 today. That's your average high for the 17th of September. So, quite a change. Now we've got a lot of heat. Still building across the central parts of Texas.

You step outside and this is what it will feel like a very, very hot temperature, triple digits. That's why we have above average weather there. There's the below average temperatures for the west. And again we say goodbye to the blues along the east coast.

Now talking about the tropics, thankfully, right now, it is very quiet across the Atlantic. We will take that while we can.

But the same cannot be said across the other side of the pond. This is the Pacific Ocean. I want to show you several areas of development that we see that could potentially impact the state of Hawaii. So there's Gilma, but there's also this storm that will travel just south of the big island.

And what we're concerned about here is that.