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Trump, Vance Moderate Stances On Abortion Issue; Dems Criticized For Not Allowing Pro-Palestinian DNC Speaker; Florida Wins Little League World Series. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired August 26, 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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[05:30:55]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:30 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Baltimore, Maryland on this Monday morning -- gotta love it. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. I'm wonder -- it's wonderful to have you with us.

Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance are making new promises about abortion access. Some Trump allies were surprised to see this post from the former president this weekend where he promised his administration would be "great for reproductive rights."

Trump's running mate J.D. Vance then backed up that stance when he appeared on the Sunday talk shows saying that Donald Trump would veto an attempt at a national abortion ban.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTEN WELKER, MODERATOR, NBC "MEET THE PRESS": If such a piece of legislation landed on Donald Trump's desk, would he veto it?

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, I think he'd be very clear he would not support that. I mean, he's said that exclusively.

WELKER: But would he veto it?

VANCE: Yeah, I think -- I mean, if you're not supporting it as the President of the United States, you fundamentally have to veto it.

WELKER: So he would veto a federal abortion ban?

VANCE: I think he would. He's said that explicitly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Democrats are running on overturning state abortion bans and have, of course, made the issue a central part of the DNC last week.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said this. She said she's not buying the shift in tone from the Trump campaign. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): American women are not stupid, and we are not going to trust the futures of our daughters and granddaughters to two men who have openly bragged about blocking access to abortion for women all across this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining us now for more, Daniel Strauss, CNN political reporter, and Mychael Schnell, congressional reporter for The Hill. Good morning to both of you. Thank you so much for being here.

Daniel, let me start with you because clearly, this is something of a shift or a rewriting of kind of what's gone on here because Trump has, of course, bragged about being the person that overturned Roe versus Wade. That said, he also has talked about how Republicans need to win elections and that this issue is something that gets in the way of that project for him. You've already started to see some backlash from the anti-abortion rights.

Do you think this can stand this way? What's -- what is going on here?

DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: I mean, he -- the former president, for a while now, has acknowledged that it's bad politics to lean too far into supporting some kind of federal ban or stronger restrictions on abortion. At the same time, he has also eagerly listed as one of his major accomplishments of his one term in office that he nominated multiple Supreme Court judges that helped overturn Roe V. Wade.

Now, his explanation is that he -- this was really a victory because it threw the question of abortion and abortion acts back to the states. Critics -- Democrats often say though that this really gives a license for states to push an effective national abortion ban or restrictions that as early as four weeks or five weeks are basically a ban in itself. And so, the president is very eager now to just let that be the end of the discussion.

And I -- it doesn't surprise me that Vance was asked that and say he -- saying he would not support a ban and when pushed, finally says not supporting that would mean a veto. But there is a difference.

HUNT: Yeah.

Mychael Schnell, let me get you to weigh in on that because there is a difference, as Daniel points out. How do you see it?

MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE HILL (via Webex by Cisco): It just shows how potent the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights already is in this election cycle and is likely going to grow.

I've spoken to a number of House Democrats in recent weeks who tell me that they are planning to really lean in on the issue of abortion on the campaign trail. They're hoping to replicate those better-than- expected wins that happened back in 2022 largely because the issue of abortion was front and center.

And look, Kasie, this race has really changed a lot, obviously, in the past few months but there are two things, in particular, when you talk about women's reproductive rights.

[05:35:00]

A) Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the administration and was the Biden campaign's best messenger on abortion politics, is not at the top of the ticket. She is the face of the party and she's also the face of the administration's argument on women's reproductive rights. Arguably, she's better at it than President Biden. It sometimes got awkward because of his religion and his relationship with abortion rights and women's reproductive rights. So that's different.

And b) the number of states that have ballot initiatives this cycle that are going to deal with women's reproductive rights is increasing.

And those House Democrats told me that there may be some folks who are apprehensive to go to the polls because they're not excited about either candidate before them. But when they see the possibility to weigh in on women's reproductive rights, they will get off the couches, they'll go to the polls. They'll cast a vote in favor of pro- abortion rights. And then Democrats are hoping that they'll go down the ballot for Democrats as well. That could also be potent when we talk about Democratic returns and Democratic victories come November.

So I think that seeing the Trump campaign sort of moderate its stance on this and change its tune just shows how important this is going to be in this cycle and how Democrats want to keep it front and center.

HUNT: All right, very interesting.

Let's turn now to this, though. RFK Jr. has officially suspended his Independent presidential campaign and thrown his support behind Donald Trump.

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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., (I) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It became clear to me that I did not have a path to victory. Sixteen months of censorship and not being able to get on any network, really, except for Fox.

He invited me to form a unity government. We agreed that we'd be able to continue to criticize each other on issues on which we don't agree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Kennedy, on Friday, insisted he wasn't ending his campaign but withdrawing his name from appearing on the ballot in swing states. CNN reporting Trump advisers see this as an opportunity to potentially court some of Kennedy's supporters.

Kennedy says he's going to stay active on the campaign trail.

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KENNEDY: Yeah. I'm going to be campaigning actively. I think President Trump is going to make a series of announcements about other Democrats who are joining his campaign. And, you know, I want to -- I want to make America healthy again, and so does President Trump.

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HUNT: Make America healthy again.

Mychael and Daniel are back.

Mychael, let me start with you on this because one of the things that we've learned in the course of our -- Bobby Kennedy's bid here is kind of a wide variety of -- maybe they were once just family stories but now they are part of our national narrative.

There was the bear -- the baby bear in Central Park -- that he took a photograph with his hand in his mouth.

And then recently we've learned about Kennedy -- his daughter telling us that he once cut the head off of a dead whale on the beach and then bungee-corded it to the roof of the family minivan for the five-hour haul back to Mount Kisco, New York.

She said, "Every time we accelerated out on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet. We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us."

I mean, I raise this just because he is clearly -- he has developed some sort of constituency here, right? There have been -- you know, polling had picked up. There, in particular, was a time kind of when Biden was still in the race where he seemed to potentially be a big factor. Obviously, the Kennedy name is a very famous one for the Democratic Party.

What ultimate impact do you think him throwing his support behind Trump has here?

SCHNELL: I think we're still trying to figure that out. And on your first anecdotes, Kasie -- I mean, oppo research has really reached a new point in this election cycle. But I think that we're still waiting to see how this is going to shake out.

Let's remember that RFK Jr. -- he had sizeable support -- significant support for a third-party candidate a few months ago. That has since significantly dwindled. But the reason why folks went to his corner was because they were disenchanted by President Biden and former President Trump as the candidates. They weren't excited about a rematch of 2020. It was sort of a protest vote for those two individuals.

So two things now.

A, the race has obviously changed. Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. It's changed things up -- shaken things up and energized voters on the ground. So it's possible that with that situation, the RFK support would have decreased even more because maybe some folks who were disenchanted by those two -- by Trump and Biden are then going to Harris' corner.

And b, we'll have to see if some of these voters actually follow in Trump's path.

[05:40:00]

There was an analysis by The New York Times that said -- over the weekend that said that this likely won't change the race very much. RFK Jr. is just going to give Trump about a one percent bump in some of these key swing states. Listen, in some of those battlegrounds that could be significant because this contest is just so closely divided.

But at the end of the day, let's not forget RFK Jr.'s supporters were folks who didn't want to vote for Trump and didn't want to vote for Biden, and then Harris. So just thinking that they go right to Trump, that's very questionable.

HUNT: Yeah. A lot of them were the so-called double haters, Daniel Strauss. And that, of course, is the thing that has shifted the most with Harris getting into this race.

STRAUSS: You know, Kasie, I cannot get over the conundrum the Trump campaign has when they're trying to broaden their support. They're trying to say that they have Democrats and they have Independents supporting them, and those -- the examples of that are Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who, by the way, did appear on our network. You did an interview with him, so it's not true.

HUNT: Yes, and then he did an interview with Erin Burnett as well.

STRAUSS: Right. So --

HUNT: So this idea that he's been relegated to Fox News is absolutely incorrect.

STRAUSS: Right.

But, you know, look, the early indicators are that the support that the Trump campaign will get from this endorsement are marginal, but I think it will reinforce the attack line that Tim Walz pioneered for the Democratic ticket, which is that these are weird people. And stories about dropping a bear in Central Park and strapping a whale head to the top of the car will only reinforce that narrative that Democrats want to push.

HUNT: Yeah. This whale head washed up on Squaw Island in Hyannis Port -- of course, Camelot. Bobby, who likes to study animal skulls and skeletons, ran down to the beach with a chainsaw.

STRAUSS: Surely there was a museum nearby.

HUNT: Daniel Strauss, Mychael Schnell, good Monday morning.

STRAUSS: Thanks.

HUNT: Thank you very much for being here.

All right. Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, political fallout from the crisis in Gaza. The Harris campaign taking heat for not allowing a pro-Palestinian speaker at the convention.

Plus, the U.S. celebrating a thrilling Little League World Series Championship.

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[05:46:30]

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REP. SUMMER LEE (D-PA): Defeating Trump is the top concern. But we can do that, and we can also --

MARGARET BRENNAN, MODERATOR, CBS "FACE THE NATION": Yeah.

LEE: -- give space -- create space for people's voices that are marginalized. We missed an opportunity to do that here. And in doing so, what we are essentially saying is that every Palestinian thinks the exact same way. That all folks who are protesting -- who are voicing their concerns are one group and not individuals. Not all folks who are coming with different perspectives. I think that there was room and space to say that there was --

BRENNAN: Yeah.

LEE: -- room in the Democratic Party for that particular perspective as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Pennsylvania Democratic Congresswoman Summer Lee. She is expressing disappointment with the Harris campaign after they didn't allow a pro-Palestinian speaker to address last week's Democratic Convention.

The vice president's defenders say defeating Donald Trump has to be the number one priority, and they insist that Harris spoke forcefully enough about where she stands on the Gaza crisis.

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SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): She has felt urgently that we've got to bring about a ceasefire, get the hostages returned, and end the enormity of the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people. I think that the convention did a good job of bringing up this conflict over and over again. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Donald Trump has been having some trouble finding an effective attack line against Harris, but he apparently does see an opportunity as escalating violence continues in the Middle East.

This is a look at this new campaign ad -- watch.

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TRUMP CAMPAIGN AD: Trump played hardball with Iran, destroyed ISIS, kept the Middle East at peace, and kept us out of endless wars through strength.

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HUNT: All right, Joel Rubin is here. He's a Democratic strategist and former deputy assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration. Joel, good morning to you. Wonderful to see you.

JOEL RUBIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Good morning, Kasie.

HUNT: Let's start with how Harris kind of navigated this --

RUBIN: Yeah.

HUNT: -- at the DNC, which is to say they didn't broke any of it. And, in fact, when Susan Rice was talking with my colleague Jake Tapper about the uncommitted faction -- they were delegates who were uncommitted to initially Biden but also Harris. And she basically said OK, it's a little bit rich that people who are not committing to Harris want a piece of the stage at her convention.

But it seemed very clear to me they wanted to send a strong message that they were not sort of engaging in this really while, at the same time, making sure that she took a tone in her own speech that was different from where Biden was on this.

How did you look at all of that?

RUBIN: Yeah. I think that the vice president has shown a strong vision for how to resolve this current war -- a call for a ceasefire, exchange for hostages. A strong argument for supporting Israeli security, as well as for Palestinian self-determination and ultimately, a two-state solution.

It's hard to understand what more people could want out of a presidential candidate. That was the most forward-leaning speech I have ever seen at a convention. And I think the crowd responded -- the crowd responded as well to her calls for Israeli security.

And the folks pushing uncommitted also had a lot of the behind the scenes engagement with the campaign. They had official events at the DNC. They were in touch directly. They did move the needle on much of the rhetoric. So that's a win. Take the win. I'm not sure why they're not saying we support you and now we're ready to do more. It seems like a little bit of an own goal, quite frankly.

[05:50:00]

HUNT: Joel, how do you think what we're seeing play out between Israel and Hezbollah right now is going to impact kind of the overall situation and the politics here?

RUBIN: Yeah, Kasie. Look, the problem here is that while the politics seem stable for the moment on the messaging and the vision, we don't control the actions of all the groups in the region, obviously. Hezbollah has 100 -- a couple of hundred thousand rockets pointed at Israel. Israel took preemptive strikes trying to demonstrate the ability to strike those. And that could quite literally blow up the whole diplomatic process.

So it's going to just be this way. It's going to be a tinderbox ongoing and there's going to be a lot of sort of whac-a-mole diplomacy alongside political messaging. And I think almost on a daily basis we're going to have to see the team of the vice president as well as, obviously, Donald Trump reacting to on-the-ground events. Because we don't control them and there are a lot of spoilers right now in the region.

HUNT: When you watch that Trump ad --

RUBIN: Yeah.

HUNT: -- very briefly, what do you see there?

RUBIN: I see a lot of misinformation. I see him attacking Joe Biden for getting out of Afghanistan and then claiming that he got us out. On Iran, he blew up a nuclear deal that made the region less safe. He clearly wants to leverage some gaps.

There is violence in the Middle East. You can't put that at the feet of Joe Biden. You put that at the feet of the people committing the violence. And there's a president in the White House trying to resolve it and calm it down. Donald Trump would look the other way, and the chaos would spread.

So what we have right now is a lot of political gamesmanship on foreign policy. That's a good argument I think for the vice president. She'll be able to make pushback. And clearly, Trump sees this as an area that he wants to explore.

HUNT: Joel Rubin, thank you very much. I'm always grateful to have you.

RUBIN: Thanks, Kasie.

HUNT: Appreciate it.

All right, time now for sports.

New York Yankees star Aaron Judge capped an incredibly weekend with two home runs yesterday against the Rockies.

Carolyn Manno has this morning's Bleacher Report. Carolyn, good morning.

CAROLYN MANNO, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kasie. I know you're a huge baseball fan.

This is another day, another incredible effort from Yankees' Aaron Judge. What he's doing is unreal. I mean, the star slugger hitting home runs number 50 and 51 against the Rockies on Sunday, which puts him on pace to break his own American League record. Judge hitting 62 back in 2022.

Recently, he has made this look so easy going yard (PH) seven times in New York's last six games. Number 50 came in the first inning. Number 51 in the seventh. And it was actually sandwiched between home runs from his teammates Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton.

So the Yankees offense on fire right now. They win easy, 10-3.

A very scary moment though in the bottom of the fifth. Major League umpire Nick Mahrley hit in the head by a broken bat and taken off the field in a stretcher. It was Stanton's bat that splintered just above his hands, and Mahrley collapsed to one knee.

He was tended to immediately. He seemed alert and conscious as he was carted off the field. And the league tells CNN that he sustained a concussion and will be undergoing more tests over the next several days.

Elsewhere this morning, Megan Rapinoe's NWSL jersey officially in the proverbial rafters. The Seattle Reign framing it -- number 15 -- honoring the two-time World Cup winner and Olympic gold medalist. Rapinoe called it a very special day.

And the club capped off the festivities with a big win in the 97th minute. This is a goal from 18-year-old Emeri Adames. A perfect salute to her hero, Megan Rapinoe, at the end of a great day. The iconic pose there. A lot of fun.

And the WNBA thriller in Chicago. The Sky trailing by three points in the final seconds of this game until Chennedy Carter hit a huge three from way downtown to tie the game. She led the Sky with 25 points.

But there was just enough time for Aces' star A'ja Wilson to do what she does best, have the last word. A decisive layup to edge it for Vegas, 77-75. Wilson finished up with a double-double, 20 points, 18 boards, saving her team who looked as though they were going to blow a 13-point fourth-quarter lead.

And lastly for you this morning, a big congratulations to the team from Lake Mary, Florida, winning the state's first-ever Little League World Series. Just the third time the championship had gone to extra innings. Tied in the bottom of the eighth, Hunter Alexander laying down a perfect bunt here to advance a runner, but no one from Chinese- Taipei covers first. And then you had Lathan Norton who was so sick he couldn't play in the

U.S. Championship on Saturday, coming -- racing around from second base to score. So how about that? You can't even play because you're not feeling well. You come back and save the day with the winning run, doing it for the state of Florida.

Great stuff all around, Kasie, from the Little League World Series. This is always just a really fun moment, period, but a great game, too.

HUNT: You love to see it. Congrats to them. That's amazing.

Carolyn, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. See you tomorrow.

Coming up next her on CNN THIS MORNING, with just over 10 weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign trying to beef up the schedule to counter the momentum that Kamala Harris has lately.

Plus, the southern border crisis taking shape as a key focal point in the race for the White House.

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VANCE: Kamala Harris cannot --

WELKER: But under the --

VANCE: -- claim that she doesn't know that her policies

WELKER: But under the --

[05:55:00]

VANCE: -- are leading to family separation. They are and everybody knows it. And she has to take responsibility --

WELKER: There --

VANCE: -- for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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HUNT: It's Monday, August 26.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, the sprint to November. Donald Trump's campaign taking an aggressive new approach in the race against Kamala Harris.

And --

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VANCE: I don't want a border czar --

WELKER: Just --

VANCE: -- who makes it more efficient for illegal immigrants to come to this country.

WELKER: But, to this --

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT: And always --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: One of Trump's main lines of attack against Harris continues to be the border. What Democrats now say she needs to do to try to on offense.

And later -

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: American women are not stupid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Elizabeth Warren not buying J.D. Vance's claim that Trump wouldn't sign a national abortion ban.

Plus, a leading election forecaster now clarifying.