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New Polling Shows Tight Race In Battleground States; Trump Campaign Defends Visit To Arlington National Cemetery; Pro-Trump X Accounts Use Stolen Photos Of European Influencers. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired August 29, 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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[05:32:25]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:31 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at Los Angeles on this Thursday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz waking up in south Georgia today. The campaign zeroing in on winning back Sun Belt states that were critical in the 2020 election.

Since accepting the nomination Harris has been trying to turn her momentum into votes in places like Georgia. New polling shows that these efforts may be working or at least that she has an opening. The latest Fox News poll shows Harris 48 to 46 against Donald Trump in Georgia. Still no clear leader in the race but clearly movement since the top of the ticket changed. Joe Biden had trailed behind Trump in similar surveys taken earlier this year in that state.

Now the Trump campaign has seen enough that they are trying to bury the hatchet with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, trying to win Georgia after losing it in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The president has some personal disagreements with Brian Kemp, and Brian Kemp has some personal disagreements with the president, but they're both big enough to put the country over personal interests. It's important that Donald Trump, despite the fact that he has disagreements with a number of people who have endorsed him, he's willing to say we are the big tent party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining us now to discuss, Tia Mitchell, Washington correspondent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Catherine Lucey, White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to both of you.

Tia, nobody better to talk to about Georgia, so I'm thrilled to have you this morning with all this new polling that we are seeing. And this is something we're looking at kind of across the Sun Belt.

I'm really interested to know what your reporting is telling you about the state of the race in Georgia. My understanding from talking to sources has been that there's an opening there for Harris but, so far, the Republicans I'm talking to are pretty skeptical that she can convert it into a win for that state.

What are you hearing?

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: So, very similar to what you are hearing because there are things working for and against President -- Vice President Harris.

Working for her is the fact that women, younger voters, and Black voters are very energized by her campaign. And in a state like Georgia where Black voters make up a larger segment of the population than in other states, that's an important voting bloc. Of course, we know women, especially suburban women in metro Atlanta, for example, that's an important voting bloc for Democrats.

And again, younger voters. Georgia's demographics are changing. The state is getting younger and more diverse.

So that all makes things look up for her.

[05:35:00]

However, Georgia is still a state where, other than our two U.S. senators who were on the ballot on 2020, every other statewide elected official is a Republican. And the difference between 2020 and 2024 is our senators are not on the ballot. So Harris, if she is going to win, she's going to basically have to do it by herself. She won't have other races on the ballot to kind of drum up enthusiasm and turnout.

And that's why Republicans think it's going to be harder for the Democratic ticket to win this year.

HUNT: Yeah.

Catherine, what are your Harris and Democratic sources -- White House sources telling you about this?

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, I think the thing that's clear in both Georgia but the other states we see in this poll is just that the pathways for Harris have opened up, right? The polling has improved for her since she took over the top of the ticket when Biden was the candidate.

Increasingly, the view was that the only way for him to win this was through the Midwest -- through Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. And now they just see more states in play. Whether they can convert all these states, to your point, is entirely unclear, but they see more options.

And that's why you see them out campaigning today in Georgia. That's why you're going to see them -- and they're out, you know, in rural areas. They're trying to lift the vote from different parts of the state there. So they are -- they are really aggressively making a play for these states because they see possibilities in these places.

HUNT: Yeah.

All right, let's turn now to this. The Trump campaign is defending the trip that Donald Trump took to Arlington National Cemetery this week after reports of an altercation between campaign officials and someone who worked at the cemetery.

Trump was there to mark the three-year anniversary of the bombing outside Kabul's airport that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers during the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan. You can see he was at a wreath- laying ceremony here. This is all fine.

The controversy stems from Trump's graveside photo op. It happened in an area of Arlington that is known as Section 60. This is where many fallen veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan wars are buried. A cemetery worker attempted to stop Trump photographers from taking photos and video in this area because partisan political campaign activities are prohibited by federal law in Army national cemeteries.

The cemetery says that a report was filed about the incident but didn't give any more details.

Donald Trump's TikTok account even released a video from his visit. It showed some of the moments graveside that he had there.

His running mate J.D. Vance has this to say about it.

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VANCE: It is amazing to me that you have apparently somebody at Arlington Cemetery -- some staff member had a little disagreement with somebody, and they have turned -- the media has turned this into a national news story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And Democratic lawmakers now pushing back against the Trump campaign's visit.

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REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): To take that sacrifice and twist it and exploit it for partisan political gain, that's shameful. It's shameful. And it's not only shameful, it's illegal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right, Tia, Catherine, are back here.

Catherine, the thing that struck me here and that I'm interested to hear you weigh in on is that there's a family member -- so there are family members who say they invited Trump to do this -- to come graveside, right, and that that's why it was OK that there were photographers there. However, they clearly don't speak for all family members of people who are buried in Section 60.

And there is another family whose -- you know, the headstone for their loved one was in this photo op that Trump took there. And they talked to The New York Times.

They say that they fully support another family's quest for answers and accountability about the Afghanistan withdrawal but they also say that according to our conversation with the cemetery, the Trump campaign staffers didn't adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to this other family's gravesite that lies directly next to -- this is the sister -- my brother's grave. We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected according -- respected accordingly.

We also -- we didn't show what J.D. Vance actually said about Harris and Democratic criticism here. Let's play that -- the rest of his remarks, please.

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VANCE: To have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful. If we're going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives, it's that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can -- she can go to hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:40:00]

HUNT: Uh, Catherine, what are you hearing about this? Again, I -- my -- I'm sort of focused on the families here.

LUCEY: Yeah, that's right. I mean, there are multiple families who are dealing with this and who are represented in this part of the cemetery. And obviously, The New York Times reporting -- there were different feelings about this visit. And so that's just a -- that's a sensitivity that folks have to deal with. And real people are now getting caught up into this political storm around this visit, and I think you can tell from their comments that that's tough for these folks.

I mean, stepping back -- I mean, this obviously -- this incident is something I think the Trump campaign is trying to highlight the withdrawal -- the fallout from withdrawal. They see that as something that's effective for them. But some of the chaos around this visit, I'm not sure how helpful that is to the Trump campaign. I think it's not clear that this is -- that this narrative is helpful as they are trying to drive a more clear message about leadership and accountability here.

HUNT: Yeah. Well, and Tia, the former president has also made a number of remarks about Americans who have been killed or wounded in action that have not been terribly complimentary.

MITCHELL: Yeah. So instead of this being a way for the Trump campaign to highlight a problematic occurrence -- a problematic event during the Biden administration, which was the Afghanistan withdrawal, which I think is something that is a valid political point to make as Harris runs for president, right?

But instead of stopping there and making that point the Trump campaign now has created this narrative that feeds into what people already believe about him -- is that not only does he not understand military service but that he doesn't respect military service. And now that is becoming what we're discussing instead of the Afghanistan withdrawal, and that's entirely because of choices made by Donald Trump and his campaign.

So even J.D. Vance saying Kamala Harris can go to hell if she wants to criticize us on that -- I think -- I think he might regret those words because it's not just Kamala Harris or the Harris-Walz campaign, or even just Democrats who are criticizing what happened at Arlington National Cemetery, the most famous cemetery in America -- it's veterans' groups. It's going to be military families, Gold Star families. And will J.D. Vance tell them to go to hell? I think he probably wouldn't, but they're going to be asking him what does he mean by those comments.

It just seems like a very unforced error for what started out as a very valid critique of the Biden-Harris administration.

HUNT: All right, Tia Mitchell, Catherine Lucey. Thank you both very much for being here today. I appreciate it.

All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, dozens of fake pro- Trump accounts discovered on the platform formerly known as Twitter using stolen or AI-generated images of unsuspecting influencers.

Plus, the very impressive Caitlin Clark setting another WNBA record. The Bleacher Report up next.

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[05:47:25]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: AI is very complex. It's got tremendous potential, but it also has potential to destroy. AI -- it's a very dangerous thing. You've got to be -- we've got to be very careful with artificial intelligence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was Donald Trump earlier this month discussing the dangers of AI -- its potential influence elections.

Those dangers real this morning. We've got new reporting on dozens of fake pro-Trump accounts on X, formerly known as Twitter, using images of European influencers without their knowledge -- some of the apparently generated by AI technology.

The accounts depict young women promoting Trump and encouraging their thousands of followers to vote for the former president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBBIE NEDERLOF, MODEL AND SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER: To be honest, what the (bleep) was my reaction. That was my reaction because I have nothing to do with the United States, with Trump, or the political things over there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: CNN senior media analyst Sara Fischer joins us live now from New York. Sara, good morning. Wonderful to see you as always.

So what do we know about these fake pro-Trump accounts? Is it some sort of coordinated effort? What do we know about who is behind it and how it came to be?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST (via Webex by Cisco): It definitely looks like some sort of coordinated effort for a few reasons, Kasie.

One, a lot of these accounts were all posting the same types of messages, and they contain English language errors that are all the same across these accounts. So we assume that whoever is doing this is one big group.

Is it a state-backed group? Is it an independent group? We're not quite sure. We do know that Russia, Iran, and China have targeted the U.S. in the past, so if you were to assume this was a state-backed group, likely one of those folks.

But the big thing is when it's a coordinated campaign like this you're able to scale much faster. If it's one person who is trying to steal these images and photos, repost them, and edit them, this takes a long time. The CNN investigation found that these accounts came together pretty quickly and grew audiences very quickly. You can't really do that unless you are coordinated.

HUNT: Really interesting.

So, Sara -- I mean, what are the -- what are the hurdles to doing something like this? I mean, you touched on the fact that it's hard for, like, a single person to make something like this, but if you are this kind of an entity is this just a question of pushing a couple of buttons now? How easy is it for somebody to launch something like this?

[05:50:00]

FISCHER: You know what's fascinating, Kasie, on the AI front? Most of these images are not fully created with AI. They took someone's existing photos, and they used probably not even full AI technology, right? They could have just used Photoshop or something pretty simple to superimpose, like, a MAGA logo onto their hat.

The reason that is important is because AI tech, while super advanced, is not perfect at recreating humans and, in particular, the same human over and over and over. There are some obvious errors that AI will still make.

You know, for example, the lighting on your face is very different in terms of where you're sitting. Different parts of your body reflect it. AI often gets this very wrong, especially with things like ears. Ears should look red, Kasie, when light shines behind. It often gets that wrong. AI gets hands wrong all the time.

So when it comes to this type of technology it's not actually as useful as you think. Most of what people are using right now is simple things like Photoshop. And they're stealing real people's images because that's actually more realistic than trying to recreate something entirely new.

But the reason that's actually a huge threat is when you're using real people's stuff, Kasie, it's a lot harder for the tech platforms to detect it. And so that's why I think they were able to grow a pretty sizable operation without getting caught.

HUNT: And that's why we're hearing now from some -- a real person -- real European person with very little stake in the U.S. election talking to us about her face has been used -- fascinating.

Sara Fischer, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time this morning.

FISCHER: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, time now for sports.

Dodgers' superstar Shohei Ohtani having another great season in L.A., but last night he got upstaged by his dog.

Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah, good morning, Kasie.

You know, we've seen some great first pitches over the years, right, but I'm not sure there's ever been one better than Shohei Ohtani's dog Decoy last night.

So Ohtani bringing Decoy to the ballpark because it was their bobblehead night. And check out the massive lines to get in to secure that bobblehead. All the fans trying to make sure they were one of the first 40,000 to get in the gates.

Now, come gametime, though, it was Decoy's turn to shine. He brought the ball from the mound to Ohtani for the first pitch, then he gave him a high five. That's adorable.

And then it was Ohtani putting on a show. He hit his 42nd home run of the season in the first inning, then he would steal two bases to get him the 42 steals for the season. Ohtani -- he's looking to become the first player ever to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a season.

The Dodgers beat the Orioles in that one 6-4.

Elsewhere, slugger Yordan Alvarez had himself a day in Philadelphia. He hit not one, not two, but three home runs yesterday, not helping Phillies fans who still have nightmares of Yordan's home run that beat them in the 2022 World Series. It was Yordan's third three home run game of his career.

Now, Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti -- he didn't give up a hit until the eighth inning there. It gets broke -- the no-hitter broken up by Austin Hays on an infield single.

Houston, though, still wins that in a shutout 10-0.

All right, and Chicago, meanwhile, may have had the catch of the year. The White Sox down one, two on, bottom of the ninth. Andrew Vaughn gets ahold of this one, but the Rangers' Travis Jankowski, who just came on as a defensive replacement, skyed over the wall to rob the walk-off home run. And look how far he was over the fence. That was going to go well into the bullpen.

The brutal season for the White Sox just continues. They lose their 113rd game there 4-3 to the Rangers.

All right, elsewhere, another night, another record for Caitlin Clark. Indiana's star rookie -- she drained a step-back three here in the first quarter. That was her 86th of the season, the most by a rookie in WNBA history.

Clark had a rough shooting night and made just three of her 12 three- point attempts, but she did get this bucket with a minute-27 to go right here to put the Fever up for good. They beat the Sun 84-80.

And check this out. After the game, Clark getting a pic with Simone Biles and Gabby Thomas. They were both at the game. Oh, that's not Caitlin Clark there, but I promise you Caitlin Clark did get a picture with the two after the game.

Biles is gearing up for her Gold Over America tour, which starts in about two weeks.

The Paralympics, meanwhile, though, kicking off in Paris yesterday with the opening ceremonies. An exciting day for the roughly 4,400 athletes from around the world that will be competing. Team USA has 225 athletes at the Games. Competitions got underway this morning.

And finally, Aryna Sabalenka winning at the U.S. Open yesterday in straight sets to advance to the third round. But the highlight of the match was a young fan that was dressed just like her cheering her on from the stands.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARYNA SABALENKA, 2-TIME GRAND SLAM WINNER: That was really an adorable moment. I just looked up and I saw on the big screen, like, mini me, and I was -- I was -- it was so cute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: After winning, went over to meet her biggest fan and took some pictures with her.

[05:55:00]

Kasie, the youngster even had, I believe, a temporary tattoo -- Tiger tattoo just like -- look at that -- just like Sabalenka. That right there is cuteness overload.

HUNT: Just the sweetest. I love it.

Andy Scholes, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

And coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, tonight, exclusively on CNN, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sit down with our Dana Bash to make their pitch to the nation.

Plus, both campaigns putting their eyes on the few states that are going to decide the outcome of the election. New polling showing Kamala Harris potentially closing the gap in critical Sun Belt states.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everyone's vote actually matters, and we have to remind people of that. And don't listen to anybody who is suggesting otherwise. You never want to take yourself out of the game, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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HUNT: It's Thursday, August 29. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, a virtual tie. New polling shows just how tight the race for the White House is in the critical Sun Belt.