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New Poll: No Clear Leader in Sun Belt States; Harris, Walz to Do CNN Interview Tonight; Trump on Defense after Arlington Cemetery Incident. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 29, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: 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.

[06:00:09]

And --

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We wanted to come by to remind you that our nation is counting on you. We're so proud of you and everything you have --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: High schools, restaurants. Harris and Walz making their way across South Georgia as they get ready for tonight's big interview right here on CNN.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both candidates have said that they are comfortable with live, unmuted microphones.

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HUNT: To mute or not to mute? Harris's campaign wants live microphones. Will Trump's team agree? We're going to ask his campaign senior advisor, ahead.

And this.

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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The best thing for American workers, union and non-union alike, is rising wages, investing in American manufacturing, and investing in American workers, closing down --

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Vying for the union vote. Both Trump and Vance are in the Rust Belt today, talking about the economy in manufacturing in key battleground states ahead of Labor Day.

All right, 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the Washington Monument. The White House is in there somewhere.

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

There are just 68 days until election day, and tonight at 9 p.m., a CNN exclusive: Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will sit down for their first joint interview as the Democratic ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nice to meet you.

HARRIS: You, too. I appreciate that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A stop for barbecue in Savannah, Georgia, where they are going to continue their bus tour. The big question, of course, for the Harris campaign: Can they put Georgia and the rest of the Sun Belt states back in play for Democrats?

If they can, they will open so many more paths to 270 electoral votes.

You'll remember Biden unexpectedly flipped Georgia in 2020, but he was badly trailing there earlier this summer.

Now, we have this new FOX News poll. It shows Trump and Harris neck neck-and-neck, not just in Georgia, but also in the Sun Belt states of Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina.

If you take a look at the same FOX News polls taken earlier in the year, while President Joe Biden was still in the race, Trump was the clear favorite: five- to six-point lead, safely outside the margin of error.

So, then Trump was winning. Now, it's basically tied. Sources I've talked to in both parties say that Kamala Harris hasn't nailed these states down yet, especially Georgia. And the big question is whether she can. They do say she has an opportunity that Biden never had.

And Trump seems to be quite aware of it, because he is suddenly trying to end a long-standing feud with the state's Republican governor, Brian Kemp. This is Georgia's Republican governor, who he had mocked on stage at a rally earlier this month.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's a bad guy. He's a disloyal guy, and he's a very average governor.

Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy. But think of it. I got this guy. Just think -- and then --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Late last week, though, Kemp got a public thank you from Trump.

And today, Kemp will co-headline a fundraiser for the Republican nominee, a show of unity reportedly made possible with some assistance from the Republican vice-presidential nominee, J.D. Vance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: 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.

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. We stand for common sense and sanity, and we've got to kick that insane politician in Kamala Harris out of the White House.

We're going to do what Donald Trump loves to do to people who don't do their jobs. You are fired, Kamala Harris. You're out of there. It's done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Joining me now to discuss: Stephen Collinson, CNN politics senior reporter; Kendra Barkoff, former press secretary for Joe Biden during his vice presidency; Sarahh Longwell, Republican strategist and the executive director of the Republican Accountability Project; and Mike Dubke, former Trump White House communications director.

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

MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Good morning.

HUNT: Sarahh Longwell, actually, let's start with you. This -- these are registered voters, the FOX News poll. I think it's most interesting, because it kind of shows the movement in the race from Biden-Harris across the Sun Belt. And it really will change the conversation about the path to 270 if she can get these states in play.

You're talking to voters all the time. What is it about kind of this region of the country? North Carolina's also now in play. What are voters telling you about what she needs to do to actually convert this?

SARAHH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. I mean, look, here's what's happened.

Joe Biden, for a long time, he was lagging with his own base of voters, right? I mean, I was talking to sort of soft Democrats all the time who just thought Biden was too old. And so, Kamala Harris -- and this is -- it's almost been miraculous,

but she's put that coalition back together in a matter of a month.

And so now you're in sort of the persuasion part, right? Where she's got to figure out how to get to swing voters who, you know -- what I've heard from voters about Kamala Harris now for years is they're, like, well, I don't know anything about her. I don't see her. I don't know what she does. Right?

And so, she's having this moment right now to sort of reintroduce herself to these voters.

And I've done nothing but focus groups since this race changed. Like I'm doing them almost every day now, because I'm trying to get a handle on what voters are thinking.

And post-DNC, what they've been saying is, you know, I like her positive message. I still need to learn more about her. But right now, it's -- it's a big contrast with what -- they've talked about the RNC as a "doom and gloom" type event. And they were sort of tired of the negative message.

And so, they're kind of into what she's selling. And they're taking a look at her for the first time and thinking, you know, I could get there, but they're not there yet.

And so, I think what you're seeing in those numbers is she's put her coalition back together. And now she's got to figure out how to get to -- you know, and a lot of that is young voters. It's black voters. It's Hispanic voters that Biden was lagging with.

Now she's got to figure out, how do I get more sort of white working- class voters? Maybe white working-class women is, I think, a place where she could really push ahead.

Because Donald Trump, as you can see, his support is very consistent. He's hit his ceiling. So now it's can she pick up the rest of those margins, now that most of the third parties have moved out of this race?

HUNT: Yes, and Mike Dubke, I'm curious what you think about this, because when I talk to Republicans, they will say yes, Harris is doing much better in some of these Sun Belt states. Most of the smart ones I'm talking to don't yet think she's there yet, especially in Georgia. They're not sure Georgia is on the map.

DUBKE: They're super smart, if you've been talking to them. Because there is too -- it's been 39 days since she's been in -- in the race. And she's had three really major events. The announcement, the -- the pick of vice president, and then the DNC that just concluded last week.

And so, I think when this poll was taken, it was probably over the weekend, and that is the high watermark for her.

I agree with Sarahh that Democrats have come home. So those that felt that Joe Biden was too old, have come home. But now this is that neck- and-neck race. There's two paths to victory. One in the industrial North, the Blue Wall as it's called, and then I call it the Southern --

(CROSSTALK)

DUBKE: Yes. Yes. And then, you know, North Carolina --

HUNT: The Southern --

DUBKE: -- Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.

So, it is a tossup race and -- but it's always been a toss-up race. So, I think that there's been momentum over 39 days. We'll see if that momentum starts to come to a halt when she finally does a one-on-one -- well, two-on-one interview tonight. And -- and -- but the race is on.

HUNT: So, let's talk about the interview, because it is, as you point out, they're going to be there together. And Kendra Barkoff, the -- "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board framed it this way: "Don't think Kamala Harris's handlers are shielding her for tough -- tough questions" -- question mark -- "consider that in her first sit-down interview with the press this week, she's bringing along a crutch: running mate Tim Walz. The vice president's campaign has finally allowed her to take questions from" -- our Dana Bash here at CNN. "But instead of a one-on-one one, Ms. Bash will have to deal with the Veep and Mr. Walz. This is a deliberate attempt to limit the potential exposure risks for the vice president."

You've been in the White House. You've worked on decisions like this. There's clearly a reason that they wanted this to be her first foray out there. Why are they doing this? What impact does it have?

KENDRA BARKOFF, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY FOR JOE BIDEN: Well, look, if you look at the history of every single presidential Democratic presidential candidate that has done their first interview after the DNC convention, they have always been jointly together.

You saw Obama and Biden doing it together. You saw John -- I mean, John McCain, obviously is a Republican. But this is an historical interview that they have normally and typically done together.

So I think people making a huge deal out of the fact that she's not doing it by herself, I think it's a ridiculous thing to make a big deal out of.

I would also say that this is an important place to show the two of them together, how they are together. We've seen it on the campaign trail. We've seen it on the stage. But this showing how they interact together is going to be an important thing for voters to see and for voters to do.

And I'm sure they will do individual interviews as time goes by, but this is a historical interview that they will do together to show who they are. HUNT: Stephen Collinson, I mean, this -- this is -- they've waited a

little bit of time to do this, to the point that they were getting criticism for not doing it sooner.

But I think that the critical piece of this is what Sarah was talking about, which is that voters, swing voters, are saying, Well, OK, I'm interested in this. I'm paying attention, right? But I don't really know yet what she's actually going to do.

Are we going to start to see that tonight?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN POLITICS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: I think in that sense, this is actually an opportunity for the vice president, although everyone is portraying it as this big hurdle she has to go across.

You're right. It took them a while to get this together. That offered an opening to the Trump campaign, because they believe that she's not a nimble political athlete; she struggles on policy questions.

I think it's fair to say she is someone, through her history as a lawyer and a prosecutor, that has been a lot more comfortable asking the questions instead of answering them, especially on ideological issues, where sometimes it seems she's not quite moored to any particular political position.

[06:10:09]

So, she has a chance to get it across. I think what she has to do is get out of this without anything that interrupts that momentum.

The key thing here is it's unscripted. Everything else that's happened in this campaign rollout has been managed by the campaign. This time, she's walking a little bit of a tight rope.

DUBKE: And Kendra, I really appreciate the spin on the -- on the -- on what the interview is.

But every example that you used, those individuals have sat down for one-on-one interviews with reporters. Up to this point, it's been 39 days since she has been in this race. She has not done a single interview. The media has been jockeying for this.

So, I appreciate that -- you know, the historic nature of this is what Democrats do afterwards. But it's a -- I'm worried that it's a low bar for her, frankly, that she hasn't done this. And everyone's saying, well, she can't handle questions very well.

Let's see tonight, if I'm -- if I'm Dana Bash, what I'm asking, I'm just directing my questions straight to Vice President Harris. I'm just -- I'm ignoring Walz.

I think he's got the most difficult job of being a middle-aged white guy that has to interrupt two women having a conversation.

LONGWELL: Well, he just shouldn't interrupt them then. DUBKE: Exactly. Exactly. Right.

LONGWELL: Look, what -- I understand, from a communications standpoint, she's having enormous momentum, right? She's had, like, a 7-, 8-point swing since she got in this race. She was not trying to put a filter between her and the American people. I don't think that that is a stupid thing to do.

Obviously, she's going to have to sit for interviews. It makes total sense that the very first one, she sits down with her vice president. It's just a natural thing people do.

And I'll tell you, maybe people are playing the expectations game. Obviously, we've all been seeing, over the last few years, the Republicans put together a lot of supercuts of her kind of losing her train of thought or make it sound, you know, like some word salad stuff.

I've been genuinely impressed with how she has sounded since she got to sort of be her own voice, right? I think it's hard to be the vice president and carry somebody else's message. But she seems pretty comfortable so far carrying her own message.

But I think tonight, she is going to have to answer policy questions. But if she does that well, you know, I think that after that, they should do 100 interviews. Because I think when you put a lot of pressure on just one interview, it like, raises the stakes in a way that I don't think is productive.

They should just -- like, Walz did something with "Runner's World." And he also did one with a guy where he was talking about how important managing the gutters are on your house.

(CROSSTALK)

BARKOFF: The subway.

LONGWELL: That stuff, I think, is what they need to do, not just all these high-pressure kind of situations.

DUBKE: They set this -- they've set this all up on themselves.

BARKOFF: Yes, but she answered questions from reporters. She's done gaggles on the plane. I mean, it's not like she hasn't talked to reporters.

DUBKE: She has sat down for an interview.

HUNT: I think -- I think the issue, though, Kendra, is that the -- her performances in past interviews have been speed bumps for her, to you know, use one -- one phrase. I mean, in talking to my sources, the interview she did with Lester Holt, not only did it sort of it -- it seemed to have rattled her, right? Like this was part of why this -- the question of this interview has been such a big one for them. No?

BARKOFF: But I will say when I worked for Vice President Biden, every interview that he went into, because he had a boss, there was a different level of expectation there, right? He had a boss that he had to report to, Barack Obama. And so, they're -- every interview, there's a different bar when you're not the boss.

And so now that she has taken -- sort of she is the presidential nominee, and she is going to be moving forward with this, there's a little bit of a different -- there's a different game that's going on here. And it's a different dynamic.

HUNT: Sarah, if you're Harris, and you're thinking about these policy questions in terms of trying to convert swing voters, where are the places that you see Harris getting the most bang for her buck in terms of breaking with the current president?

LONGWELL: Breaking. So, here's one of things that's been interesting to me, is how much she has been able to not have to own Joe Biden's record, especially on the economy.

And so, for better or worse, right or wrong, voters are frustrated with the economy even though, at a macro level, it's been doing very well. When it comes to prices of food, when it comes to housing, you know, voters still really feel behind, and they blame Biden. They seem to be giving her a fresh look on the economy.

And so, I think for her, being able to both say the good parts of the Biden recovery that America recovered after the pandemic. But that we're not doing nearly enough for the middle class. You heard some of that in her DNC speech.

I think she's really got to go on offense on the economy. And she's got to go on offense on immigration. That's another thing she did in her speech. It's one of the biggest vulnerabilities that she has with these swing voters.

And she's got to find a way but not to own that. Because that's one of the other things they -- people know very little about her record as vice president. But I think if they know anything, some of it is that she was made the borders czar, and that it didn't work out well for her.

COLLINSON: Yes. I think that's very interesting, that there's visible frustration from the Trump campaign that they've not been able to link her irrevocably with the president on the economy, especially.

[06:15:06]

That economic plan she rolled out, the populist price-gouging plan, a lot of economists thought it's a terrible idea, but it may well turn out to be very good politics, because it's playing exactly into the major concern of a lot of voters.

But she has to keep that going for two months. You know, if Trump could actually focus on this issue, she might be a little bit more vulnerable than she already is.

LONGWELL: Yes, because some of her worst policies, in my opinion, she just copied from Trump.

But Trump also has populist economic policies, and so conservatives are hitting them on it. But like, that's what Trump does, too.

HUNT: Yes.

DUBKE: No, the biggest frustration I have for the Trump campaign is they are not saying, "Biden-Harris, Biden-Harris, Biden-Harris" all the time. I think you're absolutely right on this. They've got -- if they focus on the issues, we focus on policy, which hopefully, she gets asked about tonight.

HUNT: I have full faith in Dana.

DUBKE: I do, too. I thought she did -- I thought she did excellent at the debates.

If they focus on policy, that is going to be a net advantage, net plus for the Trump campaign.

HUNT: All right. OK. Our panel is going to be back. Don't forget: tonight on CNN, the most anticipated interview so far of Kamala Harris's run here at the top of the ticket. Harris and Tim Walz will sit down with Dana Bash for their first interview. Harris and Walz's CNN exclusive begins tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern.

And coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, the debate between Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, less than two weeks away. The format still up in the air.

Trump's campaign senior advisor joins me to talk about that.

Plus, parents and stress. Do they go together like toddlers and tantrums? That is a depressing sentence to have to read. Parental stress, though, is now becoming a public health issue. There's a warning from the surgeon general. We'll dig in.

And an illegal photo op? Donald Trump accused of breaking the law while at Arlington National Cemetery this week.

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VANCE: Kamala Harris is disgraceful. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can -- she can go to Hell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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.

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HUNT: Donald Trump's campaign now defending his visit to Arlington National Cemetery following a reported altercation between his team and cemetery staff members.

On Monday, Trump visited Arlington to mark the three-year anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul that killed 13 American service members during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He first -- you see it here -- laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That is a spot where photography is allowed.

After that, Trump's campaign says he was invited by families of some of those killed at Abbey Gate to visit the grave sites of their loved ones. And this is in an area of Arlington that's known as Section 60.

Here, photography is much more restricted, and partisan political activity is explicitly forbidden by federal law.

At this point, a cemetery employee reportedly attempted to prevent Trump's photographer from accompanying him, in accordance with that law.

An Arlington spokesperson confirmed to CNN, quote, "There was an incident," and quote, "And a report was filed." They didn't provide additional details.

Trump later posted a video on TikTok -- You're watching part of it now -- that shows him at the gravesite. That same video included criticism of the Biden administration.

And Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, is using this incident and the Afghanistan withdrawal to attack Kamala Harris this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: To have those 13 Americans lose their lives and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We want 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)

HUNT: OK. Panel is back.

I want to talk in a second about J.D. Vance and how he spoke about Kamala Harris there in that clip. But first, Mike, I just want to talk about the families here, because I think that this is -- this is the piece of this story that -- obviously, there was an altercation, in part because this cemetery employee was trying to protect families who may not want to allow photography of their loved ones' grave sites.

And there was a family whose headstone appeared in that photo with Trump who did not give Trump permission to be there. It landed in, you know, these campaign materials that he put out.

"The New York Times" has a statement from the sister of Sergeant Marckesano, and they say, quote, "The Trump campaign staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit" to the other fallen soldiers' grave sites, Staff Sergeant Hoover in section 60, "which lays directly next to my brother's grave."

How -- was this the right thing to do for the Trump team? I mean, it seems clear that they broke the law here.

DUBKE: Well, I think that -- let's just accept all of the facts to be true. That -- that he laid the -- the marker [SIC] at the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, that they went there. They were invited by the other families and all of this.

I understand the reasoning behind doing the visit on Monday. And I understand, after being invited to visit the grave site, which you know, if the family invited former President Trump to visit the grave site, I don't -- I think he had every right to do that.

On the photograph, I mean, it is very easy to blur out other images, logos, names, whatever the case may be. The Trump should have done that.

But to the point, I -- it really -- the first part of the day went, I think, the way that they were hoping it would.

The second part of the day turned into a kerfuffle that we're now talking about three days later.

So, should they have blanked out the names of the others? Probably. But this has now become just -- it's --

HUNT: I mean, no one is trying to take anything away from somebody trying to pay respects to fallen soldiers at the invitation of their families.

However --

DUBKE: Right.

HUNT: -- the law is around partisan political activity, which if you are -- if your goal is simply to honor the families, you could do that without having pictures taken of it.

COLLINSON: Right. It's completely fair game for them to bring up the Afghan issue, the Abbey Gate, how the withdrawal was managed.

But that particular section of the cemetery, for anyone sort of who lived through 9/11, it's particularly poignant. Because it's almost within sight of the Pentagon, where one of the planes went in.

You see all the young people lying there, ages of 18, 19, 20, who died in the wars that followed that terrorist attack. And to have it caught up in a political event, it seems undignified. And it does seem a real shame for it to happen, there, especially.

HUNT: Well, and to use it in a TikTok video that explicitly attacks the president. I mean, that -- that's the part I'm tripping on.

DUBKE: No, and I think you should trip on it. And they could have handled it better. I'm not in any way disagreeing.

And to -- frankly, Stephen, to your point, this is a section of the cemetery that's new, in that -- in the sense that families -- this is not from World War I or the Civil War. This is -- this is very -- and you need to tread carefully here.

So, I'm, in no way, defending the political use of this.

What I am saying is that the -- going to the cemetery and honoring those who have fallen, given the Afghanistan withdrawal, they -- that was -- that was something that -- that made total sense. They could have handled the aftermath of this better.

LONGWELL: Here's the thing. Donald Trump has literally never been good at honoring Americas soldiers. Like this is a guy who said that people who died for the country were suckers and losers.

And like, every time he goes out there and tries to sort of performatively utilize dead soldiers and people who have fallen for the country, like he does it in this schlocky political way. And so, this is, like, par for the course with him.

He has no real sense of dignity around this. He has no real sense of commitment to these soldiers. He uses people -- them as political props. And then behind the scenes, he criticizes their sacrifice.

DUBKE: There is -- there is real -- there is -- the military families, and especially the one that asked for the former president to visit the grave, there is -- there is a reason for that. There is a --

LONGWELL: Yes, and then they treated it as a photo op.

DUBKE: Well, it -- it could have very easily not -- been a non-story for this, for this week.

LONGWELL: Yes, if they hadn't brought a camera.

BARKOFF: Well, I mean, this was a campaign event to begin with, right? His campaign staff were the ones who reached out, that had the conversations to negotiate with the cemetery to begin with.

This is what he does. He doubles down when he -- there's been a mistake that's made.

To your point, he called, you know, folks in -- dead soldiers suckers and losers. He made fun of John McCain. I mean, this is -- he has a history here of bullying and doubling down on things that he should take a step back and maybe say like, OK, I should have done something different. I should -- I made a mistake, or whatever it is. And he just doesn't do that ever. HUNT: Well, and his vice-presidential nominee is telling Harris to,

quote-unquote, "go to Hell," which we'll circle back on that.

Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, trying to win over union voters. Harris and Trump delivering their pitches. Who's making the best case?

Plus, popular tourist destination in Greece coping with 80,000 pounds of rotting fish. Eww. One of five things you have to see this morning.

Do we, though? Do we?

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