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Hamas Political Leader Killed By Rocket Strike In Tehran; Rising Fears Of Wider War In Mideast After Hamas Leader Killed; Blinken: Ceasefire In Gaza "Is The Enduring Imperative"; Harris Draws Biggest Crowd Yet At Boisterous Atlanta Rally; Harris Challenges Trump To Debate: "Say It To My Face"; Trump: Foreign Leaders Will Treat Harris Like "A Play Toy". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 31, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics. Fears of a broader war. The Middle East is at another flashpoint as the world waits for Iran to retaliate against Israel, who it blames for killing a top Hamas leader on Iranian soil. We're following the breaking news across the region with some new reporting about what the strike means for the ceasefire for hostages talks.

Plus, campaign star power. Rapper Megan Thee Stallion helps Kamala Harris rally a boisterous crowd of nearly 10,000 people in Atlanta. But will the energy translate to votes putting Georgia back in play for Democrats.

And Wolverine state worries. It is almost impossible to win the presidency without winning Michigan. And CNN is on the ground in suburban Detroit, talking to a crucial group of voters about what they think about the presidential matchup.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with the assassination of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. His Iran's supreme leader is promising revenge for the strike inside his country, issuing this warning to Israel. Quote, you killed our dear guests in our house and now have paved the way for your harsh punishment.

Now Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh's death. But it came just hours after an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, in retaliation for a weekend rocket attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights that left 12 Jews Arab children dead.

CNN's Clarissa Ward is now here from Tel Aviv. Clarissa, what are you hearing?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, there's no question this entire region really on a knife's edge at the moment. There have been security meetings ongoing throughout the day here in Israel. Israelis, as you mentioned, still not commenting officially on the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. But they have been much more forthcoming about the strike that they launched that killed, essentially Hezbollah's number two Fuad Shukr.

We have heard now from the IDF chief of staff who was speaking in the North. He said basically, that the IDF quote knows as well how to target a certain point underground. Many people potentially interpreting that as some kind of a veiled threat to the leader of Hezbollah, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, he went on to say that Shukr was responsible for the strike that killed those 12 children in Majdal Shams.

And he said that essentially the goal now with vis-a-vis, Hezbollah is not to go back to October 6, but to create a new reality. We also heard from the Foreign Minister of Israel, Israel Katz, who said that U.N. resolution 1701 must be implemented. Now that would essentially call for the disarmament of Hezbollah, and for Hezbollah to pull back beyond or behind, I should say, the Litani River.

Now, I have spoken, Dana, to our reserve as Brigadier General Assaf Orion, who says that, you know, there is a broad consensus here, given how provocative these assassinations were. How high profile the targets were, the fact that they took place in Tehran and Beirut. There is an expectation that there will be some kind of retaliation, and this could be a dangerous escalation.

He talked about a possible attack on Tel Aviv, on Haifa, on Ben Gurion Airport. And he also crucially talked about the kinds of weapons that we may see being used. Now, Hezbollah has far more sophisticated weapons. You could be looking at longer range missiles at higher precision type of weapons. So certainly, the sense that this could rapidly escalate very quickly, not to mention what happens when and if Iran decides how it intends to respond to this. Dana?

BASH: Very, very scary all around. Thank you so much for putting it all in perspective for us. As always, Clarissa, appreciate it. I want to bring in some excellent reporters here with me at the table, Nia- Malika Henderson of Bloomberg and CNN, Michael Warren from the Dispatch, Hans Nichols of Axios, and CNN's very own International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is right here, wearing a suit and a tie. Amazing.

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It's so good to have you here, particularly given what's happening in in the Middle East. Can you continue to put this in context, picking off up where Clarissa left off. And specifically, what you're hearing about the ceasefire for hostages talks, particularly given the fact that this Hamas political leader was the guy who was spearheading the negotiations.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And we've seen as if you can call it a more moderate voice within Hamas. The decision to kill him, clearly torpedoes those talks in the short term. And that's certainly what I'm hearing from an intelligent source in the region at the moment, who also thinks that there will be a major escalation. But he doesn't think that this major escalation in hostilities will happen overnight, that this will be a slow and continued heating of the situation, but he does anticipate this. He thinks that the talks therefore, for the hostage releases and ceasefire are over.

But I think one of the questions I know the question that he has and others in his office is what is the United States position on all of this? They'll have heard what Secretary of State Antony Blinken says. You'll have heard what Lloyd Austin has said about supporting Israel's. Security Blinken say, we didn't know about the attack coming on Ismail Haniyeh.

But they will have watched the optics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking in Congress here. And when he goes back to the Middle East, and you have these two high profile assassinations, it appears to give the imprimatur of the United States benignly, saying, yes, go ahead with this.

And that further erodes the United States ability to broker for peace, to call for a calming down in the region and their legitimacy in the region. And this is -- this has been a processing, so on October the seventh, but now it meets a major --

BASH: Well, it's so interesting. Just to follow up with that, because it was just last week that the Israeli prime minister was here, not just speaking to Congress, but having those private meetings with President Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris, and with hostage families.

And the sense that we all got reporting out of that was that the U.S. administration from the president -- the vice president, said, OK, enough, Bibi. Like, let's get on with it, stop dragging your feet on this war. Let's make the deal and move on. And then less than a week later or about a week later, you have this very provocative move.

Does it mean that they didn't think that Hamas was really going to give on these talks? Or was it just they had an opportunity to get somebody they consider a terrorist, and they took it.

ROBERTSON: And there's a potential for opportunity, but the fact that they were able to kill the to within 24 hours, clearly shows a high level of intelligence about their location at any given time and the ability to follow through that their plans work.

We're fairly running the space to do this could have come because of multiple factors, not just the killing of all the Jews children in the Golan Heights by that -- through that Hezbollah missile over the weekend. But the space that Prime Minister Netanyahu perceives that he has to cooperate, no doubt these two men were people the United States is not unhappy to see removed from the playing field, so to speak.

But the notion that the United States can weigh in and have an impact in the region at the moment. We know the Britisher sent diplomats. The Qatar, the message to Qataris to try to keep going with the negotiations. I think that's going to be very, very difficult to continue with. BASH: Yeah. You mentioned the secretary of state -- the U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Let's listen to what he said after the strikes.

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm not going to speculate on what impact anyone event might have on that. I've learned over many years, never to really speculate about that because we simply don't know. What I do know, is the enduring imperative of getting the ceasefire. And what I do know is we'll continue to work at that every day.

BASH: So meanwhile, while this is happening in a very tenuous geopolitical, particularly in the region, mostly in the Mideast region situation, it's also happening on the backdrop of the U.S. political election. And President Biden now saying, you know, the clock is ticking on his presidency. He's really wants to get this deal done. And -- so does Kamala Harris, because she wants to get her Democratic coalition more intact.

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HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: It's a challenge for Harris moving forward. We got a glimpse of how she's going to handle this. Yesterday she landed on the tarmac. There's a lot of news in the Middle East. And what does she do? She goes straight to the cameras. She jumps into the news cycle, gives a forceful statement. And then goes ahead and continues with a rally as planned.

Now, running for president as an incumbent or vice president is kind of a quasi-incumbent, always imposes in certain restrictions and challenges. It's also opportunities. And you saw her use those yesterday. But you know, events are out of their control. And it's always difficult to respond to events that you aren't anticipating.

And they're going to be a lot of -- I mean, I just want to yield my -- all my time over to Nic. And all the -- all these sort of unanticipated events that we're not thinking of here because we're so focused on. You know, what does it mean that Kamala Harris is going to Pennsylvania? I guess the first question, when you said the ceasefire talks are over in the short term define she get -- so before, after the election?

ROBERTSON: Yeah. And I think the other piece to say about the Prime Minister Netanyahu's time here was, he did spend some of it with Donald Trump --

BASH: He did, yes.

ROBERTSON: Any secret that they would far rather have a Republican in the White House in the future and the assessment. This is the assessment in the region that that all along, Netanyahu has been playing for time and playing down the clock on Biden and playing until there's a possibility of a Trump. And he wants that, because he wants somebody a president to be tough on Iran. And those are the actions we're seeing on the ground --

BASH: And we can't forget. I'm so glad you said the word Iran. Obviously, this happened in Iran. We cannot forget that Iran is the center of all of this, Hezbollah, Hamas. It is part of what Prime Minister Netanyahu talked about, our enemy is your enemy.

And part of the -- sort of discussion, maybe people aren't going to go vote on it. They're much more likely to vote understandably on the price of their eggs. But the difference between how a Kamala Harris would handle Iran and Prime Minister Netanyahu.

ROBERTSON: And it's not just the Israelis that are hungry for a republic.

BASH: And the Kamala Harris, excuse me, and Donald Trump, thank you. Go ahead.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, POLITICS & POLICY COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. No, and he is making a quote. A couple of points on this, which is, you know, the world is on fire because Biden is weak. And he's obviously now switching that to Kamala Harris. In an interview on Fox News, he essentially said, listen, she's a woman, no one's going to listen to her on the world stage, right? Because she's a woman, they're going to treat her like a play toys.

So, he is certainly playing to that. He doesn't even necessarily have a real plan, other than himself, right? I am a strong man. The world will bend to my will, because I'm a strong man. That is essentially his argument.

And listen, some people will buy it. Certainly, his followers believe that and believe he is a sort of magic figure on the world stage. And I think this plays into that narrative. What's going on? There was chaos. Kamala Harris and Biden are too weak to contain it.

BASH: He does, though, my understanding is that one of the messages to Netanyahu was like, you know, maybe he doesn't want it fixed like right away, so that Biden gets all the credit. But like, he doesn't want if he wins, which he doesn't see a world in which he doesn't. He doesn't want the mess on his plate.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DISPATCH: That's right. But, you know, it's important to know, we were talking about sort of unforeseen circumstances. Everything that's happened politically here over the last few weeks is unforeseen. And now we're, you know, contemplating in a way that, maybe Prime Minister Netanyahu wasn't contemplating the possibility that Kamala Harris could succeed Joe Biden. And it won't be a Donald Trump presidency and it won't be a Joe Biden presidency.

That's the opportunity Hans was talking about that I'm interested to see, does Kamala Harris break with the administration, which she is a member of right now, as a way to sort of find a new way forward. The Biden administration, very much still in the realm of what was going on in the Obama administration, seeking a deal with Iran. That those sort of -- those sorts of hopes and dreams are still alive. And Harris has an opportunity?

BASH: What are you hearing, just real quick, because I have the benefit of having you here. What are you hearing about that dynamics?

ROBERTSON: You know, I think when I speak about it in terms of the Middle East, the Saudis, for example, who will be a key interlocutor and provider of guarantees and money, et cetera, et cetera. If there was an end to the war in Gaza. If there was an irreversible path towards a Palestinian state.

They're not going to put their cards on the table in the tail end of an administration when they don't know who's going to come out on top in the election. They're just not going to do it. So don't expect any big moves. The momentum is Prime Minister Netanyahu is for the taking and he's showing us what he's doing with it.

BASH: So, so interesting. Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere. Thank you for coming in, Nic. Coming up, Kamala Harris held a very boisterous rally, maybe the most boisterous so far. And she brought more than political energy, she brought some star power.

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BASH: That was, of course, Megan Thee Stallion, performing at Vice President Harris's Atlanta rally last night. The two also posted this on TikTok.

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BASH: Nearly 10,000 raucous supporters attended last night's rally, a far more energetic crowd than Democrats have seen lately, which of course got Donald Trump's attention. He posted this on his social media platform, quote, I don't need concerts or entertainers. I just have to make America great again.

My panel is back with me, including Michael Warren, who was reporting there. You were there last night in Atlanta.

WARREN: I was there last night.

BASH: So, take us inside.

WARREN: It's interesting that the former president said that because my impression watching the rally in Atlanta last night was, we've all covered Donald Trump rally. It feels like something between a party and a concert and an outdoor event, it's a thing. If you're a Republican, it's a really awesome place to be. And that's what it felt like last night to this Harris rally up. Obviously, a different vibe. The music was slightly different. But it was --

BASH: There was no proud to be an American.

WARREN: No. There was a little -- there was a little journey, Don't Stop Believin. That was good. But this energy, you know, I talked to a woman from -- actually from my hometown, Snellville, Georgia, shouting it out. Who said, she feels reenergized. And that was the feeling across this big arena in downtown Atlanta.

Last night it was that people felt like, finally they could be excited about their party's candidate, maybe even sort of a tacit admission that they weren't excited at all about Joe Biden. Now they have somebody to be excited for. It reminded me so much of a Trump rally. And it's interesting to see what Democrats can do with that energy. They're party, their base is fired up. Of course, it's all about the swing voter.

BASH: Yeah. It's so funny that you say that about, obviously, none of the content is the same of a Trump rally. No one is even beginning to argue that. But when I was watching last night, my takeaway -- I went back to 2016 and I went back to what Brad Parscale, who was doing digital media at the time, said to me, and I will never forget it that the Trump campaign is all about how we make people feel.

And back then it was Hillary, it was -- here's what I'm going to do. And here are my 17-point plans on every single policy issue that will affect your life. And people just wanted to feel something. And that is the first time I have sort of sensed that happening, and you're confirming that it was happening.

WARREN: Yes. The question for me is --

BASH: But on the Democratic side?

WARREN: On the Democratic side. The question for me is, is that sustainable? Is that, you know, is this sort of a catharsis that Democrats finally feel like they're seeing somebody they can rally behind, will that last over the next 97 days before the election. And that's up to Harris and her campaign.

BASH: And speaking of that, I want you, Nia, to weigh in on one of the most memorable lines from last night from Kamala Harris.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, he won't debate. But he and his running mate sure seems they have a lot to say about me. I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. Because as the same goes, if you got something to say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Yeah. Listen, this was a very black moment, right? There was a reason why everybody in that crowd kind of finished the Senate. This is a -- it's a southern saying, it's a black saying. So, she's leaning into it there. You mentioned it's also sort of like a pro wrestling.

WARREN: She just pointed out to the camera. It would be like WWF.

(CROSSTALK) HENDERSON: So, you know, she is somebody who is really meeting the moment. She's meeting the moment culturally. You see stars like Megan Thee Stallion there, Quavo was there who's from the group Migos. It went to Morehouse is from Georgia. And, you know, you do feel this real sense of joy, right? When people are looking about Kamala Harris is thinking about the history, she could make and it is going to come down to emotions, right?

I think most elections come down to emotions. You can talk about policy. And she didn't talk about policy, right? There was a very sort of workman like aspect of the speech in the beginning, where she literally said, I got to get some business done.

So, she leaned in on immigration, because that is obviously going to be the big argument that Donald Trump makes about her. That argument will be the brown woman is going to let brown people in to kill your families and rape your wives. That is essentially his argument. And his ad essentially argues that.

BASH: Let's look at something else that the former president said on Fox yesterday about Kamala Harris.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think they'll walk all over. She'll be so easy for them. She'll be like a play toy. They look at her and they say, we can't believe we got so lucky. They're going to walk all over. And I don't want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it.

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BASH: Now, the obvious thing for me to do would be to go to you, the other woman here. But I'm going to put this on your Hans, play toy.

NICHOLS: I'm going to go to Margaret Thatcher -- Margaret Thatcher and like a word, right? I mean, he's walking right up to saying it, right, I mean we know what's going on here. I mean, I don't like -- you know, if I'm going to called out on Twitter because, you know, the former president didn't actually say, we all know what he meant, right?

You know, the question is does he match it with his actual actions? And is he ready to debate her? He can talk tough like that all along. To me, I'm just interested in is Wednesday debate. How many where they are and what's the venue? And to me that's going to be -- that's been most interesting. But this -- I think, is going to be a feature of the campaign.

BASH: And meanwhile, he is still trying to -- Trump is still trying to expand. He has not given up on the black vote. He is going today to speak at NABJ, which may be a surprising forum for him, it's a National Association of Black Journalists. What does that say to you now, Nia? HENDERSON: Well, listen, they are going after the African American vote. I think their strategy certainly pre-Kamala Harris dependent on peeling off some voters particularly, working class black men. What President Obama used to call the sort of the cousin pookie vote. That is where -- what they're going after. We'll see how he shows up, right.

Does he talk about brown people coming over to take black jobs, right? I hope someone asked him what he thinks is a black job. This idea that he's the greatest president for black Americans since Lincoln. There is some consternation among some in ABJ members that he's coming, you know, it is a tough format. But it isn't surprising that a president would want to come and speak to this organization, previous presidents have done it before.

But you know, he -- I think he's sort of at a ceiling in terms of how he's going to do with black voters. And then you've got Kamala Harris, who's certainly changing the dynamics, and getting some of these folks who were maybe sitting on the fence, maybe going to choose the couch, maybe choose Kennedy.

Now there's a real argument. They can make history. There is a particular argument that they're making to black men too, which is, you have to go out and protect Kamala Harris right, from this guy who's saying that she's a bomb, that she's a DEI candidate and that she's not strong enough to be on the world stage. Really interesting.

Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere, because coming up, who will it be? The search for a running mate is moving at warp speed. We could know very soon, who Kamala Harris will choose. And later, who you think is going to play her on Saturday night live. Well, you can probably guess. But we're going to confirm it. Stay with us.

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