Return to Transcripts main page
The Lead with Jake Tapper
In Rambling News Conference, Trump Attacks Harris & Walz, Gives Falsehoods About Crowd Sizes And January 6 Attack; One-on-One With Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA), Is Interviewed About Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia, China; Police: ISIS-Inspired Suspect Planned Attack At Taylor Swift Show; Democratic Veterans Defend Walz's Military Record. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired August 08, 2024 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour an update on a story that CNN's Nick Watt has been covering aggressively for The Lead for three years, including just yesterday. And now a new move that will help homeless veterans across the United States.
Plus, she has blazed a trail for her entire career, and today, we're going one on one with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What does she really think about the Harris-Walz ticket? Has she spoken to President Biden about his decision to drop out? What does she really think about his debate performance against Donald Trump? We're going to ask her all that in just moments.
And leading this hour, Donald Trump's return to the public eye in the form of sprawling news conference just a few minutes ago at Mar-a- Lago, the former president attacking his new political opponent calling Kamala Harris incompetent and not smart. He tried to instill fear. He told lies. And in one of his most bizarre moments, he was asked by the "New York Times" Maggie Haberman if he thought there was a peaceful transfer of power. The last time he left office, Trump initially responded no, but then his answer turned into this.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If you look at January 6, which a lot of people aren't talking about very much, I think those people were treated very harshly.
It's very interesting. The biggest crowd I've ever spoken to, and I said peacefully and patriotically, which nobody wants to say, but I said peacefully and patriotically, the biggest crowd I've ever spoken to, and you've seen Maggie, I was in at the mall, I was at the Washington Monument, I was at the whole thing, I had crowds, I don't know who's ever had a bigger crowd than I have.
If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: OK. So let's bring in some new voices and conversation here. And Jeff, let me start with you. Trump has largely been off the campaign trail this week, other than this event, and basically, really hasn't been out there as much since Kamala Harris became the top of the ticket. What do we know about his eagerness to get in front of a camera, his eagerness to do the kind of rallies in battlegrounds that we're used to?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look I mean, I think even though his advisors say the fundamentals of the race haven't changed, I think you could just tell by his demeanor, his language, and the sheer fact that he summoned reporters to a general news conference as he called. It was -- he is not comfortable being out of the spotlight here. And the fundamentals of the race have changed dramatically. His rival has changed dramatically.
There has been just an unsettled nature of the Trump campaign. The likes of which I can't really recall seeing at any point of his candidacies, from 2016 to 2020, he's a bit off step. And I think him changing his tune on the debates is the best empirical example of that. It was just a week or so ago when he was saying, you know, not going to have debates, and then suddenly proposing three. So we now know that there will be one, at least, maybe more than that.
But the fundamental fundamentals of the race have changed dramatically. Yes, immigration still a central concern, inflation a central concern. You'd hardly know it, though, based on the hour long, you know, wide ranging to be charitable news conference at Mar-a-Lago. So talking to Republican voters, I was in Michigan yesterday at that Harris rally, he diminished that crowd size, but I tell you, if I would have closed my eyes and just not listen to the actual messages, it was the size of an old Trump campaign rally. That's what it felt like, but it was for Kamala Harris.
TAPPER: Interesting. And Trump ticked off a list of events, bad things that happened. He said would not have happened if he had won in 2020. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Russia would have never hit Ukraine had the election result been called differently. It was a very bad call, but Russia would not have attacked Ukraine. October 7 in Israel would have never happened. You wouldn't have inflation. A lot of great things would have happened, but now you have millions and millions of dead people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: I mean, it's -- this is what we've been used to for the last eight years.
JONATHAN KOTT, PARTNER, CAPITOL COUNSEL: Yes, it's lunacy. And he continues to go out there and just spew lies and nonsense. I think his problem is for the last three years, we weren't seeing him every day. We weren't seeing the chaos and the absurdity every day, and now we are and that's why his poll numbers are going down.
Look when you're working on a campaign, I think we have -- you try to win the day, because it's so chaotic every day. The Trump campaign hasn't won a day since she became the nominee or since that Monday when she secured the delegates, they've lost every day. And I think you're seeing him trying to find a way to get it back. So he's flailing. He's posting eight to 20 times on Truth Social.
Nobody really reads it, except his own supporters anyway, and then he goes out and gives crazy press conferences like this. I would expect his poll numbers to continue to drop if he keeps doing it.
[17:05:02]
TAPPER: So listen to what Trump had to say about Harris replacing Biden at the top of the ticket.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I'm no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away, and people were saying he lost after the debate, he couldn't win. Well, I don't know that that's true, necessarily. But whether he could win or he couldn't win, he had the right to run.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It kind of doesn't know what his message should be here, just as a factual matter, obviously, what the Democratic Party did is in accordance with Democratic Party rules and has absolutely no relation to the U.S. Constitution one way or the other. But he does seem to have been knocked -- and, look, I understand why he was, you know, he had a lot invested in Joe Biden being the nominee.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I mean, look, Jake, it's a different race. The race was completely disrupted. I think we're seeing some recalibration on the part of the Trump campaign. That's understandable. I've worked on a ton of campaigns, I get it.
I think today, though, was potentially the first step of disrupting the media focus on the vice president and her running mate, trying to regain some of that momentum. I think Trump has his first campaign event, I believe tomorrow, and so I suspect over the next couple of days, next weeks, we're going to see more of him, more of JD Vance, trying to showcase some momentum on the Republican side, trying to win back that message battle on the issues where the polling still suggests that he is still strong on the economy and immigration in particular.
TAPPER: Oh.
SINGLETON: And so I think you have --
TAPPER: It's a jump ball, no question.
SINGLETON: Yes. So you have to, you know, get that ball back into their court. And I would suspect that people like Chris LaCivita, Susie Wiles, they're talented people run a ton of successful campaigns. They understand that this isn't easy, but they get what needs to be done to sort of, again, recalibrate again, to get things more favorable for their candidate.
TAPPER: One of the things that they're doing is attacking Governor Walz on his military record. Some of the criticisms, I think, are at least one of them is fair. A bunch of them are not. Governor Walz did not abandon his troops, although he did leave the National Guard after 24 years.
Chris LaCivita video, he was in charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004, those veterans almost none of whom served actually with John Kerry, who really helped destroy John Kerry's candidacy.
JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS POLITICS REPORTER: Yes, and I've been talking to people within the Harris campaign and around the vice president today on this, and they said that they were prepared for these lines of attacks, that these were things that came up within the vetting conversations, that they understood where his military record was and also where the critiques were. Obviously these are accusations that have come up when he is ran in previous cycles for other parts, obviously, he ran for Congress and then for governor. And these are accusations that have kind of made their rounds as he's run for these different offices. So they tell me that they are aware of it and they're prepared to push back on. I think that's why you saw that very quick Democratic rollout of pushback from Pete Buttigieg.
We know somebody that is actually a combat veteran, from other folks within the Democratic Party. The question is, though, is whether or not it's going to stick. Obviously, into 2004 with Kerry that was successful, regardless of the merit of it, that was successful. I talked to one person who said Kerry just couldn't push back on those claims enough, because he --
ZELENY: He didn't push but --
WRIGHT: Yes.
TAPPER: Just somebody old enough to remember.
WRIGHT: Yes.
TAPPER: He did --
WRIGHT: Exactly.
TAPPER: He didn't push back.
WRIGHT: And people -- yes, he didn't pushback. And so this is a very different Democratic Party, I think, that you're seeing right now than back then, and they're hoping that whatever pushback that they do cements themselves with facts and not with kind of this cadence that were safe Republicans.
ZELENY: He didn't push back because they couldn't believe that people were questioning his military record because the guy he was running against at the time, President Bush, didn't have one. So that was --
TAPPER: Well you had one. It was just --
ZELENY: Not the same, though.
TAPPER: Yes, it was not the same.
ZELENY: National Guard.
TAPPER: He did not serve in Vietnam, right.
ZELENY: Yes.
TAPPER: Yes.
ZELENY: But on this point, the difference here is, and I was talking to a Republican strategist this morning who's not a huge Trump fan, but wants Trump to win, shining so much of a focus on Walz here allows Harris to escape.
TAPPER: Yes.
WRIGHT: Exactly.
ZELENY: So, I mean, he's not the top of the ticket, nor is JD Vance. Although this week, it was sometimes hard to tell, because Senator Vance was certainly work on --
WRIGHT: And he puts those interview questions, whether she should do an interview in the back burner, right? We -- that was dominant yesterday, and now we're talking about Tim Walz to the record.
TAPPER: Well, really, still dominant here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
TAPPER: We'd like her to do an interview. Yes.
SINGLETON: If Walz was predicated upon the belief that he's going to help with white non-college educated voters. If you can just raise some doubt. I spent opposition research.
TAPPER: Yes.
SINGLETON: Just a little doubt among some of those voters about Walz in his background and his record. I'm not saying it's ethical or right or not.
WRIGHT: Sure.
SINGLETON: But it could persuade enough of them to vote for the former president, not vote for the Harris Walz ticket. TAPPER: So, I want to just read the statement from the Harris campaign and then get you to weigh in. The Harris campaign on the news conference says, quote, "Donald Trump took a break from taking a break to put on some pants and host a press conference, which they crossed out and they renamed," a quote, "public meltdown." The Harris statement continues, quote, "He hasn't campaigned all week. He isn't going to a single swing state this week, but he sure is mad. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are getting big crowds across the battlegrounds."
This is a very different tone than the Biden campaign took. This is a much more edgelordy online kind of tone. And also, they are now suggesting that Donald Trump is too old. I mean, that's certainly part of what's going on here.
[17:10:17]
KOTT: It is a completely different campaign. It's also completely different operation. You're seeing how quickly they're responding to the attacks that the Biden campaign, I don't think, responded as quickly and forcefully that you saw it when Doug Emhoff, the story came out about him having an affair, they immediately responded.
TAPPER: Affair with his previous wife.
KOTT: Previously.
TAPPER: Not with Kamala Harris.
KOTT: Right.
TAPPER: Yes, yes.
KOTT: But how quickly --
TAPPER: Well, just got to be clear.
KOTT: How quickly they responded to it and put that fire out, and they're doing it with Governor Walz.
TAPPER: Just for the record, he acknowledged the affair, yes.
KOTT: Right.
TAPPER: Basically, yes.
KOTT: But how they handled it was completely different than we've seen in the past quick.
TAPPER: Yes. Thanks, one and all. Appreciate it.
Next, we're going to go one-on-one with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and nothing's off limits. Was she surprised by Biden's debate performance? Does she think Kamala Harris can win? I'll ask her next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:15:13]
TAPPER: When history looks back on how Democrats ended up with the Harris-Walz ticket in 2024, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's name will no doubt be in the conversation. President Biden dropped out of the race just days after Pelosi privately expressed concerns to him that he could not beat Donald Trump. There is also reporting that Pelosi encouraged Kamala Harris to pick Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. It is far from the first time that America's first female House Speaker has had enormous political influence, and she outlines many of these moments in her new book.
And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joins us now. Thank you so much for being here.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): My pleasure to be here.
TAPPER: The book, "The Art of Power, My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House." One of the things I love about it, and it's one of the quotes very early on in the book, you say, when I won, this is about your first race, a special election San Francisco 1987, "When I won after a hard fought campaign in the trenches where I was myself, I realized I was indeed ready, and I knew my power."
You -- so, you're talking about how you were yourself, fighting in the fight, fighting for things you believe in, which is really interesting and it's kind of a theme in the book about relishing the fight. Today's fight in the presidential contest, Donald Trump having a press conference trying to highlight the fact that Vice President Harris hasn't taken questions from reporters, doesn't -- hasn't done interviews. Do you think that the vice president needs to be more out there talking to reporters, talking about issues in a give and take, not just in speeches?
PELOSI: I think she should say what I just said in that sentence. Has should be herself. She should be ready. She should know her power and all of this. And I don't give anybody advice except to be themselves and be ready and know the power of their individuality and their authenticity.
But I do help them in the trenches, on the ground, mobilization. That's one M message with boldness and progressive values, but non menacing, and then the money to get attracting the support that makes it happen, the three M's. And the three no's no wasted time, no underutilized resources and no regrets the day after the election. So she, I think, has done a remarkable job coming out of this thing, practically out of the blue that this change would take place, and has done her politics very well. She's astute politically, she's strong officially in terms of policy, and she's faith filled personally.
So I think that whatever path she chooses will be great.
TAPPER: You're optimistic, though?
PELOSI: Well, it's a decision. You make a decision to win, and then you make every decision in favor of winning. How you mobilize, how you message, how you muddy with the resources and the rest. And I'm optimistic that we will help do that, and that she will lead us to victory. The -- we just have this to be about the truth, and that's something that is so foreign to, what's his name?
TAPPER: To Donald Trump.
PELOSI: Yes.
TAPPER: Let's talk about Donald Trump, because he is obviously a character in the book in writing about being speaker.
PELOSI: Yes.
TAPPER: I want to start with what you start with what this is about, the awful assault on your husband, Paul. First of all, how is he doing?
PELOSI: Thank you for asking. He's doing OK. He's coming along.
TAPPER: Yes.
PELOSI: He's coming along.
TAPPER: It's a long recovery, though.
PELOSI: It is. It's long -- don't get hit on the head.
TAPPER: Yes. And he still can't talk about you writing the book. You still can't talk about the attack on him. How much do you hold? I mean, the guy that broke into your house had obviously his mind had been poisoned by a lot of insane things online.
How much do you hold Donald Trump responsible for what happened to Paul?
PELOSI: Well, I don't really -- let's talk about what happened when that happened to Paul. I hold him responsible for making fun of it, for making a joke of it, or thinking he's funny, his son, governor -- Republican governor leaders in the Republican Party making fun of what happened. I found that appalling and really saddening for my children and grandchildren. We kept Paul away from most of that so he didn't see it. Instead, we showed him the 1000s and 1000s of outpouring of love, prayers and all the rest for him. But don't you think that that's stunning that someone would be assaulted in their home and people would make fun of it?
TAPPER: I was absolutely shocked by it. I wondered when there was the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, and obviously there are a lot of sympathies expressed to Donald Trump --
[17:20:03]
PELOSI: Of course.
TAPPER: -- including by you.
PELOSI: Of course.
TAPPER: I wondered what your react -- I wondered how much you thought about the reaction of the Trump family and Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and others in their inhumanity to Paul when you were expressing humanity to Donald Trump.
PELOSI: No, I didn't think about them. You know, we don't agonize, we organize, we go forward. And the assault on the president was absolutely horrible, and thank God he wasn't severely injured, apart from the bullet hitting his face as he or something like that.
TAPPER: Yes.
PELOSI: And it was an assault when people said, well, it wasn't that much. Well, no, somebody shot the president.
TAPPER: Yes. Horrible.
PELOSI: Regardless of -- God -- thank God that it did not have serious consequences, but it's still a serious, horrible thing, and has to be recognized as that.
TAPPER: Yes. Let's talk about one of the other things in the book. You write about your experience on the Intelligence Committee, something you're very proud of. You were very, very early and out there questioning the Bush administration's casus belli, their cause for war, their case.
PELOSI: Yes.
TAPPER: You were saying that the intelligence did not justify the threat that the Bush administration was putting out there. This is all, of course, in reaction to 9/11. You also wrote, and I found this really interesting, that the investigation in Congress found strong evidence of multiple concerning links, this is your language of the hijackers to Saudi Arabia.
PELOSI: Yes.
TAPPER: And yet, Bush administration, Obama administration, Trump administration, Biden administration, we don't see any real effort to hold Saudi Arabia to account for that. Why do you think that is?
PELOSI: I don't know. I just don't know. But it is important for the record to show who these people were, how they got here, what other support that they had. And it took years before we were even able to declassify that information about Saudi Arabia's involvement. It's really a sad thing.
Now, I have other problems with Saudi Arabia now, but that's not --
TAPPER: Right.
PELOSI: -- the point about what happened then.
TAPPER: Yes. PELOSI: It was remarkable, because, as you recall, there was no air traffic. Everything was to a standstill, except the Saudis were able to leave.
TAPPER: Bin Laden family leaving the United States and Saudis, yes.
In addition to making that observation, which I found astute and interesting, you have for your entire life, been a hawk on China, holding China to account for its multiple human rights abuses. One of the biggest gifts that the United States ever gave to China was most favored nation status. And in fact, a lot of people say that that was really when jobs went overseas, not as much with NAFTA, more with most favored nation status, which happened during the Clinton Administration. You note that Senator Max Baucus claimed that when this debate was going on, with most favored nation status in place, this is a quote from Baucus, "China will become the great, respected democratic nation that we all hope to see," which obviously did not happen. And what I wonder is, do you think that people like Senator then ambassador to China, Baucus and Bill Clinton, do you think that they actually believed it, or do you think they were doing what corporate America wanted them to do at a time when the Democratic Party was trying to get more corporate money to achieve Democratic ideals? Capital D, Democratic ideals. Well, do you think they really believe that, the MFN thing?
PELOSI: Well, you'd have to ask them. But I don't think it was for corporate money. I just think it was corporate America just. It was a very strange situation. It was corporate America for services, banking, insurance and all that, just wanted the access to all of that.
But the U.S. China Business Council, a group that was moderate and smaller sized businesses who wanted access to China were not getting it. And -- But if, say, you were a small business or a moderate sized business us and you had a product that you wanted to sell in China, the Chinese would demand the design. Once they had the design and you thought you were gaining access to the market there, they'd say, we don't need you anymore.
TAPPER: Yes, intellectual property. Yes.
PELOSI: We have design, we're going to sell it to our own people. You can't sell here. We'll compete with you in the global market. Of course, competing means you'll have fair employment practices. We'll do it with prison labor and it'll be cheaper for us, as they're doing now. As you see, some of the Chinese dissidents now who are free, who had been in prison, are seeing that the products they were making in prison have an American label on them, are being sold in the United States.
[17:25:00]
TAPPER: All right, I've got a lot more questions. Stick around for more with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) TAPPER: We're back with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out with a brand new book, "The Art of Power, My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House."
So the chapter that is missing in this book, and I know you could write 100 books on fascinating topics, but the missing chapter would have to do with the last month and a half --
PELOSI: Yes, yes.
TAPPER: -- since the debate, the June 27 debate that Dana and I moderated. You were watching it in your apartment here in Washington.
[17:30:01]
What was your reaction when you saw him walk out there and then his answers, or his inability to give coherent answers?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), AUTHOR, "THE ART OF POWER": Well, I -- I thought we were going to see Joe Biden from the State of the Union. I -- I never wanted to debate what's his name, because it's always he's a joke, you know, it's -- it's not a funny joke, but it's a joke. And he said, no, I'm -- I'm looking forward to it, you know. And so he was confident about that.
As one who has as party chair in California, and also the leader and speaker with my own candidates for -- for Congress and the rest, not my own, but our parties, I always would just say, if you go into a debate, two things, have a clear mind. Have a clear mind. And remember, as Christine, my daughter, always says, the Tour de France is written one in bed, get rest. Be rested and clear. You know why you're here. You know what you care about. You know how you want to get things done. You want to show people what's in your heart. You don't have to memorize anything. You don't have to have days of prepping. So when I saw him, I thought, in my view, over prepped, not -- not a good idea.
TAPPER: Did you think that that was all that was going on? I mean, the -- the President has not had a full cabinet meeting since last October. There are people, Democrats that I've talked to, who think that obviously he's not able to communicate the way he used to be able to communicate. And they think that people in the White House were hiding this from senior Democrats like yourself, keeping him -- keeping a -- a close control over who got to see him.
PELOSI: I think this President is, I mean, he is a consequential president.
TAPPER: Of course.
PELOSI: In his term in office, he has accomplished great things as we talk about as to that.
TAPPER: How do you think history is going to remember his decision to not run for reelection?
PELOSI: I think history will honor him as a selfless person, a selfless leader.
TAPPER: Have you talked to him?
PELOSI: No.
TAPPER: Still, no.
PELOSI: Well, that would not be unusual the couple months -- weeks, right, several weeks would go by and I wouldn't talk to him.
TAPPER: What do you want him to know about?
PELOSI: Well, he knows I love him. Of three generations of our family are big Joe Biden supporters, my husband and I, Paul, and our children and my grandchildren, they love. Joe Biden.
TAPPER: America did not have a female speaker of the house until you in 2006. I want to hear your honest take on this. We've never had an America -- we've never had a woman president in this country.
PELOSI: Yes, yes.
TAPPER: Do you think that we can have a woman president. Do you think that there -- are you concerned about whatever Vice President Harris's pluses and minuses are, independent of her gender notwithstanding? Do you worry at all that America will not be willing to elect a woman president?
PELOSI: Well, let me just say because people say all these other country, Margaret Thatcher, you name it.
TAPPER: Rhonda Meyer (ph). Right.
PELOSI: All these people, but they are in a parliamentary government. All you have to do is for your party to win the Parliament, the parliamentary elections, and you're the head of the party and the party chooses to elect you. That's different from running nationally for president and being subjected to an electoral college that is dominated by some -- a few states.
Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by all rights. We think she should have been president, but she didn't win the Electoral College, so it's harder. I think that Kamala Harris should win, because she's the best. She'll be a great president. She happens to be a woman.
TAPPER: Right.
PELOSI: And that's icing on the cake.
TAPPER: But do you think that that will be held against her by enough -- are you -- are you worried at all about it, knowing how difficult it was for you to even be the head of your parliamentary system and -- and -- and even get into leadership? Are you worried at all about whatever that was? And you write about it in your book very ably about -- do you -- somebody saying, when you wanted to be in -- in the leadership of the House Democrats, somebody saying, well, why don't you just make a list? Why do you, ladies, just make a list of what you want and we'll give it to you, somebody said that's a good idea.
PELOSI: But when they said, who said she could run.
TAPPER: Right. Who said she could run.
PELOSI: Oh, like fire, well --
TAPPER: And that's the Democrats. Are you concerned about --
PELOSI: In this century.
TAPPER: Yes, just a few years ago, really. Are you concerned of all about that attitude standing in the way of a President Harris?
PELOSI: We don't agonize. We organize. President Harris is astute politically, strong officially and policy wise and deeply faithful. And I think that her strength will lead us to victory. And the only reason I became speaker is because I led them to an electoral victory to win the House with the Democrats.
TAPPER: Right.
PELOSI: That's why.
TAPPER: That's organized. I get it.
PELOSI: So you get it organized, mobilize message.
TAPPER: Don't agonize, organize. Got it.
PELOSI: No waste of time.
TAPPER: Last question, it might be hard for people to believe that you're 84 years old. You're still a potent political force. You're running for reelection. I don't know if -- if writing this book, or just the last month, month and a half, has had you thinking more about your legacy. But -- but what are your plans? What is -- what, I mean, obviously you're going to have another term in Congress. Are -- are you just going to keep going?
[17:35:24]
PELOSI: Well, who knows. I'm not going to paint myself as a lame duck. But I do have other things I want to do in life, and that the -- right now, my focus is on winning the election to have Kamala Harris be president, Tim Walz, we're so proud of our house member, but they were all great candidates for vice president. Any one of them would have been great. Tim is fabulous, and we're happy to have a House member there.
And that's my goal, and to win the House for the Democrats, and hopefully that means the Senate as well. So that's my focus right now. Very -- I ran again to serve now and -- and to -- to make sure that we had a Democratic president, Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and all that that meant for state legislatures and other races across the board. TAPPER: You know Kamala Harris for a long time, because you're both San Francisco Democrats, the Republicans are painting her as a San Francisco radical, a San Francisco liberal. What's -- what's your take on that?
PELOSI: You know, they've been -- when we had the convention in San Francisco in 1984, I was chair of the host committee to win that convention and -- and put it on there, the -- our hospitality there. They called it San Francisco Democrats. What's her name? Somebody from the U.N. she kept saying that. That's -- that's --
TAPPER: Was it Jeane Kirkpatrick?
PELOSI: Yes, yes.
TAPPER: Yes.
PELOSI: Yes, yes, her. But this has been a long story for them. Look, they're calling Tim Walz progressive in this he was right down the center.
TAPPER: In the house he was.
PELOSI: He was right -- right down the center.
TAPPER: Yes. Well, he -- he governed more in -- in Minnesota, more -- more progressively than he -- than he did as a House member.
PELOSI: But he -- but he was not a -- a -- he -- he -- we're all progressive. It's a question of how left wing we might be, and all of that.
TAPPER: Right.
PELOSI: As a San Francisco liberal myself, proudly, I can say what works in San -- what works in Michigan works in San Francisco. What works in San Francisco does not necessarily work in Michigan. So they have -- they will govern from the center, because you must.
TAPPER: Yes.
PELOSI: And they have to be perceived that way. So I wouldn't paying attention to how the other side, we don't agonize, we organize.
TAPPER: Madam Speaker, the book is "The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House." Thank you so much for being here.
PELOSI: My pleasure.
TAPPER: Best of luck with the book.
PELOSI: Thank you. Thank you so much.
TAPPER: What investigators are revealing today about the suspects who allegedly planned to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Europe, and how multiple countries, including the U.S., were able to disrupt that plot just days before it was scheduled. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:41:55]
TAPPER: In our World Lead, there are tears in Vienna, Austria, as Swifties, Taylor Swift fans come to terms with her concerts being canceled because of a terrorist threat. There is also singing in the streets as Swifties come together to try to make sense of this era, Taylor Swift has attracted throngs of young fans to travel far and wide to be part of this European tour. Nick Paton Walsh reports now on how the suspects are part of a troubling trend revealing how ISIS, a terrorist group, is radicalizing teens to carry out their fiendish plots.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice- over): Three nights of record breaking teen-ish revelry halted by unprecedented teen horror. Austrian police, Thursday, outlined how this 19-year-old man had planned a suicide attack with knives and a bomb on doting crowds in the periphery of Taylor Swift's three concerts in Vienna tonight, Friday and Saturday.
Here, where he lived an hour south, police found 21,000 euros fake cash, chemical bomb precursors and detonators clearing nearly 60 homes in case of a blast. And troublingly, a police car blue light, perhaps meant to ease his vehicle into the crowd so he could attack. He quit his job two weeks ago, changing his appearance, saying he planned something big.
Another teenager, 17, was detained Thursday just outside the stadium where police say he'd been hired to work. And a third teen, just 15 years old, was also questioned.
Radicalized online by ISIS, the teenagers are Austrian born.
(SINGING)
WALSH (voice-over): It left Swift fans, 65,000 disappointed per night, about as distraught as they can get. Some in tears, but police very clear about how close they got.
GERHARD KARNER, AUSTRIAN INTERIOR MINISTER (through translator): We also have to say, more specifically to the current events that major concerts are often a favorite target of Islamist attackers.
WALSH (voice-over): Echoes of a horrific ISIS bombing in Manchester at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 that killed 22 fans. After which Swift herself said, in 2019 I was completely terrified to go on tour this time because I didn't know how we were going to keep 3 million fans safe over seven months. Police clear ISIS radicalized the teens online where they also got their bomb instructions.
OMAR HAIJAWI-PIRCHNER, AUSTRIAN DIRECTOR OF SECURITY SERVICES: We can see that in Austria, we have very young guys that are radicalized due to the fact that they are using the online propaganda.
WALSH (voice-over): The arrests add to a litany of teen ISIS plots tracked in a landmark study by researcher Peter Neumann. Nearly two thirds of ISIS related arrests in Europe in the past nine months have been of teenagers.
PETER NEUMANN, TERRORISM EXPERT: They may mess up, they may change their mind. But at the end of the day, some of them may actually be quite useful, not least because they are less suspicious. Who would think of a 13-year-old as a terrorist?
WALSH (voice-over): Nobody surely. Be but now the threat is evolving, radicalized online in days and younger.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[17:45:07]
WALSH (on camera): Jake, the concern about teenagers here is that they essentially come across more moderate content on social media platforms. Algorithms drag them in a more extreme direction, where they meet people who perhaps take them to a different platform, where encrypted chat may occur, and all of this sort of really horrific planning begins. A growing threat, you heard there about how significant proportion of arrests over the last nine months in Europe have been teenagers, and it's, I think, deeply troubling for intelligence agencies here on the continent to work out exactly how to combat a threat where you heard that potentially, people radicalized in a matter of weeks, Jake.
TAPPER: Just awful. Nick Paton Walsh, thank you so much.
Democratic veterans are defending Governor Tim Walz after Senator J.D. Vance questioned his military record. Here are their responses, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:50:05]
TAPPER: This just in, in our 2024 Lead, moments ago, Vice President Harris speaking on a tarmac in Detroit about debating her opponent, Donald Trump. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump had a press conference today. He talked about a lot of things. What if you have a reaction to Trump have said.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I'm glad that he's finally agreed to a debate on September 10th. I'm looking forward to it. And hope he shows up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you open to more debate?
HARRIS: I am happy to have that conversation about an additional debate right after September 10th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: And that's also we should note Vice President Harris taking questions from reporters, which I don't think we have seen her do yet as the nominee. More in our 2024 Lead as Senator J.D. Vance lobs attacks against his vice presidential rival, Governor Tim Walz on Walz's military record, Walz's allies are coming to his defense. Here are veterans and Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): One of the worst things you can do in America that is attack a veteran for their service. It -- it's old, it's -- it's tired, and America is just not going to put up with it.
REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): If I were Donald Trump with five deferments from Vietnam as a favor to my father, I would be very cautious about opening the door to attacks on those who served honorably.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As CNN's Tom Foreman reports when it comes to the specific accusation from Vance that Walz abandoned or deserted his troops, the facts appear to be on Walz's side.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Team Trump's continued attacks on the military record of Democratic Governor Tim Walz are themselves now coming under sharp fire from some voters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The man has been in the National Guard in service of this country for over 20 years or so. How can anybody be that stupid?
FOREMAN (voice-over): They're lying. That's what an officer who served with Walz told CNN about the Trump campaign claims, adding I'm not voting for him. I'll campaign against him. But I don't think it's fair to characterize his service the way they have.
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: When the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Trump VP contender, J.D. Vance, who served in the Marines for four years, is accusing Walz of resigning from the National Guard to avoid a deployment of his unit to Iraq. But more evidence is emerging that Walz retired from the guard months before that deployment was ordered. He filed to run for Congress in February, 2005. In March, the Guard announced a possible deployment to Iraq.
REP. TIM WALZ (D-MN): I left in -- in April of 2005. And this was what, you know, for me it was -- it was just short of 25 years, and -- and it was -- it was to run for this office.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Another accusation from the Republican side. Walz falsely suggested he was in the thick of fighting overseas when talking about gun control.
REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): He's never really been on any combat deployment. That actually does kind of frustrate us.
FOREMAN (voice-over): Walz said he never wanted to shine a spotlight on his army service.
WALZ: I was not comfortable and did not allow us, I don't believe to use any photos of me in uniform.
FOREMAN (voice-over): But mentioned it on the campaign trail during his first run for Congress.
WALZ: I'm a retired Command Sergeant Major. I spent 24 years in the Army National Guard.
FOREMAN (voice-over): There is overall little evidence of Walz making the claims Trump's team accuses him of.
WALZ: I served in throughout the European theater with Operation Enduring Freedom. I was specifically in Vicenza, Italy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOREMAN (on camera): Walz did at least one time say that he was in combat or in war. He is vulnerable on that. But we only found that one time. There may be other instances. Overall, though, in many cases here, this attack by the Trump team on him very popular with the base falling flat in the face of the facts.
TAPPER: All right, Tom Foreman, thanks so much.
[17:53:57]
Coming up, a major change to a rule that will make housing more accessible to disabled veterans all across the country. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: Turning now to our Homeless in America Series and a major update on a story that we have been following and covering aggressively for nearly three years concerning veterans experiencing homelessness. CNN's Nick Watt is in Los Angeles, with details on a significant change. Nick?
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, what has been happening here in L.A. are some homeless disabled veterans, I know of one man in a wheelchair, one man who lost a leg, another with severe mental health issues. They have been denied housing here at the V.A. because they get disability benefits, and those benefits are counted as income. So then they're told, well, you earn too much to get subsidized housing, so therefore they remain homeless. That has now changed.
The government has just agreed that disability benefit will no longer be counted as income. You know, one lawyer involved in fighting this told me that that policy was, quote, cruel and insane. So why has this happened? Well, a bunch of veterans are suing the V.A. here, asking them to do more for homeless veterans. That court case just started this week, and the judge has already ruled that this income that calling disability benefits income is not right. He has already said that needs to stop, and today we hear that is going to stop.
Now, there was also pressure due to this lawsuit put on the administration in Washington by the mayor here in Los Angeles and a number of other people. You know, many people are saying, great that this has happened, but it's happened way too late. Now, one of the people who's going to be affected by this is an Afghanistan veteran, by the name of Josh Erickson. I spoke to him a few months ago, back in December. He had stepped on an IED. And he told me that getting housing here would be all I could ever want and would mean the world.
[18:00:13]
But he was denied that housing because he was getting disability benefits. Now he will be able to get that housing. I called Josh on the phone this morning. He was speechless. He was a little bit shocked. And he said he's very excited for him and others, they're going to get some housing. Jake?
TAPPER: Great update. Nick, thank you so much. The news continues on CNN -- CNN with Wolf Blitzer in Tel Aviv in The Situation Room.
