Trump on Personal Attacks, Biden Joins Harris Onstage, Luntz on Changing Race
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For every life-saving treatment. For every next step. For every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. All right, it's Friday, August 16th, right now on CNN This Morning. Kamala Harris is a radical California liberal. Donald Trump says he's entitled to attack his opponent on a personal level. Plus... I could speak all afternoon about the person that I am standing on this stage with.

Kamala Harris and Joe Biden appear together at an event for the first time since his exit from the 2024 race, ahead of Harris' first major economic address set for today since she became the presidential nominee.

Just three days away from the Democratic Party's biggest stage where Kamala Harris will officially accept the nomination to lead the ticket. And then a pollster well respected by Republicans, Frank Luntz is here to talk about the bolt of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris that he sees changing the race. All right, 6:00 AM here in Washington, a live look at the White House on this Friday morning. We made it. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Another day, another Trump event marked by some dubious claims and some interesting moments. This one, while the Republican presidential nominee stood next to a table of groceries, including ketchup, bacon, coffee, and a certain cereal. Wow, school lunch is up 65%. How can a family afford that?

But look at this over here. What a nice job. I think I'm going to take some of them back to my cottage and have a lot of fun. Like the Cheerios. I haven't seen Cheerios in a long time. I'm going to take them back with me. Standing in front of his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, the former president repeated his now common false claims about inflation, immigration and the results of the 2020 election, as well as his legal cases. And when asked about calls from his fellow Republicans to focus on policy instead of making personal attacks against terrorists, here's how he answered.

I'm very angry at her that she'd weaponized the justice system against me and other people. Very angry at her. I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her. I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence. Whether the personal attacks are good, bad, I mean, she certainly attacks me personally. She actually called me weird. He's weird. It was just a soundbite. And she called JD and I weird. He's not weird.

He's not weird. Trump's remarks coming just hours after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made their first joint appearance since the president exited the 2024 race. The two walking out to Bruce Springsteen's We Take Care of Our Own before promoting the administration's new agreement to lower the price of 10 top-selling prescription drugs used by Medicare. And now Medicare can use that power to go toe-to-toe with Big Pharma and negotiate lower drug prices. Thank you, Joe.

That welcome from a friendly crowd for a man whose decision to step aside has, polls show, dramatically improved Democrats' chances of keeping the White House in November. Harris didn't mention Trump, but for President Biden, personal insults were not off the table. Not a single Republican voted for this bill, period. Not one in the entire Congress. The reason I say that is not to make a political point about them, if they've gotten their lesson, but guess what?

They want to, they, the guy we're running against, what's his name? Donald Dump or Donald whatever.

Whatever happened to when they go low, we go high? Joining me now to discuss, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor, Annie Linsky, reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Mike Dubke, former White House communications director for President Trump, and Karen Finney, CNN political commentator, former senior advisor for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you so much for being here. So, Elliot, we did see former President Trump

on message yesterday on inflation and that he was standing, you know, surrounded by these groceries. He did talk about it. However, the event also, you know, went on and on and was filled with well beyond that, the personal insult saying he's entitled to making these personal attacks. Clearly, it was designed to inject him into a news cycle that otherwise likely would have focused on President Biden, Kamala Harris,

What did you see in that event and how it played out yesterday? I think a continued lack of discipline from the former president. It's in many respects, a lot of the conditions in this election ought to be around or favor the former president.

looking at where the economy is, where voter sentiment is, how people feel in America right now. When he has gimmies like this to just stand there and talk about the economy for a few minutes, he can't resist the personal attacks that many people around the country seem to be tired of at this point. And so I think he'd use the term unforced error, or I heard it at one point in the program, and I think that's what you're seeing again.

Mike Dubke, I mean, where do you sort of come down on this? Because there's clearly this tug of war going on between, in some ways, it's Trump's own campaign, right? I mean, they are trying to, I mean, you know, you flash back to the price of milk in 1992 and how that became a central thing, right? Like he's standing there with Maxwell House and Folgers and Cheerios and all

All the things that, yes, are way more expensive, right? Like people are taking his groceries. - Way more expensive. Inflation is a huge issue. - So, right. - He should be focused on, but this reminds me of a job interview when you're interviewing somebody and you go, oh my gosh, this is the right candidate for this job in the first 45 minutes of that interview, and then they keep talking.

and they keep going on. - That's actually every job interview I've ever done. - And then you get to the point of, oh, maybe not. So I think if the president, I'm gonna join all of the other allies of the president to say, let's focus on the Biden-Harris,

back uh history here because that's a winning message for the american people and when you get into the personal attacks i understand why he feels like he can go there he just doesn't need to go there but can we just take a pause so this was supposed to be about middle class people and the struggles of everyday americans in front of a country club that very few americans can actually afford to be at and with all the groceries there the thing i kept thinking was

Has he ever been in a grocery store? When was the last time? And I can tell you, Vice President Harris actually goes to the Safeway on Wisconsin, probably not so much anymore now that she's at the top of the ticket. But people would see her there on Sundays. I'm sort of surprised she doesn't use Instacart, can't she? Right now?

- Can't get through security at the observatory. - She actually likes to walk, that's just how she does her shopping, 'cause she cooks Sunday meals. So my point is just, she grew up middle class, she understands from a personal experience

what people are facing. And for Donald Trump, it has to be in a notebook that he reads. The notebook that he's reading, my colleague Greg just wrote this wonderful column pointing out that whatever grocery store Donald Trump is going to, they are really ripping him off because he's saying that the price of bacon has gone up by 70%. And

Yes, the price of bacon has gone up, but it's not by 70%. And Donald Trump is saying that he's paying $5 a gallon for gas. Well, guess what? The price of gas is actually about $3 a gallon. So I'm not saying- Maybe he drives a car that takes 90 miles. I mean, for what that would be, it's expensive. I'm not saying that's a monocular pain. And I'm just being the journalist here. I'm saying that-

facts are the facts and you know political campaigns exaggerate people certainly are i am going to take issue he's being ripped off by his grocery store i am going to take issue with that because the cost of everyday goods has gone up and they haven't come back down so when you look actually they are starting to go back down i was reading cnbc last night and they were showing a number of things that are starting they are not going back down to where they were prior to biden harris taking over the administration their administration well we have seen record inflation and while

it has calmed down, the American middle class is paying vastly more now for everyday goods than they did before. That is a fact. - I'm just sort of being the- - But we can't be, we can't divorce that fact from the other fact that we had a global pandemic

and that impacted supply chains. Then Russia, hold on, let me finish. Then Russia invades Ukraine. Both of those facts have also impacted. And the $2 trillion that this administration injected into the economy, which was. So that people wouldn't go off.

off the cliff. We had already put $1.2 trillion into it. Well, the Trump administration started it. With $1.2. And then you have the Biden-Harris administration coming in with an extra $2. Guess what? When you flood the market with money, it has inflationary aspects to it. Can I ask you a question, Mike? What is the difference, in your view, between

Biden and the way voters view him in the economy and Harris, because we are seeing those numbers change. Harris, you know, their campaign took heart from an FT poll that showed them basically even her a little bit ahead. The PBS poll, we can put up kind of the difference. It's

It's not huge, but clearly voters trust her a little bit more on the economy than they did Joe Biden. It's within the margin of error instead of outside the margin of error. Why is that? Why, in your view, do voters think that she's better at this? As much as you will continue to hear me and other Republicans say Biden-Harris, Biden-Harris, Biden-Harris, or if they don't, shame on them, they really should be, the Biden administration...

- Had this vice president for three and a half years. - No they didn't. - Yes they did. I mean, if we really, if we were talking about, if we were having this conversation prior to June 21st in that first debate, there was not a lot that the Biden administration gave the vice president to do. She is a, she is an, now I don't wanna say she's an empty book to the American people. There are certain things that they know about her, but she has the ability now, and this is a great advantage of hers,

through the announcement and the vice presidential pick, and now we're gonna have four days of love in Chicago,

The American people are being introduced to her for the first time. So I explain those numbers to a great extent by the fact that she has benefited from the fact that the Biden administration didn't utilize the vice president very often in the first three and a half years of their administration. If you talk to the reporters who covered her, they would agree with me that that's a misstatement because the people who covered her

were on the road all the time with her as she traveled across the country talking about the Biden-Harris administration. Once she could, once she didn't have to be in Washington to break ties. Just to frame it as a question to you, where other than Dick Cheney would that not be the case for any vice president? I couldn't answer that. I think you're absolutely right. No, I am not saying that this is a bad thing. Mike Pence was kind of relegated to standing by Donald Trump. Absolutely, and she benefits from it.

I'm actually saying there is a lot of benefit that she is accruing. You've asked me about the numbers. I think those numbers are because the American people are finally

they don't paint her with the same Biden-Harris brush that they should be. But they also say that Republicans were focusing all of their attacks on Joe Biden. Right. And so there is an impact to that. And I think that's what you see in the numbers is that Bidenomics, the Biden economy, thank you, Joe. I mean, there were all of these, you know, there's all of this messaging that was absolutely, you know, focused completely on Joe Biden. And now that he's not there anymore, I mean, you see that Harris did not, she was not painted by that brush by the Republicans.

I'm at the point where we need to have a laundry list of all the reasons why a 100-day campaign benefits Kamala Harris in extraordinary ways. Every political party is going to do this in the future. It's great. Well, again, England, it's, what is it, like six weeks? Do they even have six weeks? It would be great for my general

help, I will say. We have a lot more time to hit the gym and do all sorts of other things. But rationally speaking, there's no reason why candidates need to run for office for two years. And it's not, look, I love America. I love how we do things here. But it just doesn't need to be this way. We're very competitive.

Elliot, you cannot ask people to put down those competitive instincts. I know, right? Law, we have legal issues all day. Economy, maybe. All right, coming up next here on CNN This Morning, President Biden debuting a major new agreement on drug pricing, how that might affect the race for the White House. Plus, Michael Smirconish joins us live to talk J.D. Vance, Tim Walz, the upcoming VP debate, and...

What do voters really think of the new Trump versus Harris contest? We're going to hear from Frank Luntz and a group of voters who wouldn't support Joe Biden, but will back Kamala Harris. Switch because Harris is a breath of fresh air.

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Roof repair? Done well. Kitchen sink install? Done well. Deck upgrades? Done well. Electrical upgrade? Done well. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for nearly 30 years, so we know the difference between done and done well. Hire high-quality, certified pros at Angie.com.

From all over the world, people turn to Cleveland Clinic for our expertise and our compassionate care. As leaders in heart, neurology, and cancer, the future of specialty care is happening right now at Cleveland Clinic. For every life-saving treatment, for every next step, for every care in the world, Cleveland Clinic. Mr. Portman.

That was the late Republican Senator John McCain back in 2017, dramatically killing his party's Obamacare repeal bill. And we can't forget how then Vice President Biden described that landmark health care legislation seven years earlier. Now, 14 years later, Biden is still championing the Affordable Care Act and still going after Republicans for trying to reverse it.

Folks, there's more. My predecessor and his mager friends in Congress tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which is different. Obamacare. They tried to repeal it over 50 times. We stopped them. Along the way, I made the Affordable Care Act even stronger. President Biden and Vice President Harris announcing a major new agreement to lower the cost of 10 popular drugs commonly used by Medicare patients.

I'm going to keep the Affordable Care Act unless we can do something much better. We'll keep it. It stinks. It's not good. If we can do something better, we're going to do something with it. All right. It also comes at a critical moment in the presidential election, something that Trump seems to recognize, based on the rhetoric from his own speech yesterday. We believe deeply every senior in our nation should be able to live with security, stability and dignity. Yes.

And so in the United States of America, no senior should have to choose between either filling their prescription or paying their rent. All right, the panel's here. I actually want to play again what Donald Trump said in Asheville because I think it's extraordinarily interesting and seems to suggest a major shift on the part of Republicans. Let's watch it one more time. I'm going to keep the Affordable Care Act unless we can do something much better. We'll keep it. It stinks. It's not good. If we can do something better, we're going to do something with it.

So, I mean, wow, Mike Dupkin, I mean, this is what people have been telling Republicans they should do the whole time, right? Like you need to have a replacement plan if you're going to get rid of this. But now he's saying we're going to keep it. What I heard him say is we're going to come up with a better replacement plan. What did you hear? That's what I heard. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying like he's finally listening. Or we're going to, unless we find a better replacement. But all I keep... Well, hold on. That's a big flip-flop for Donald Trump to say,

We're going to keep the Affordable Care Act. I wish you would have to say Obamacare because it would just kill him from the inside out. But basically, he's acknowledging... But him doing that neutralizes this significant line of attack that Democrats have been able to rely on for a long time. You know what? The problem with this is that I don't think the majority of American people... Healthcare is an issue that Democrats tend to pull better in terms of who do you trust. I don't think the majority of American people will trust.

that he means it, given how many times Republicans have tried to repeal it or replace it with something that would be awful. So he's going to have to say, since we're all into like, let's talk about policy. Let's say our policy plans. Great. Let's hear from him.

specifically are you specifically saying you're going to keep it or specifically what are you going to do instead yeah well still really i mean i'm going to say just take this off the table i mean it's a nice bit about this campaign is it's we've had this argument over and over and over again and it's kind of nice that this

Peace at least, looks in this very short period of time will be a debate that doesn't have to be rehashed. I feel like I've been covering the Affordable Care Act for basically the entirety of my political journalism career. All right, straight ahead here on CNN this morning, a typhoon is barreling toward Japan with winds north of 100 miles an hour and it's placing Tokyo on high alert. Plus, another massive Zoom call for the Harris campaign, this time featuring Jewish women voicing their support for the vice president.

Well, it's been said that Jewish women are known to speak out and tell you what they think. And I'm one of them. I'm so tired of hearing Trump put down America. All right, 25 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. A Florida couple attacked at their own front door after two men followed them home from a casino. That moment captured on their video doorbell. The couple had just won a $3,000 jackpot. The suspects were arrested.

Body camera footage showing the moment that Utah first responders free a driver from a burning car, that car bursting into flames after colliding with a tree. The driver survived and is being treated for second-degree burns. A powerful typhoon closing in on Japan, bringing intense waves and winds up to 130 miles an hour. Tokyo also on high alert with heavy rainfall canceling hundreds of flights and train routes. Mandatory evacuation orders are also in effect. And this.

And it's so fun. I get in dirty sometimes and it's so, it's so, the chocolate tastes so good. You know what? Chocolate does taste so good. That was eight-year-old pie eating champion Zach Lucas. He stole the show when he won one of the pie eating contests at the Iowa State Fair. And again,

You heard him, the chocolate, it wasn't half bad. Oh my gosh, look at that. I love this so much. All right, I love this one too. You are never too old to cross off a bucket list item. 102-year-old Ruth Werning throwing out the first pitch at yesterday's Brewers-Dodgers game. Werning says she is a lifelong Brewers fan.

Look at that. She got it over the plate. Go Ruth. All right, still ahead here on CNN This Morning, what are voters thinking about the rapidly changing 2024 race? We're going to talk with the Republican pollster and consultant about what focus groups are saying about the new Trump-Harris matchup. Plus, Democrats gearing up for their national convention next week. What to expect when the party hits the ground in Chicago.

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babbel.com slash Spotify podcast spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. Now that Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket, all of a sudden, energy is exploding around the DNC. As one organizer put it, before it was going to be awake, now it's going to be Mardi Gras. Yeah. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. Yeah. Yep.

It's going to be Mardi Gras. Just don't ask Chuck Schumer how he got all those beads. Democrats preparing for an exciting DNC next week, boosted by a flurry of new polls that reveal a close race and a sharp 39-point spike in enthusiasm among Democratic voters since President Biden's exit from the race last month. And for some voters who once had no plans of voting for Joe Biden, Harris, they say, represents an alternative in a once stale race.

Seeing Harris gives me an actual option. It's more of an issue with Donald Trump and the options that are now available. I would not have voted for Joe Biden. I switched because Harris is a breath of fresh air, totally different from what we have seen so far. It's newness and change that is needed.

All right, joining me now is the person who conducted that focus group, the very well-respected pollster and communications strategist, Frank Luntz. Frank, I'm so grateful to have you. I maybe shouldn't admit this publicly, but I was once in some of your focus groups as a student at George Washington University. So I have been a longtime admirer of yours, and I'm very grateful to have you here. And I know this enthusiasm is something that you have really focused in on as kind of the central change

to the race that we have seen here. What did you learn from these voters in this particular group and what else should we be watching here? - Well, first I need to apologize because if you were in my focus groups as a student at GW, I must've been my yelling face. I didn't want voters to tell me the truth, to speak up and speak out. Now I figured I had to do it in a much more quiet and respectful fashion. - You never scared me. It was all good.

Even if I didn't scare you, I'm sure I was improper. Please accept my apologies. The three things that matter most, and that intensity is number one, because that means that you'll get your polling numbers. It's one thing to support a candidate. It's another thing to take the time and go out and vote for that candidate.

After the Republican convention, Donald Trump was going to convert every supporter into a voter, and it was very questionable whether Joe Biden would be able to do the same. Now with Harris on the top of the ticket, she is converting more supporters into actual voters than even Trump. That's significant. Second is that the voter pool has changed.

younger women who were opting out because they did not want to vote for someone 80 years old are now absolutely excited and energized about this year than the focus group, and they can't wait to participate. And that's going to have an impact, not just on the presidential race, but on Senate and House races as well,

as more traditional Democrats come to the poll. And third, they really want to know where Harris stands. This is the one place where she may still be weak. On issues like inflation and immigration, Donald Trump still has the advantage. If he ran an issue-based campaign, he can win. If they run an attribute-based campaign, she wins.

It seems strange that Trump is only talking about attributes and not focused on the issues, which is why she's going to make her economic speech today.

Yeah, Frank, we saw that event from Trump yesterday where his campaign was clearly setting him up to do exactly what you're talking about, right? He was next to groceries that have clearly risen in cost. But instead, he was saying things like, I'm entitled to attack Kamala Harris. How do you think, in your experience, how voters reacted to moments like that from Trump? Expect it, but it doesn't mean that they appreciate it and they're going to vote for it.

They've known Donald Trump since 2015. They have not known Vice President Harris. She can be defined, which is what Trump is trying to do. The problem is, whereas the campaign is focused on substance and where she's changed her point of view, Trump is focused on insults. If I were advising him, which I'm not, I would look him straight in the eye and say, sir, you need to shut up.

you need to stop behaving like a petulant child and start focusing on what the American people want in a way that they want to hear it. Look, if I yell at you every time you have me on, you'll stop having me on and you'll stop listening. Trump doesn't understand that. People have to tell him the truth because at this point, she's got her convention bounce before the convention, and I think Harris could have a five or six point lead coming out of that convention if Donald Trump continues to behave the way that he has.

Frank, do you think there's anything that could take Kamala Harris down kind of off of this high? Because I mean, my experience covering campaigns, every campaign has tough moments, right? They all do. It's inevitable. And the question is, how do you handle them when they come? This is a campaign that's have to pull together really quickly. They're not necessarily, they haven't faced something like that before. But that said, it is such a compressed time period. I mean, do you see a coming back down to earth? And if so, how?

Well, it's going to be in the debate September 10th. It's going to be the debate heard around the world. Look, the issue right now is Donald Trump reminds women of their first husband, of their first husband's divorce lawyer. He's got a problem in how he attacks and how he presents himself. And I assume that his campaign is telling him this. For her, she's got to show that she's got the answers, that she has the solutions, and she's not extreme.

This is the one thing I hear in my focus groups, a real concern that her politics, she's from California. She did not even make it to the very first caucus. She participated in the debates and did not do well. So voters are asking themselves what's behind the arc, what's behind the persona. They like the persona. They don't know the details. And the next 80 days, that's exactly what you'll have to provide.

Are they centrist? Are they mainstream? Or are they extreme? That's your challenge. Yeah, really interesting. Frank, before I let you go, I also want to ask you about, speaking of how voters perceive extreme situations or views or not, you asked these voters about J.D. Vance, who has had something of a rocky rollout in the wake of his selection at the Republican National Convention. I want to play a little bit of what some of these voters had to say to you and ask you about it on the other side. Take a look.

When he chose J.D. Vance, it kind of pushed me over to having an open mind. I switched because J.D. Vance scares the heck out of me and that Joe was just a little bit too old. Did J.D. Vance, did the selection of J.D. Vance hurt Trump's nomination? No one knew at the time the things that he had said in the past. He is a mini Donald Trump, prepared to say anything and everything to

to get an opinion, to get an emotional reaction. His debate is on October 1st and the challenge with him versus Governor Walton, that Governor Walton is going to be a good old boy, even though he's a North Midwesterner.

And Vance is going to have to find some way to differentiate himself without being negative. I really want to emphasize, I know this interview is coming to an end, that the public is frustrated and angry about the personal attacks, wants a different approach going forward. Just because it worked in 2016 does not mean it will work in 2020. Yeah, really, really very interesting perspective. Frank, I'm so grateful to have you. I do hope that you'll come back and join us again soon. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, now this. Donald Trump looking to make inroads with Jewish voters with another event combating anti-Semitism. The event featured mega-donor Miriam Adelson at Trump's private golf club in New Jersey. The former president's remarks included false claims about his opponent Kamala Harris. The toxic poison of anti-Semitism now courses through the veins of radical Democrat Party. And instead of expunging this hatred,

Kamala Harris is pandering to it. He wouldn't even meet Bibi. He wouldn't talk to him.

All right, that last part not true. Vice President Harris did meet with the Israeli prime minister when he was in D.C. last month. The thing I want to kind of zero in on here is what was really going on here, Mike and Annie, I'm interested in your take on this too, which is that the New York Times had reported over the weekend that there were angry text messages sent to Mary Madelson, who is a critical part of

at the republican kind of financial landscape her late husband Sheldon Adelson created this universe and he especially focuses on Israel Jewish causes in the Republican Party and they had previously said that these angry text messages were sent they complained that the people running Mrs. Adelson's super PAC which was at the time on the air with 18 million dollars a week of ads helping Trump

The text said that the officials running the Super PAC were RINOs, Republicans in name only, and that they basically dishonored Sheldon Adelson's name. I mean, it seems like he was trying to fix that with this event. Right. Did he do that? Well, I think there's only one person that knows if he fixed it with this event. You know, again, this is kind of where we were talking about earlier in the program. Fixating on the people rather than the message, I think, misses the point.

So if the $18 million a week was delivering a message that was working, I don't care who's delivering it. That should be what you're focused on. Message, not messenger. That's where I was. Yeah, and the idea of sending insulting text messages to your largest donor, I'm not quite sure what

the strategy is behind that. I mean, and you know, this is not the first time there's had to be some sort of cleanup between Adelson and this ticket that Washington Post reported about text messages that Vance had sent to a sort of Republican troll that were insulting to Mr. Adelson. And it was really like, you know, yet again, there was a little bit of a make-up

call it. This is a mega supporter of Israel who understands and is supportive of Trump because she believes that he is going to be better for Israel than the vice president. That's the bottom line. That's all that needs to be conveyed. No need to be mad at her, I suppose, in your view. OK, when CNN This Morning continues, Michael Smirconish joins us live because it's Friday. We're going to get his thoughts on the two VP picks and how they're working out so far. Plus, the current sitting president meeting with an actor who played a president on TV.

There's a promise that I ask everyone who works here to make. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. You know why? It's the only thing that ever has.

All right, 47 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. Not the first former actor in the White House. President Biden hosts TV president Martin Sheen at the White House. Sheen, of course, and this one's for the millennials, played President Jeb Bartlett in the NBC show The West Wing. It is unclear why Sheen was there, but speaking to reporters, he called Biden one of his heroes.

Four suspects were arrested in the killing of former General Hospital star Johnny Wachter. Wachter was shot and killed in Los Angeles in May during an apparent catalytic converter theft. Three of the suspects, all 18, were booked on suspicion of murder. Five people have been charged in the 2023 death of actor Matthew Perry. It includes two doctors, Perry's live-in assistant, and a person referred to by authorities as the Ketamine Queen.

The friend star drowned at his Pacific Palisades home last October. His death was attributed to the acute effects of ketamine. Elliot, this is like a devastatingly sad story. One of these doctors, the investigators read text messages calling him a moron because of all of this ketamine that he was taking. The defense that they seem to be out there with is that

Eventually he became so addicted to the ketamine that he had been prescribed that he started getting it on the street and that ultimately that was what killed him. But it really is a portrait of people who are, were just taking advantage of someone in a really horrible situation. - Yeah, a few things. It's not just calling him a moron. The line from the text message was, "I wonder how much this moron will pay." And

The great tragedy in it all is that he did, Matthew Perry did have treatment for ketamine from a physician at regulated doses and under the law, you have to have a defibrillator there and other things to make sure that if somebody has an incident that the doctor can treat them. He wasn't getting enough and then went,

off-label in effect and went to these unscrupulous folks, even the ketamine queen, quote unquote, although her attorneys push back on the use of that term, but went off-label to these folks who provided him with a tremendous amount of ketamine, sort of a tranquilizer amount of the drug. And

facing, now they face up, one of them faces up to life in prison for this, given the seriousness of how much they put in his body. Yeah, really, really sad and horrible. His family has said, you know, they look forward to seeing justice play out. All right, let's turn back to happier topics. The 2024 campaign.

I have white guy tacos and like black... What does that mean, like mayonnaise and tuna? What are you doing? Pretty much ground beef and cheese. That's okay. Do you put any flavor in it? No. Here's the deal. No, they said to be careful and let her know this, that black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota, you know.

Okay, we're going to come back around to that with our panel in a second. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz leaning into the Minnesota governor's Midwestern dad vibes in a new video last night as the two seek to frame their campaign as the underdog.

Walls, though, is facing fresh criticism over how he once portrayed a DUI charge that he received nearly 30 years ago. CNN's Kayfile reports that as a 2006 congressional candidate, Walls' campaign repeatedly made misleading statements about this incident, including telling the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard.

and that Walls was allowed to drive himself to jail that night, none of which was true. With us now on this Friday, CNN political commentator Michael Smirconish. He is the host of CNN's Smirconish. Michael, thrilled to have you as always. Let's dig in here to these questions about the running mates and

what we are learning here about Tim Walz and what he's saying. I mean, clearly, he's getting, this is his first real vet on a national stage, and some of it's not standing up to scrutiny, it seems to me.

So I thought the DUI issue was a really significant and serious issue. I know that Republicans have spent a lot of time talking about the alleged stolen valor. My own opinion for what it's worth, having studied the facts, is that there's no there there. Walls spoke sloppily, should not have represented a role that he had as having been a permanent role when it wasn't. But

But the DUI story is indefensible. Casey, you and I know a thing or two about congressional campaigns. They're very small. They're very tight. There's usually like a paid campaign manager and a paid spokesperson, and that's it. So the idea that this came from his spokesperson and it didn't come from him, I don't buy it. And the idea that he tried to lay it off on a hearing disability from the National Guard service...

through the spokesperson while denying things that the K-file investigation proved to be inaccurate, I think is a real issue for him. In the end, it's going to be about the top of the ticket. But to me, the DUI is bigger than the stolen valor allegation, not because of the drinking, but because of the lie. How do you think the Harris campaign should be dealing with this right now?

Full on. And it makes me wonder whether in the vetting process, maybe this is as a result of of the expedited nature of her ascendancy as the candidate. But it makes me wonder how much they really knew about it. I'm sure they knew of the DWI, but it makes me wonder whether they were aware of all the underlying facts to the extent that the K file is.

Very interesting. All right. So let's touch on J.D. Vance then briefly, because he actually has significantly higher unpopularity numbers, unfavorable numbers than Tim Walz seems to. I don't know if this is a reflection of just his his rollout and how people have perceived him since then or if this came into play beforehand. But what do

make of how he has been received? Because we were talking to Frank Luntz earlier in the show, and there were a number of voters who had switched from Trump to Harris, or at least they had switched to voting for Harris, who mentioned J.D. Vance as one of their issues.

So I guess not as many read Hillbilly Elegy or watch the movie as I anticipated because I thought he entered the whole process ahead of the curve, having some type of a narrative or definition that was favorable. Instead, it's the cat lady comment that is probably top of mind for those Americans who are

aware of J.D. Vance. So they've done a terrible job in rolling him out. And maybe the Trump campaign, as I assumed, thought Americans knew that narrative and would view him more favorably. Yeah. So, Michael, before I let you go, let's talk for a second about Donald Trump, who has conducted a series of media events over the course of the last few days, gotten a lot of advice from Republicans about how he shouldn't be doing some of the things that he's doing. What is your view of of all of that?

He's intent on a campaign of self-immolation. I don't get it. He's all about motivation and not persuasion. Anybody remember the days when you tried to persuade undecided voters instead of just rallying your base when he refers to the vice president as a bum, as crazy, as stupid or as a lunatic?

He's pitching to the base and he's not winning your old neighborhood in the Philly burbs nor mine. I don't get it. All this narrow casting. Everybody knows he has a ceiling. What is it? 45, 46%. And when you don't have an effective third party candidate and we don't in this race, then he's really tapped out. And yet I don't understand why he's not more concerned about reaching suburban women. Uh,

Obstacles remain for Kamala Harris, to be sure, because she's not yet been battle tested. But I don't understand his visceral, angry reaction from Trump when he said yesterday, I'm entitled to personal attacks. What's he talking about? I don't understand. But look, he's defied, you know, all logic in the past. And maybe this will work. I just don't see it.

We'll have to. We're about to find out. It was a very compressed, short election period. So Michael Smirconish, always so grateful for your perspective. See you next week, I hope. All right. Thank you. Don't forget to tune in tomorrow at 9 a.m. for Smirconish. It's right here on CNN.

We are now, of course, just three days away from the start of the Democratic National Convention. Democrats, politicos across the board heading to Chicago to roll out Kamala Harris's presidential nomination after the whirlwind past several weeks upended the race for the White House. President Joe Biden, who just a month ago was planning to accept the nomination himself, is instead going to speak on the first night of the convention.

Here's our friend and CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod describing what that moment could be for Democrats.

Well, I think emotionally for the people in the room, it's going to be very important. There's a lot of there's a lot of love and affection and appreciation for Joe Biden. And there's great appreciation for the difficult decision that he made. Yes, he expected to be speaking on the fourth night and he expected it to be his convention. And it's not going to be. But in making the decision he made, he breathed new life into the Democratic campaign and

All right, panel is back. I actually, can we go back to the tacos too? I want to talk about the tacos. Ground beef and cheese. And you know what? It kind of plays into, you know, we're seeing a completely different dynamic from what we would have seen. I mean, can you imagine the sort of

The way the Democrats had approached it when Biden was at the top of the ticket, it would have felt a little bit more like a funeral, I think, the convention, or it could have. Certainly that was the vibe I was picking up from a lot of people who worked inside the party when I was talking to them as he was trying to make this decision. Instead, it is set to be this celebration of these two, you know, taco eating people.

This connection doesn't work, but you take my point, Karen, that it is a very changed situation.

It is. I mean, look, there was a plan initially to use the convention as a celebration because actually people are excited to be back together because we couldn't be together in 2020. And I know there's a lot of people I'm looking forward to seeing that I didn't get to see four years ago. So that was going to be part of it. And talking about Joe Biden's story. But it has shifted in that now it's an opportunity to submit.

amazing arc of history where you have President Biden speaking, you will have Hillary Clinton speaking, you will have Barack Obama speaking. And in terms of passing the torch, you know, I think that we have to acknowledge that Barack Obama's candidacy, Hillary Clinton's candidacy and the presidency, obviously Barack Obama helped to lead to this moment that gives us a Kamala Harris as vice president.

And people are excited. And the last thing I'll just say is, what we're seeing on the ground and in the data that I'm looking at, yes, there's a portion of the electorate, they just don't like Donald Trump, but there is genuine excitement about Kamala Harris. And I keep saying to Democrats, be joyful, 'cause we are in our joy. - Could they not get Biden to speak on Sunday?

Because they tried to move him as far away from that last night as they possibly could. I guess he said no to Sunday. You don't think he should get to kick off the convention? No, I think if they actually wanted to pay the respect that you just talked about, they'd put him on Wednesday or just before. No way, you'd give him his own night. You'd give him his own... Monday, every convention, Monday is the night that you put out the people you have to put out. Nope, not for this one. And then as you get down the line, you go to Thursday. That's not how we're looking at it at all. But you can look at it that way. Oh, I will. I guess Sunday was off the table. I was hoping to give...

one of you guys. Oh, I'm staying far out. Oh, no. Well, we are approaching 7 a.m. very quickly. Thanks to all of you for being here this morning. I really appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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