Biden Bows Out, Trump Attacks Kamala, Violent DC Protests
48:07 Share

Voters 50 and over have the power to decide elections. So candidates who want to win need to talk about the issues they care about. Learn more from our latest polling in Pennsylvania at aarp.org slash pa polling. It's Thursday, July 25th, right now on CNN This Morning. I review this office. I love my country more. President Biden's historic address to the nation after half a century in public office. Bust.

Kamala, you're fired! Get out of here! You're fired! Donald Trump attacking Kamala Harris, a first look at how he plans to handle his new opponent. Plus, the chilling Google search conducted by the gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. And this. Violent protests break out in D.C. as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strikes a defiant tone on Capitol Hill.

All right, 6:00 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at the White House on this Thursday morning, the morning after that historic speech from President Biden. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. It was a moment for history, a president in the twilight of his career. Joe Biden, who had been angry as he was pushed out of the arena, seemed reflective about his decision to step off the stage.

In recent weeks, it's become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America's future all merit at a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That's the best way to unite our nation.

President Biden thanked his vice president, Kamala Harris, calling her experienced, tough and capable. He didn't say Donald Trump's name, but the former president's presence loomed as Biden painted a picture of a nation at a moral crossroads. We have to decide, do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? Does character and public life still matter?

The president insisting he would finish his term focused on trying to lower costs, combat gun violence, reform the Supreme Court, and strengthen NATO. Throughout the president's address, just off camera, family members sat watching, including his son Hunter, daughter Ashley, and wife Jill. The first lady posting this handwritten note to social media.

Last night's address, of course, a defining moment in Biden's presidency and the beginning of a swan song after half a century in American politics. My fellow Americans, it's been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years.

Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States. But here I am. That's what's so special about America.

Still defines himself as a kid with a stutter. Let's bring in CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, Jeff Zeleny, Karen Finney, the former senior spokesperson for Hillary Clinton, and Jonah Goldberg, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Dispatch. Welcome to all of you. Good morning. Good morning. Jeff, I want to start with you. You've covered so many of these candidates over time. It is incredibly difficult to

to set this down. If you, especially somebody, it's so rare, someone who has gained the power that he worked his entire life to gain. What were your takeaways from the speech? What we heard and what we didn't hear? Look, we didn't hear why he was

We know what he's doing. We know what he's asking Americans to do. But he didn't really acknowledge why he was stepping aside. And I think you could still hear some strains of disbelief in there by talking about, you know, I could—

still win. I believe that I have the record that I could still be reelected, but I'm stepping aside to unite the party. I thought that was an interesting line as well, unite the party. Of course, he wants to unite the country, but the urgent task here is Democrats are divided.

And a week ago, it would have been almost unimaginable to hear him deliver that speech. But as time wore on, as he sat in Delaware over the weekend, he was a drag on the Democratic ticket. And he came to that realization, of course. But seeing him in the Oval Office there, it was the beginning of his long goodbye. And I was just struck by another moment. In 2015, he stood

He stood in the Rose Garden with Barack Obama, President Barack Obama, and he said he's not going to run for president. And that was intended to be the end of his chapter. But he came back because of Donald Trump. So he had a second...

act, I guess, but it was shorter than he hoped. Yeah, and the long goodbye, that's the headline on Peter Baker's piece this morning where he talks about it was time to pass the torch, but said nothing about his age, health, or capacity that led so many Democrats to desert him since the calamitous debate. He did not describe the journey from supreme confidence that he and he alone could beat former President Trump to the conclusion that he could not. Instead, it was an opportunity for a reset to tell his story again on his own terms.

And Jonah Goldberg, this was the Wall Street Journal editorial board on the speech. They write this, quote, Americans were left instead, they note, of course, he did not answer these questions, to infer the reasons that Mr. Biden left. As he said, his accomplishments had earned him a second term but would no longer seek it. His speech will do nothing to dispel the view that this was a coup by Democratic power brokers and that he and they and his aides had been hiding the truth about his decline from the voters for months, if not years. What do you make of that?

Yeah, so I agree with the first part. I really disagree with the second. This was not a coup by Democratic power brokers. Democratic voters and voters generally have been yelling at pollsters for like two years saying, this guy shouldn't run, right? That he's too old. Don't run. We want a different choice.

And it was only after the debate that the Democratic power brokers said, holy crap, those guys are right. And they started to muster and do this stuff. And they convinced Joe Biden, to his credit, that they needed to switch out. And you can just see the enthusiasm from Democrats now that proves the point, that they really did want to vote Democrat. They just didn't want to vote for him. And so...

Where I agree with the journal is that, look, I thought the text of last night's speech was a really bad missed opportunity. I thought a big chunk of it read like a State of the Union address with just reading off campaign stuff about things he's done. I get why he's proud of all of it, but I just don't think that was the appropriate venue for it. I think the subtext of it was, we don't, the journal's right. We don't, we can infer. This guy, you just look at him and you're like, whatever sympathy you have for him, that's great, and empathy and all that.

This does not look like a guy who can do 14 hour days campaigning for pre for reelection and that's that was on display It's going to open up an argument about whether he can stay as president I think that's an argument we can do for another day, but I thought last night He did you know you guys are cut the guy some slack if if you're giving him a gold watch early and and you're saying

And he's willingly going along with doing this. Let him say the things that he wants to say the way he wants to say them. And you can have arguments about it another time. And I think that's a really important point. I mean, look, he just did something that, if I'm not mistaken, nobody in the history of the world has ever done. He has the most powerful position. And he said, OK, you know what? I'm going to pass the torch. Whoever does that. Well, Lyndon Johnson did. Well, yeah.

How long? George Washington. Okay, George Washington. So, two. And how long have we been on the earth? So, but point being, I also think, though, that speech last night wasn't meant to be, let me tell you about my sore knees and my hips and my this and my that, because we'd be talking about that today, right? It was meant to be brief to the point, because part of our whole point as Democrats is,

we want to stop talking about the president's age and go back to talking about, we want to be talking about Project 2025 because we know voters are scared of it and it resonates. And we want to be talking about Kamala Harris. And so I think part of the goal was also

in his mind to sort of set up, look, there's a positive record. Some may disagree, but there's a positive record that she's also part of that she gets to run on and really to make it more of a passing of the torch than a, let me tell you about all the physical ailments and you guys were right, I should get out. So I give him a lot of credit and I think he deserves a lot of grace for it. Yeah. And

Jeff Zeleny, one of the numbers in our poll that we released yesterday that stood out to me in terms of what Jonah Goldberg was talking about is this question we asked, what should Biden do? Should he stay in office or not? And 70% of people said, yes, Biden should stay in office. Only 29% said no.

he should resign. This does seem to underscore that, again, one of the things that I keep coming back to as we cover this just absolutely wild election cycle is that, you know, I actually do really love American voters. Like, if you actually listen to them, they will tell you kind of what they can see, and they could see things that a lot of people, you know, often weren't willing to say about President Biden. What they're saying here is that they can tell the difference

between an ask for four more years and the ability to be in that job for six more months. Again, just being president instead of both being president and campaigning for president at the same time. Yeah, that number was pretty striking. I mean, seven in 10. You don't find 70%...

of the people agreeing with much of anything. So obviously some Republicans and independents are in there as well. Look, I mean, it's been clear to a Jonas point. I mean, voters have been saying this. We have been talking about age. The Democratic Party, you know, was thinking, a lot of people were thinking about should he be primaried last year? Obviously, that's a very risky move to primary a sitting president. So they didn't. But voters, you know, have no qualms about that. So we've been like...

hearing them for the last year and more but the 70 percent of people who want him to stay i think that answers the question for now at least i mean yes republicans will talk about it it's going to likely be an issue for vice president harris somewhat but i think unless there's some other type of incident or moment i think he will not get as much

attention, except when they want him to get attention. And I think it'll be January before we know it. It's also just worth, the CNN poll had a, I can't remember the exact number, but it was higher than 70%.

of Americans think he was right to not run again, right? And so like, there's this weird, I mean, they do it in such angry terms, but the Trump process argument that this is an outrage and we've nullified 14 million, Americans, most Republicans, I mean, the vast majority of Republicans think that's a nonsense argument too, right? Yeah, really, really interesting. All right, coming up next here on CNN This Morning.

If you don't mind, I'm not going to be nice. Is that OK? Not going to be nice. Are you surprised? Donald Trump previews how he plans to attack Kamala Harris as a new CNN poll shows the race tightening. Plus, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell joins us live as President Biden begins his farewell to politics. And protesters in D.C. warning Hamas is coming. Wow.

Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn!

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What are some of the social service agencies that have supported you and your family growing up? That's Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, a professor, and a Zen master. What kind of relationships actually help us maintain happiness? And what should we do in those moments where we have setbacks and things that don't work out? Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

The race is on to define Kamala Harris as she works to reintroduce herself as the person on the top of the ticket on her terms, and Donald Trump tries to introduce her on his terms.

If Kamala will lie to you so brazenly about Joe Biden's mental incapacity, then she will lie to you about anything. She can never, ever be trusted. She can't be trusted. And just like crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris is unfit to lead. And a vote for Kamala is a vote for four more years of dishonesty, incompetence, weakness and failure. Other than that, she's doing an excellent job.

All right, our panel is back. Karen, you got something to say there? You know, the intentionality with which and almost the glee on his face when he mispronounces her name. Let me show you. We got a mash of all the times he does this. Let's watch this because I want Karen to pick up out of this, too, because it's intentional and it does matter. I think. Watch. If Kamala Harris gets in, lion Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris is the most liberal elected politician in American history. Kamala threw open our borders. Lying. Kamala Harris lying. Kamala, you're fired. Get out of here. You're fired.

That was all yesterday. And again, it's Kamala. It is not hard. Right. It's easy. Kamala. That's all you got to do. Yeah, look, it's so intentional. It's so obvious. It's othering. It is trying to make her seem like she's some bizarre not one of us. It's also demeaning, right? Because one of the most basic forms of respect is to pronounce somebody's name or to say, how do you pronounce your name?

And look, I mean, for African-Americans, there's a whole history of we didn't get to choose our names for a very long time. But most importantly, it's just such a sign of disrespect. And it's such an obvious, intentional way to try to belittle her and demean her on the national stage. As to your point, they're trying to define her as someone who's insignificant.

Jonah, I'm intrigued by the look on your face. As someone who mispronounces words all the time, I think that there are people who in good faith just mispronounce their name. I think Trump is a grumpy old 78-year-old guy. It might be deliberate.

He's certainly looking to other her and do all sorts of terrible things to her. And I don't dispute that for a second. But like he mispronounced Buttigieg's name all the time, too. And people just sometimes get hooked up on this. So I just don't know. It could be deliberate. It also might not be. I just I think that this is the kind of thing that plays really well among people who are already going to vote for Harris.

And there's so many richer targets to point that about what they're going to say and do towards Harris that will play with persuadables in the middle. I'm not sure like the on the bubble suburban voter is like, OK, now I'm going to vote for her because Trump's mispronouncing her name. Well, yeah, I mean, I think that the point of it, though, is instead to underscore to people who

all the reasons why it has been difficult for women and people of color to get elected in this country. He's trying to torque that tendency, right? And this, Jonah, is the Wall Street Journal editorial board, you mentioned there can be all these other ways, right? Yeah.

So they have this, their lead editorial this morning. I think they're trying to send a message to the Trump campaign and to other Republicans because they basically walk through a lot of those possible attacks

and say don't do it. So they say the puzzle here is why all of this, the excitement about Harris, seems to have confounded Republicans. They are grasping for attack lines that either aren't likely to work or are counterproductive. One bad argument is that Ms. Harris is a DEI candidate. Another misfire asserting President Biden should resign now since he isn't running for reelection.

Calling out Ms. Harris for being childless is another false note. Some Republicans think they can win by portraying Ms. Harris as weird, as if her laugh is disqualifying. Too many Republicans seem to have brought the triumphal claims in the conservative press that Ms. Harris can't win. Of such media bubble overconfidence, are defeats made? And again, this is a Murdoch-

newspaper with a conservative editorial page. Well, there's a long history of the journal running pieces trying to signal to Trump, don't go there. Mick Mulvaney wrote an op-ed that he got a lot of grief for and he later admitted was intended to say, he's like, there's no way Donald Trump would question the outcome of the election as a way to sort of like, you know,

I would coach him not to do that. I agree with the Journal on this for the most part. I think that the media bubble stuff, if all you've done is watch Fox and hang out in the Fox News green room, you think there are all of these arguments that work on normals that only work in your little echo chamber. But Trump's going to do them anyway.

Jeff? Look, I've been surprised that, I mean, for as long as this has been sort of possibly in the works, how flat-footed the Trump campaign sort of has been on this in terms of finding their footing, like how to run against her. Speaking about her name, though, Speaker Johnson has said it properly. Senator J.D. Vance said it properly last week at the convention. So we'll see sort of what that split is. But overall, big picture, I'm

the race to define her has been slower in some respects than I thought by both sides. Democrats are not really rushing to defend her in advertising and other things, and Republicans are doing it somewhat, but not on things that probably matter to some voters in terms of her record and things.

The speech last night could not have been, from the former president, could not have been a stronger contrast of what's to come. And her speech in Indianapolis and other things talking about, you know, I know his type. I mean, that is the contrast now. And boy, it is not a favorable one for Trump. All right. Coming up next here, we're going to take a look at the chilling Google search that was made by the gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump. Plus...

You have officially become Iran's useful idiots. Palestinian protesters, many anti-Israel protesters causing chaos in D.C. during Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress. All right, welcome back. Chilling new details about the shooter who nearly killed former President Trump. During the latest Capitol Hill hearing into the assassination attempt, the FBI director Christopher Wray shared a Google search that they found on Thomas Matthew Crooks' laptop.

He became very focused, former President Trump, on this rally. On July 6th, he did a Google search for, quote, how far away was Oswald from Kennedy? And so that's a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind.

We know that Crooks was within just 150 yards of Trump when he opened fire. We also learned he scoped out the site with a drone just two hours before Trump took the stage. Director Wray says efforts to identify an exact motive are still ongoing. So far, investigators have not found anything conclusive.

All right, time now for weather. No relief in sight for areas out West battling wildfires. Mandatory evacuation orders remain in effect throughout Butte County in Northern California as the Park Fire continues to rapidly spread. Let's get straight to our weatherman Van Damme. Derek, good morning to you. What are you seeing out there?

Yeah, remember Casey, Butte County is the same county where the Camp Fire was located in 2018 that brought so much devastation. So look at this time lapse of the rapid fire growth of this particular fire. And you can see just how quickly that spreads with the very volatile

on the ground dry brittle conditions. There are 88 active wildfires over the western US and I want to point this out it is not just the western US impacted by wildfire activity. I want to get right into the western parts of Canada where we're following a story that's breaking overnight about a wildfire that is encroached on the tourist town of Jasper. There were mandatory evacuations for this area. Google search shows just how much

trees surround this particular tourist town and many of the buildings here have suffered significant damage. Here's just a scope of what has happened in the Jasper National Park region. In Canada, we are already seeing a total area of burned acreage far surpassing the average year to date with more wildfire activity anticipated across the Pacific Northwest and you can see the greatest threat areas for the day today. Casey.

All right. Our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, thank you. I really appreciate it. Coming up next here on CNN This Morning. Violent protests on the streets of D.C. as the Israeli prime minister addresses Congress. Plus, the timeline. It's a compressed one for Kamala Harris to make her VP pick.

Hear me out. No more ideas. This is it. Glenn Powell becomes Harris's running mate. I guarantee, I guarantee he will attract suburban women. And I already have his slogan. Yes, we Glenn. Four more abs. Four more abs.

All right, welcome back. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress yesterday, appealing to America's lawmakers for continued support of Israel in the war with Hamas. Outside the Capitol, protesters scuffling with police and each other.

No violence! No violence! No violence! Scenes like this one playing out across the nation's capital. The tussle between those protesters broken up by police officers and there was that tug of war over an Israeli flag. Protesters marching toward the capital were met with pepper spray by a line of officers that stopped some of them in their tracks.

At one point, protesters even entered the Watergate complex where the prime minister is staying, dumping maggots and other insects inside a conference room with Israeli and U.S. flags. And then... And outside of Union Station, protesters ripped down the American flag, set it on fire. The Palestinian flag was raised in its place while an effigy of the prime minister burned.

At that point, somebody tried to rescue the flag from the flames, but it was quickly chased from the scene. And one act of protest from a member of Congress in attendance at the speech itself, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, held up a sign during Netanyahu's speech that read "guilty of genocide and war criminal." Netanyahu said this about the protesters outside: Many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas.

They stand with rapists and murderers. You have officially become Iran's useful idiots. - Joan Goldberg, I would like to ask you to weigh in on this because, you know, watching those people, these flags are on public property. They belong to Union Station. The American flag has since been replaced. We saw Mike Johnson, the House Speaker out there talking about it, but they were ripped down. It was burned. And combined with, I mean, putting bugs where he is staying is disgusting. - Yeah.

I mean, first of all, who has like a maggot connection? Like, it doesn't really speak well of you in the circles you travel in as, oh, I got a maggot guy. But more broadly, look, I think everybody who hit a cop on January 6th should have been investigated, prosecuted, and if found guilty in a fair trial, sent to jail. You hit cops at this stuff,

this should be the same standard. I'm just a law and order guy, and I think this is a real missed opportunity for a lot of Democrats, just in this political context, of trying to sort of draw that line, because it's not like the people who are writing Hamas is coming on public statue are voting for Harris either. It's easy to throw them under the bus. You can make these distinctions, and Rashida Tlaib, if she wants to hold up her war criminal ping pong paddle, good for her, but like,

This is one of these things where the vast bulk of the American people are either Fetterman adjacent or more pro-Israel than that. And you don't have to sort of mollycoddle the pro-terrorist crowd. I think this is a good opportunity for Harris to sort of make some distinctions. - There were also these, if we can put up on the screen, these triangle symbols, which is one of how much

it's supposed to reference a him that triangle there is it means that that that's the next the Hamas's next target right for violence yeah right I mean that is I mean they should be arrested yeah the reality is that's right outside Union Station there were officers there I don't know why they weren't arrested obviously they were controlling the crowd but that is clearly what should happen you shouldn't be afraid of arresting people like that I spent a week in Israel with J Street and we met with

peace activists. We visited one of the kibbutz that had been attacked. We spoke with Palestinian peace activists in Hebron. And the one thing that I am convinced is that actually when you talk to the people on the ground, what they want is peace. That is not their message.

And that is actually not helpful to the cause of peace and to trying to find a resolution to the situation. I personally don't think that Netanyahu is doing a good job of moving towards that. But I think more importantly, when you are defacing public property,

That's not acceptable. And again, that message is not actually the message of the people who are there on the ground who want peace and want to figure out how do we have two states for two people who can live side by side in peace. - Yeah, the White House said this about it, quote, "Identifying with evil terrorist organizations like Hamas, "burning the American flag, or forcibly removing the American flag "and replacing it with another is disgraceful. "Anti-Semitism and violence are never acceptable, period." I'm interested to see the campaign statement. When I went to bed last night, there wasn't one yet.

I guess we'll watch out for that. All right, coming up here, Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell joins us. We're gonna get her thoughts on President Biden's speech and the way forward for Democrats. Plus. Quite the Olympic honor for tennis star Coco Gauff. Your morning roundup up next.

All right, 45 minutes past the hour. Here's the morning roundup. The U.S. intercepting two Russian and two Chinese bombers that were flying together near Alaska Wednesday. The bombers did remain in international airspace. They were, quote, not seen as a threat. And this. You have the honor of wearing this jacket during the opening ceremony and the flag barrel with LeBron James. Woo!

Coco Gauff will carry the American flag for the U.S. Olympic team during Friday night's opening ceremony in Paris. She will be joining LeBron James, the 20-year-old tennis star, becoming the youngest flag bearer in U.S. Olympic history.

A big change coming to Southwest Airlines. The low fare carrier is shifting to assigned seating for the first time in its history. That will allow it to begin charging a premium for some seats. Southwest says the number one complaint from unhappy passengers is their open seating policy. Fellow regular, often airline travelers, what do we think about this?

That was the whole reason you flew Southwest. It was the shorts, the perky attitude, you know, the fighting for your seat. The race for the seat. Yeah, come on. The Darwinian struggle is the whole point of Southwest. I mean, like, as an early arriver at airports, like, I like the incentive structure of

of claiming your territory. I am not an early river. I always find it very stressful. Jeff, do you wish to weigh in on this question? I don't. No peanuts, no choice of seats. I mean, what's the conflict? Well, Congresswoman will ask you about this here in a second. I want to introduce you. We want to turn back now to this. Let's watch.

-President Biden gave a primetime address from the Oval Office about his decision to drop out of the race. Basically, on Sunday, he broke up with the country over text, and tonight, he met us for coffee to explain.

President Biden delivering his first remarks last night since his historic decision to end his re-election bid. Flanked by his family, the president defended his record, outlined his plans for his remaining six months in office, and sought to define his legacy. A legacy that when he first ran for the office in 1988, he envisioned this way. We said that the key to restoring confidence in our traditions and our institutions is

was public officials who would stand up and tell the American people exactly what they thought. And to paraphrase what I said that day in 1972, I mean to be that candidate, and with the grace of God and the support of the American people, I mean to be that kind of president.

All right, joining us now to discuss Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan. Congresswoman, always grateful to have you on the show. Nice to see you. Good to be with you. As you watch this speech, what were your reflections? You know, it has been such a hard three weeks in so many different ways.

You can't forget the human moment of last night and what a difficult three weeks this has been for this man who's loved his country, who has done public service. So there's a certain, you know, look, I was sad. It was a poignant night. At the same time, I think he laid out very clearly what the future is. It's the difference between hope and hate, unity and division.

And I hope everybody in America heard that. I think he laid that out. He clearly passed the torch. Clearly also, six more months of this presidency, a lot of work to be done. I'm not, this isn't a goodbye yet, folks. We got work to do. I know I'm in a Congress that doesn't want to do the work, but...

I heard you're leaving town today. I'm coming back next week. Congresswoman, were you surprised or did you think it would have been helpful if the president had talked a little bit more about why he did what he did? I mean, he didn't touch on his age or any of the things that people clearly know were a factor in his decision. Okay, so can I ask a question? Have we talked about it enough?

I mean, the country knows what happened. They saw it play out in real time. He made it clear that he thought he could still serve, but he wanted to bring the party together. I am not somebody who appreciated the circular firing squad the last three weeks. I think there are ways to communicate things to people without doing it in some of the ways that were done.

He has passed the torch. I want to get home. I want to see what people are really saying. I want to get out of the bubble of Washington. No offense to all of you. And get in my union halls and my BFWs and my farmers markets. But will the press ever stop criticizing? And what are we going to start doing a little more on Donald Trump? I think it was a very poignant evening. He talked about what was ahead, what we needed to do, why he was doing it.

And there we are. Let's talk about what happens next. I mean, Michigan, where you're from, what you know so well, is clearly one of the most critical battlegrounds for Kamala Harris. How do you think that her candidacy changes the race for the state of Michigan? I want to get home. I can hear talking to some people that there's some excitement there.

And we got to go out and we got to sell it. We got to show people what she stands for. Donald Trump's going to work very hard to try to define her one way. We're going to work very hard to define what the future is about. We are a purple state. You know that. I'm the one in 216 who told you all we were going to lose and nobody believed me. I think we can still win. I did. I'm not so sure anybody did. But I think we can win. I think we got to, I want to roll up my sleeves and go home. But I,

I want to get in where real people are and hear what they're saying and know what we've got to do. We saw some pretty ugly scenes outside the Capitol, outside of Union Station yesterday with protesters graffitying Hamas is coming.

on the statue, clearly with the triangle, upside down triangle symbol, that it's really an indicator of violence, as opposed to seeing protests that were focused on peace in Gaza. Kamala Harris has a chance here to define herself in terms of where she stands on this conflict. She has an opportunity to potentially distance herself from President Biden. She also has an opportunity potentially to

to hug him if she thinks that's where more voters are going to be.

How do you think she should navigate this issue? So first of all, I want to, like, it was horrific what happened yesterday. I unfortunately was by the Union Station when that flag was burned. And it is never acceptable to burn the flag of the United States of America, period. I'm just disgusted by it. I'm not so sure. I'm probably going to get in trouble here. We didn't have paid people yesterday trying to cause trouble.

And I think we need to be paying attention to that. I think I have talked to the vice president multiple times. I think she's like a whole lot of us in this country. What Hamas did was a terrorist act. And we can never, ever, ever walk away or understand what happened to those hostages. But we have seen

You know, people are documenting these figures. Tens of thousands of innocent people have died in Gaza. You know what we all want? Peace. We don't want to see anybody else die. What's happened on both sides is horrific and ugly.

And I think she wants to bring peace. And I think the president's a wise man who's dealt with this in a long time. I hope that she's going to listen to everybody, which I think she's already shown she will do. It's a tough issue. I think she wants peace, which is what I want. The White House, of course, currently led by the president, put out a statement condemning those protests yesterday. Should Kamala Harris, as the person at the top of the ticket, put out a statement today condemning those protesters? I...

I think what we all, everybody's got a right to free speech. Hey, come home with me sometime. I guarantee if you spend a day, two days with me, you'll get protested. You'll see me protested. I'm used to it. But violence is never okay. And we are normalizing violence in this country. We cannot accept it any side, any place. The tried assassination, thankfully, that failed on Donald Trump was not okay. Burning flags, the kind of ugliness and yelling and screaming, it scared people.

It absolutely scared me. Were they yelling at you? No, I wasn't getting yelled at because I was smart enough to try to avoid it yesterday because I didn't want to see it.

I mean, I saw it, but I just did not want to be the target. But my colleague Dan Kildee was. I mean, they tried to break into his office. They were pounding at his door. His kids are traumatized. This is not OK. We are normalizing violence. We are normalizing vitriolicness. And every last one of us in this country should be standing up to that. All right. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, very grateful for you. Thank you very much for being here today.

All right, let's turn out of this story. Mark your calendars for August 7th. That's when Democrats are hoping to announce Kamala Harris's running mate, sources tell CNN, in one of the most accelerated vice presidential searches in American history. The top of the ticket at Kamala Harris reportedly narrowing down the search with Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper emerging as top contenders. Also

Also in the mix, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Everyone has been playing their cards pretty close.

Would you accept the pass? Again, this is not about me. This is about the future of this country. That is a deeply personal decision that should be made free from any political pressure. She's going to make a decision that's the right decision for her, for the party, and for the country. I'd be reluctant to make a change, but it'd be hard to resist a call and consideration if the nominee called me to ask to be considered for vice president.

That I don't know. I've seen it out there and it's a little weird.

So look, I appreciate Pritzker's candor, quite honestly, to actually say, well, yeah, OK, I'm a politician. You call me to be vice president, I'm probably going to take the job. Congresswoman, who would you like to see Kamala Harris pick? You know what? I want to see her pick somebody that she can get along with, she's going to have good chemistry with. And I'm not going to weigh in publicly on this, because I think she should be able to pick who she wants. Fair enough.

Karen, can you bring us kind of inside these deliberations? I mean, the timeline is because of this virtual roll call situation with DNC. What do you think the considerations are? Because Josh Shapiro, for example, extremely popular in my home state of Pennsylvania. I think there's really a feeling that he could maybe change things there. Then again, Mark Kelly of Arizona has a lot of expertise and experience on national issues, particularly the border, which is something that she's going to have a lot of challenges on.

I think it's a couple of things. I mean, having worked on VP selections previously, sure, you're looking at the polling. But to what the congresswoman said, you're looking for who do you have chemistry with, who? Because at the end of the day, this is the person that you're going to turn to in tough moments. And you want to make sure that someone is going to give you their best advice and that you feel comfortable with the kind of advice they're going to give you and the way that conversation is going to go.

Also, obviously the vetting and people forget that these days in addition to the financial, it's social media. It's everything you've ever said. It's everything you've ever thought of saying somewhere on social media. So there's a lot that goes into it. What typically happens as you know is there's a book on everybody or a folder on everybody and you kind of see pluses and minuses.

then a lot of it really just comes down to the personal chemistry and less as much as people think about I could win this state or that state. Yeah, well, Jonah, I mean, look, to a certain extent, people vote for the top of the ticket. The VP choice doesn't always make or break, but it can. There does seem to be a little bit of buyer's remorse going on in the Trump campaign right now over J.D. Vance. Yes. What do you make of that? Look, J.D. Vance has been in an

an elected official for 18 months. But for Donald Trump's endorsement in Ohio, he would not have won his primary. He was not a great campaigner. He was bailed out at the last minute by Mitch McConnell and the normie establishment Republicans. And he's not necessarily, what you hear from people is he's just not necessarily the VP pick you'd pick if you knew you were gonna be running against Harris, right? And it was a confidence cocky move.

He'll get better. He's very smart. But that convention speech, when the crowd is chanting in unison, you know, Joe must go and I agree, that is not the sign of a guy who's spoken to a lot of big rallies, right? And I think that he is...

His sea legs are not great yet and we're gonna hear more of it. - And she has the opportunity when she makes her pick to kind of base it off that, which it's not going to be based off that entirely, but someone who can respond to him and all of that. So I think she knows what it's like to be vice president, obviously, since she is vice president. So that's so fresh in her mind, but it's all about the connection and relationship. And she has the longest one with

Roy Cooper from North Carolina. Yeah, it's interesting. Congresswoman, on Vance, what do you think the opportunities are for him? I mean, we're kind of excavating the archives, the childless cat lady thing very briefly.

That was absolutely another horrific thing that he said. And the women, I wish you could see the women's member chat. We have a lot of very blunt things to say. I feel free to send us screenshots. I mean, it's J.D. Vance. And by the way, I just wish to say this is going to be a replay of Michigan versus Ohio State. Michigan won last year, and we're going to win this year, too.

Go blue. Go blue. Michigan, to be clear, not the Democrats. That's not coming from me. All right. Thanks to our panel. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

I'm Oprah Winfrey, and I am delighted to introduce you to my podcast, Super Soul Conversations. You can listen to some of the most universal, powerful life lessons. I hope these conversations will help illuminate your path to all that you've been meaning to be and all that you were meant to be.

You want to feel better about your life, where you're headed? Subscribe to my Super Soul Conversations on Apple Podcasts and begin the journey to your best self.