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Joe Biden Declares His Run for President; Trump Vows to Fight 'All' House Subpoenas. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 25, 2019 - 07:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:00:05] ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your NEW DAY. We do begin with breaking news. Former President Joe Biden formerly -- formally jumping into the 2020 race for president.

Biden immediately becomes the frontrunner of the 2020 Democratic field, according to the polls. Biden's campaign video takes on President Trump and his response to the Charlottesville attack.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Really, in a surprising dramatic way. The former vice president heads to Philadelphia for a fundraiser tonight, and he's set to do his first interview tomorrow. We have all the details of where the former vice president will go in his first campaign stops.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is live in Joe Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, with the breaking details. Arlette, in this video, he tries to reframe, I think, the entire campaign in a new way. It is fascinating.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Joe Biden is drilling in on that moment in Charlottesville, the clashes there. And President Trump's response directly, saying that this is a battle for the soul of the country and that the nation's character is at stake if Joe Biden -- if Donald Trump is re-elected.

Take a listen to that message that he laid out in this video this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Charlottesville, Virginia, is home to the author of one of the great documents in human history. We know it by heart: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

We've heard it so often it's almost a cliche, but it's who we are. We haven't always lived up to these ideals. Jefferson himself didn't. But we have never before walked away from them.

Charlottesville is also home to a defining moment for this nation in the last few years. It was there, in August of 2017, we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open. Their crazed faces illuminated by torches, veins bulging, and bearing the fangs of racism, chanting the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the '30s.

And they were met by a courageous group of Americans, and a violent clash ensued. And a brave young woman lost her life. And that's when we heard the words of the president of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were, quote, "some very fine people on both sides." Very fine people on both sides?

With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.

I wrote at the time that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. That's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation.

I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation: who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen.

The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that has made America America is at stake. That's why today I'm announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.

Folks, America is an idea. An idea that's stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth. It guarantees that everyone is treated with dignity and gives hate no safe harbor. It instills in every person in this country the belief that, no matter where you start in life, there's nothing you can't achieve if you work at it. That's what we believe. And above all else, that's what's at stake in this election.

We can't forget what happened in Charlottesville. Even more important, we have to remember who we are. This is America.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SAENZ: And Joe Biden is a very clearly framing the message he's going to carry throughout the campaign.

Later today, he's going to be in Philadelphia for a private fundraiser that's hosted by an executive of Comcast and also is going to feature a large Pennsylvania delegation.

He's already picking up major endorsements from Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey and Delaware, his home state here, Senator Chris Coons. So some of those early endorsements already coming out this morning. [07:05:08] And we've already been getting a glimpse at what the next

few weeks are going to look like for Joe Biden. So tomorrow he'll be doing that interview with "The View."

On Monday he's going to be holding his first big campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That will focus on middle-class working voters.

Then we're going to see him barnstorm the country over the next few weeks. We have -- he's going to be heading out to Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, even out west to California, and Nevada and then the final wrapping up this entire rollout, this launch, is going to be May 18 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Biden campaign is saying -- pointing out that that's the birthplace of democracy, really trying to hone in on the importance of what's at stake in this election -- John and Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Arlette Saenz, thank you very much for bringing all of that to us.

Joining us now to discuss it, we have David Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Obama and host of CNN's "THE AXE FILES"; Alex Burns, "New York Times" national correspondent and CNN political analyst, out with a big story about Joe Biden this morning; Nia Malika-Henderson, CNN senior political reporter; and David Chalian, CNN political director.

David Axelrod, let me start with you. You've just watched Joe Biden's launch video, using Charlottesville as a metaphor for what he believes this entire race is about.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, you know, Alisyn, for the longest time people have been saying, you know, "Joe Biden would be a great candidate against Donald Trump, but can he navigate his way through the primaries?"

Well, he just decided to bypass the primaries and go right to the main event and kind of consign everybody else to the kiddie table. He's trying to create a stature gap and give people a preview of what a fight between he and Trump -- between him and Trump would be like. And I think it's smart. You know, it's going to -- he has to sustain it. This is a first -- this is the first step. But it is -- it was good. It was, I think, very, very powerful and very smart.

BERMAN: I think, some people will look at this and say, "Hey, it's obvious Democrats are saying they need to beat Donald Trump." But the other ones aren't doing it this way, David Chalian.

And that's what struck me so much about this video. Leaning in to Charlottesville, over the entire three minutes of it, ending almost with the phrase, "We cannot forget what happened in Charlottesville," saying that "We, the Democrats, need to win here, and I'm the one who can."

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. What struck me, what I found so surprising, is just how singular and focused the message is in that video, right?

Think about how every other presidential candidate has gotten into this race. They've talked about a whole host of issues. Health care or climate change, and pay equity, all of the issues that are sort of debated day in and day out that you hear questions from voters on in town halls. And Joe Biden will get to all of that.

Bit to have sort of the not only strategy but discipline to sit and say, "I'm going to solely focus on," as David is saying, "this notion that I am the person you can envision in the general election against Donald Trump and beating him because of who I am, my stature, my experience. That is what I want you to remain focused on," Joe Biden is telling the voters.

And he'll get to all those issues. There's no doubt he'll be asked about them. And as much as he'd like to fast forward through a Democratic primary, folks, we all know that's not going to be the case. He is going to have to share a debate stage. He is going to be tested and poked and prodded by voters out there, and he is going to have to fight for this nomination inside the modern-day Democratic Party. And we'll see how he does that.

But to come out of the gate with this kind of focus and discipline on where he wants to keep the message, I -- I found surprising.

CAMEROTA: Nia-Malika, yesterday, there was a big debate -- it's been reported -- about when exactly to do this, as you know. Everybody has been waiting. What day will Joe Biden announce?

There was first talk that it was going to going to happen yesterday. But that would have competed with the She the People conference that the other candidates were at, talking about women's rights, equality, et cetera. And so he wanted to have a moment that was all his own. It seems like, as of 7:08 this morning, he has achieved it with that campaign video.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And there was some discussion with the organizers of She the People about Joe Biden pushing this to Thursday so he wouldn't compete with that forum that focused on women of color down in Texas.

You know, he is looking at an electorate in 2016, the Democratic primary electorate, was about 25 percent African-American. There's actually much more if you look at those southern states like South Carolina, Mississippi. A passel of delegates down there. So that is going to be the electorate, in some ways, Down South.

And then just overall, if you look at the voters who showed up again in 2016, four -- 60 percent were over the age of 45. And those are the voters that Hillary Clinton did so well with.

I think this -- this ad today, I think, it's very directed at those kind of voters, sort of the moderate voters, the folks who aren't necessarily the activists and the sort of progressive grassroots folks we hear so much from and, in some ways, are driving a lot of the conversation. [07:10:07] So I thought it was a very emotional ad, and it's

certainly, I think, going to resonate with those folks who do see Joe Biden as somebody who could go toe to toe, who has the stature on any number of issues and clearly doesn't think he needs to introduce who he is to voters at these -- at this point, because voters know who he is.

And voters also have an emotional attachment to Joe Biden. You talk to voters, particularly older African-American voters. They really like Joe Biden. And I think this is true of older white voters, as well.

And so I think there, he's sort of reminding voters of the kind of presidency that Obama had, the kind of vice presidency he had. It, I think, draws a great deal on nostalgia, on the kind of America that people remember, of the kind of presidents that people remember, people who didn't stoke divisions along racial lines.

BERMAN: You know, it's interesting. Because it seems to me that there are parts of this video that could reach people beyond what might be his base: older, more moderate voters.

Because if you frame it along the lines of, as he says, "I knew the threat to this nation was unlike anything I'd ever seen in my life," that's something that people across the Democratic spectrum can agree on, Alex.

ALEX BURNS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure. And he's setting himself up as a voice of historical authority on that, right? If Pete Buttigieg says, "This is unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime," like, well, that's not saying quite the same thing.

BERMAN: It's saying about half as much, frankly. Less than half as much.

BURNS: Right. But, you know, having said that, the ad does feel a little bit to me -- and I don't say this pejoratively -- the political equivalent of, like, a book that would launch on Father's Day. Right? That it's very heavy on Thomas Jefferson and, you know, what America used to be able to be. Right?

And I think the question -- I thought everything Nia said was dead on. Is can he also speak to the individual subsets of the Democratic Party in a way that feels really personal and immediate? Right? That you know, I don't think that Joe Biden being Joe Biden needs to have a laundry list of policies on day one.

But you do have people sort of shaping the debate in this race along some pretty specific lines related to race, and identity, and gender. And I don't know that he needs to compete with, you know, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Cory Booker in terms of just specificity and raw personal authenticity on those issues.

He is going to need to show that he gets it. Right? And that's something we're going to have to see sort of in practice on the campaign trail. AXELROD: You know, I have to disagree just on one point. I don't see how you could do anything that goes more directly at some of the constituencies of the Democratic Party than putting Charlottesville front and center. I think this will resonate deeply with minority voters and, I think, with young activists who think of Charlottesville as a sort of negative iconic event.

So I thought it was pretty clever to make that the center of his piece. At the same time, by going all "West Wing," as he did, I think that it will have -- it will have a pull to those more traditional voters and those older voters.

CAMEROTA: David Chalian, your thoughts on that?

CHALIAN: No, I agree with what David is saying there.

The other question, listening to what Alisyn was saying about the different pieces of the party, my question also is it's one thing to come out with a strong video that can make this appeal out of the gate, be disciplined and focused when you're, you know, sitting straight to camera.

Joe Biden is about to meet the reality of the campaign trail. He is -- he is going to be campaigning for the Democratic nomination in a different party than he did in 1988 or even 2008. And how he is going to engender enthusiasm.

It's one thing to garner the respect of people. And he can touch them emotionally on a message. But he is going to have to engender a real enthusiasm among the Democratic base for his candidacy.

And I -- that just is, for me, one of the questions that hangs over, can somebody who's been on the stage as long as he has do that in this day, with this field of 19 others, many of whom are fresher faces?

BERMAN: And will -- go ahead.

AXELROD: Can he be -- again, can he be disciplined? You know, even if the story, the set-up story in "Politico," he was quoted as telling supporters, you know, "Leaders from around the world are just urging me to run just to save the country." Those kinds of things belong in the bubble box. And sometimes one of Biden's shortcomings is that the stuff from the bubble box just comes tumbling out.

BERMAN: Well, look, the next time that Joe Biden is a disciplined candidate might be the first time he's a disciplined candidate.

AXELROD: Which is why he hasn't gotten out of the primary of -- the Iowa caucuses in his two other races.

BERMAN: But he's trying to suggest, to himself and to the Democratic Party, that this time is different. It might be a message to himself --

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: -- there, as well.

And I'm just struck, again. Nia, you know, other Democrats, they all want to beat Donald Trump. And they all think it's important. But they're not running quite as directly against the president.

In some cases, they're avoiding talking. But Sherrod Brown, who didn't get into the race, made the point we have to talk about other things. Tim Ryan, who was here with you, they always talk about needing to focus on other things. Joe Biden is doing the opposite of that.

[07:15:04] HENDERSON: I think that's right. Even you see somebody like Pete Buttigieg, who doesn't really want to necessarily engage. The other candidates feel like don't necessarily want to be dragged down into the mud with Donald Trump.

But there you see Joe Biden. You know, I mean, the theme of that was Donald Trump. The theme of that was Donald Trump's character. And Joe Biden contrasting what he sees as the American character. And Joe Biden and Joe Biden's values and the Democratic Party values embodying the true American character. And there you have Donald Trump contrasting that, and Joe Biden saying in an un-American way that doesn't comport with American values going back to Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence.

I thought it was a very effective ad. And I do think he will at least be able to, as David Axelrod said, I do think he will be able to at least touch on some of these issues that folks -- the Black Lives Matter crowd, some of the activists -- some of the identity politics sort of sector of the Democratic Party. I do think he at least gives a nod to that, especially when he, for instance, says that Thomas Jefferson didn't always live up to the ideals. Everybody knows, obviously, Thomas Jefferson had slaves. So I think he's doing it in subtle ways.

Listen, he doesn't need to get all of those folks. The Democratic Party is primarily older. And those African-American voters, certainly, who are going to be voting, primarily older, primarily African-American women, as well.

And listen, the folks who I've talked to have a great deal of affection for Joe Biden. There is energy there, I think. We'll see how he does out on the stump in places like South Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Isn't he kind of built for that, Alex? I mean, isn't he built for campaigning? He likes it. He gets energy from it in the way that Donald Trump does, as well. That he's a natural-born extrovert; likes to, as we know, glad-hand the people.

BURNS: He certainly has the personality for it. We're going to see if he's still built for it. Right? That -- both because he's an older man than he was the last time he ran a national campaign and also because the parameters of politics have changed. Right?

And it's one thing to be able to totally nail that 90-second video or to then go on a national broadcast television show and sort of be a sympathetic character with your former colleague's daughter on "The View." It's another thing to have people sort of shoving a cellphone camera in your face and shouting questions at you. Right? It's another thing to sort of see your worst moment amplified a million- fold through a viral video. Right?

I think Joe Biden has more room to make some mistakes than a lot of other candidates in this race, because Americans do have such a clear sense of who he is and because they do, I think, have a sense that, you know, once he's sort of touched the hot stove a hundred times, like people kind of get that that's part of who he is.

CAMEROTA: But hasn't President Trump also widened that lane?

HENDERSON: Yes, I think that's right.

BURNS: Sure. I think that's true. I think that, at the same time, if your case about -- if the central case of your candidacy is "There's nothing more important than beating Donald Trump, and I'm the guy to do it," you can't look too sloppy. Right? If people start to get the sense that he's lost a couple steps since he left the vice presidency, that he's not as disciplined as he needs to be, that he just -- you know, there's some moment in a debate, whatever. Anything that undercuts the electability argument is that much more dangerous to him.

AXELROD: You know, you referenced his age. I think one of the things this video does is create a rationale for why he's coming off the bench and getting back in the game.

BERMAN: He says it.

AXELROD: Essentially saying, "You know what? I'm the only one who can deal with this. And I'm coming back to take care of it."

Because that's one of the questions. Is this just a lifelong ambition that he -- you know, last gasp, last attempt to get the presidency that he's been after for decades? Or is it something larger? And his answer today was it's something larger.

BERMAN: David Chalian, I want to get --

CHALIAN: That's why I think --

BERMAN: I want to give you the last word here, David, on whatever you want. But I also want to say that the counter title to his entire candidacy could be Pennsylvania: "I can win Pennsylvania," which he's trying to say also by where he's going in the fundraiser tonight.

CHALIAN: Which feeds directly into the notion of "I am the one to defeat Trump." Right? This is going to come down to a Pennsylvania, or a Michigan, or a Wisconsin, or what have you.

And yes, Philadelphia fund-raiser tonight. Already collecting Casey's endorsement. Going to kick off in Pittsburgh, come back to Philadelphia at the end of this three-week launch period. No doubt putting that front and center.

But I would just also note, to David's point about sort of coming off the bench, this is why Joe Biden's entrance into this race today has completely already fundamentally changed the race. This has been -- this will be a definitive day in terms of the pre-Joe-Biden period and the post-Joe-Biden period. This campaign with the 19 others was waiting for this moment. And now that the big dog is in the race, the race is going to take on a new shape.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Sometimes when you add one more dancer to the conga line, it changes the whole dance. So that is what we will be seeing today. Thank you all very much for the analysis of this breaking news.

We do have other news to get to, because President Trump is, again, vowing to stonewall all House subpoenas. That's more than we heard yesterday. He's refusing to allow any of his aides to testify before Congress.

[07:20:05] So what will Democrats now do about their oversight role? That's next.

BERMAN: Is it a conga line or a kick line?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: This morning there is a real test to the constitutional norms inside this country. The checks and balances set up in the Constitution itself are being tested by the president's new stonewalling strategy, giving Congress nothing that it's asking for.

Listen to what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're fighting all the subpoenas. Look, these aren't, like, impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win 2020. The only way they can luck out is by constantly going after me on nonsense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: OK. So specifically, the Trump administration has informed the House Oversight Committee that advisor Stephen Miller will not testify about their immigration policy, and DOJ official, John Gore, will not comply with a subpoena to face questions about the census.

Let's talk about this. We want to bring back CNN political analyst David Gregory; also CNN political director David Chalian; and CNN political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson; and former senior adviser to President Obama and host of CNN's "AXE FILES," David Axelrod.

[07:25:13] So David Axelrod, OK, so we're at a stalemate. So they won't comply with subpoenas. It will go to court. Can somebody go to jail over this? Or what's the upshot? AXELROD: Well, theoretically, somebody could go to jail. But what it does is they're in a big game of stall. And we don't really know. Because it's unprecedented to see a White House take a blanket position on -- on these kinds of subpoenas and requests.

You know, it's interesting to me, as someone who did serve in the Obama administration, to hear the president say, "It's a partisan House, and we're not going to comply." Well, anyone who has any recollection of history understands that there was a pretty partisan House on the other side during the Obama years. They pummeled the president and the White House with subpoenas and requests. And I can't think of one time when those were resisted in this way. Sometimes there were negotiations that ended in sworn depositions rather than open testimony.

But you know, here's the deal with Donald Trump. He will -- people say where's the line. The line is whatever he can get away with. And he thinks he can get away with this.

BERMAN: Well, no one has gone to jail for contempt of Congress since the 1800s.

CAMEROTA: Somebody can get away with it.

BERMAN: Right. And the issue has been, for the last 150 years, no one has pushed that hard because of the norms.

Well, David Gregory, President Trump, if he's proven one thing, it's that he does not care -- and I'm not -- you know, take it for what it will. People call it his secret super power, not-so-secret super power. He doesn't care about the norms here.

GREGORY: Right. And the irony is that, in the Mueller investigation, he and his team of lawyers decided to cooperate with Mueller to a degree that now Don McGahn, his former White House counsel, was responsible for a lot of the really damning information against Trump in the Mueller report. And he, McGahn, was against that kind of cooperation. A little tough to say, "We're not going to cooperate now on these subpoenas" when he cooperated in such a fulsome way before.

But I think this is good politics up to a point for President Trump, who's making the case right after the Mueller report comes out that this is presidential harassment.

He's not the first president to make that. I mean, during the Obama administration, they were making the same arguments against the Republicans, even though there was more cooperation. There wasn't as much norm busting.

Under President Bush, they were fighting subpoenas about the firing of U.S. attorneys, when Democrats got control of Congress in 2006. So this swings back and forth. And the courts will have to decide, and there will be a lot of debate up until then.

But right now, I think Trump is -- is trying to build some momentum off the Mueller report to say, you know, that it has to end. At some point, this has to end. He's going to have a big constituency for that, just as his opponents will have the constituency to keep this fight going.

CAMEROTA: But Nia, what about that argument that David Gregory points out, which is exactly what President Trump has seized on? Which is, "We did cooperate in a fulsome way. So let's stop this. We don't want this to be this, you know, interminable investigating season. Don McGahn testified for 30 hours. We're done."

HENDERSON: Well, that doesn't have anything to do with Stephen Miller coming before Congress. It doesn't have anything to do with somebody coming before Congress and talking about the census and changing the census and adding a citizenship question.

So it does seem like they're taking it much further than, essentially, saying that folks involved in the Mueller investigation shouldn't come before Congress. This is basically drawing a red line, so far at least, on any requests that the House is making to hear from folks in the Trump administration about certain policies.

At least I think if you are Democrats, you're hoping that you can get other folks, other documents that don't necessarily have anything to do with this White House. Deutsche Bank, maybe. You saw them cooperating with SDNY. Perhaps they'll cooperate, as well, with the Oversight Committee in the House.

But it is -- we did see flashes of this, as David Gregory pointed out, with other administrations. But this kind of, I think, line in the sand and really a stonewalling on pretty major issues: immigration policy and what Stephen Miller would have to say about that, as well as the census. These are major issues.

And you would -- and you know, I get that Donald Trump likes to be in the fight. But you imagine that, OK, Stephen Miller comes before, you know, a House committee, and there's a fight. And there's an explanation of what they think their policy should be on immigration reform. And why would that be something that's bad? If somebody comes before Congress and talks about this new census designation, that the White House wants, they're making an argument for why they think that should happen. So I don't know why that would be a bad thing for the Trump administration.

BERMAN: I also have to say, David Chalian, the president is making the excuse for not cooperating on issues surrounding Russian.

[07:30:00]