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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Journey Back To The Twitter Era; NYT/Siena College Poll Shows How the Race has Changed Since Biden's Exit; Some PA Suburban Voters Not Yet Ready To Embrace Harris Despite Profound Disagreements With Trump; Musk Blames "Massive DDOS Attack On X" For Delay In Trump Interview; Trump's False Claims About Size Of Harris Rallies Part Of Long-Standing Obsession With Crowd Size. Aired: 8-9p ET
Aired August 12, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Team USA saying tonight, that its appeal to restore the medal to Chiles was swiftly denied in dramatic fashion. Chiles won bronze after her coach challenged her initial score, which led to this now iconic photo marking the first Olympic gymnastics podium with three Black women.
However, it turns out Team USA's challenge came four seconds after the deadline. This process though, maybe far from over thanks for however.
Thanks for joining us. AC360 starts now.
[20:00:31]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, how Donald Trump is responding for the first time in a long time to real competition on the campaign trail.
His journey back to the Twitter era also to his self-made world of alternative facts.
Also tonight, the candidate whose crowds he now envies and the questions for her, including when she'll get more specific about her plans if elected.
And later, John King, "All Over the Map" in the Philadelphia suburb, which could swing the election. He's talking to voters still trying to decide.
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
The last time, the former president posted on the former Twitter was on August 24th of last year. He put up a mugshot of himself, it was his first time on the network, now known as "X" since January 6, 2021 and his last until today.
Well, he put up a flurry of postings just ahead of tonight's online interview you with "X" owner, a billionaire and Trump supporter, Elon Musk. Here's a portion of one of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: We will drive out that globalist. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off this sick political class that hates our country. We will round the fake news media and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So a happy positive message. Separately, he posted, "Our economy is shattered, our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline".
The dark tone aside, the facts do not support any of that anymore than the facts support his claim that these crowds that the Harris-Walz event last week at Detroit's main airport were the product of AI trickery. We're showing you four different shots from four different vantage points so you can see for yourself.
Yet quoting now from him on his social network yesterday, "Look, we caught her with a fake crowd. There was nobody there".
Again, that is not true, but saying it seems to matter to Donald Trump just as it matters to him to say that new polling from "The New York Times" showing him down by four points in these battleground states is not by his description, real polling.
Quoting again from his social media feed, "I'm doing really well in the presidential race, leading in almost all of the real polls". None of this kind of talk though, is going over well with some Republicans. Here is former House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy today on Fox.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: You've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position when it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime. Question what did she do when she's supposed to take care of the border as the czar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, technically, she was not the administration's border czar, but the point still stands. Kamala Harris, like any other candidate, is open to criticism of her record and her plans for the future, but that is not what our opponent is focusing on, despite calls from like that from Kevin McCarthy.
And reportedly also, from inside the campaign quoting from AXIOS now, "Trump's aides know he won't change, so they're focusing not on the need for him to change, but on the need to adapt his message to win," the source said. Adding, "but he has to convince himself to leave the other garbage behind".
Will he do that in his interview with Elon Musk tonight? We'll soon find out. But as we've all learned over the years, including his closest supporters, Donald Trump is who he is and he rarely changes. Just look at what he said six summers ago urging people then just like now, not to trust their own eyes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Just stick with us, don't believe the crap you see from these people. They are fake news. Just remember what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And then, just like now, people close to him were talking to reporters who in turn were writing lines like this in "The New York Times," Mr. Trump at a pivotal moment in his presidency is increasingly living in a world of selected information and bending the truth to his own narrative.
Joining us now is CNN political commentators from across the partisan spectrum, Scott Jennings, Kate Bedingfield, and Van Jones.
Scott, as you mentioned, the former president is saying that the photos and videos showing thousands of people at Vice President Harris' Michigan rally are fake. The polls are showing him trailing in battleground states are fake. I mean, when he started, it all started, remember with all those talks about the crowd size at his inauguration. I mean, it's just back to the future, is it not?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You've got to focus. I mean, you're not going to win the race fighting with the other campaign about crowd size and stuff that's not really on the minds of most Americans.
I mean, look, people are still in a sour mood about the country. People think country is off track. They are still mad about food prices. They are still mad about the economic anxiety in their lives.
They don't really care about the size of the crowds of any of these candidates. They care about, can you fix the problems that I'm currently having? You've got to focus. That's the word of the day, focus.
If he focuses like he was against Biden, like he did against Hillary in 2016, he can win the race. But chasing all of these rabbits down these rabbit holes, that is a pathway to defeat.
[20:05:20]
COOPER: Why do you think he is doing it other than it is who he is?
JENNINGS: I mean, look, how much time you got, brother? I don't know how we have this conversation in 30 seconds. The reality is, he's got to focus on what matters to the people that he needs to get to turn out and vote for him. Remember, he people are there. Seventy percent of the people think the country is on the wrong track. Kamala Harris sits in the White House right next to the president that they blame for their problems. The pathway is there. It is open and it is obvious. Focus, focus, focus would be my advice.
COOPER: Kate, it is remarkable to have Kevin McCarthy being sort of giving public advice to the Trump campaign on what Donald Trump needs to do. I mean, he's been talking. Again, it is just remarkable to me, he was talking about crowd size when he began and he's now talking about crowd size again.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, he is who he is. He's also, I certainly agree with Scott, I mean, this is a losing path for him. I think they are elements to me, it seems like they're elements of he's been thrown by the fact that VP Harris it is now at the top of the ticket.
I have to imagine, I'm not -- you know, look, I am not a psychiatrist. I'm not going to sit here and armchair analyze him, but I have to imagine there's an element of personal frustration here. He wanted to take on Biden, he wanted to beat the guy who beat him. He's not going to get the chance to do that. And so, now that has thrown him completely into a tailspin.
But he's going back to all of these same lies that he tells over and over again and some of it, I think that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are de-fanging pretty effectively with this critique of weirdness. They're kind of piercing the armor. They're not letting him be this sort of imaginary strongman he wants to be, which I think is smart.
Although the one thing I will say is that all of this, don't believe your lying eyes stuff, is also him very likely trying to lay the predicate, if he loses to say, it was stolen, it was stolen.
So, I think the Democrats have to be vigilant about this argument. I think they have to take it on directly. But look, I have to imagine, Donald Trump is going to be with Elon Musk tonight spouting a lot of garbage designed to fire up his base that is not going to appeal to the swing voters that he needs to win this election.
COOPER: Hey, Van, in that post that we just showed, he's talking about his perceived enemies, he is talking about communists and Marxists. He said, we will liberate America from these villains once and for all. He also framed the election as the final battle.
Does that work still? I mean, it just feels like a very old line of attack.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He is failing and flailing. Listen, they're saying it is the worst three weeks of his campaign that's what the press is saying. The same year in which he got indicted, convicted, and shot at and actually hit by a bullet and none of that to him is as bad as possibly not getting as much attention as Kamala. Like that's the only thing that's happened is that he's just not getting as much attention as Kamala Harris. He is more freaked out about that than being a convicted crook and someone who almost got killed. So, that lets you know the level of narcissistic challenge that we have here.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is doing exactly what she needs to do. Everybody is, you know, oh she's got to talk to reporters. She's going to talk to a reporter, but you notice that she's already done like 19 impossible things in a row to unite the Democratic Party?
She picked a VP that made everybody happy in the party. She's managed to actually get us on path to a convention that people are excited about. She's somehow gotten Biden out of the way without him hating her or anybody else. She is a political mastermind who has been underestimated her whole career. She's doing amazing.
At some point she will talk with a reporter but in the meantime, this guy is falling apart in plain view.
COOPER: It is interesting, Van, the whole talk to a reporter thing, I mean, do you think she should be talking with reporters?
JONES: I would.
COOPER: As you said, what she has been doing just from a strategic standpoint seems to be doing well.
JONES: It's working.
COOPER: I did a pretty tough interview with her immediately after the debate that I'm sure she wasn't happy with.
JONES: We all know.
COOPER: She actually did very well in that interview.
VANS: She held her own.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes.
COOPER: But she actually -- it was actually a good interview for her.
JONES: I'd love to hear others. She walked out there, people -- I think somebody missed an episode here, right after Biden had his meltdown, she had to walk and sit down and talk to Anderson Cooper on live television, CNN, global audience, not a whole lot of time to get any kind of cue cards from anybody and she held her own.
So, I'm not worried about her talking to a reporter, but right now, if it ain't broke, why fix it? She's got a convention coming up. She's going to go up another point or two, then she can talk to a reporter.
But you are watching a masterclass in politics happening from the most underestimated politician in America. Meanwhile, this juggernaut is falling apart. [20:10:08]
COOPER: Scott, she is sort of, I mean, she is kind of borrowing things from the playbook of Donald Trump from years past. I mean, the whole not talking to reporters. I mean, it is a strategic decision obviously and in the world where Donald Trump has already done pretty much anything kind of outrageous or anything that would have crossed the boundary before, I mean, she can do that.
JENNINGS: Well, the risk you run in not defining yourself and laying out your positions, is that eventually Donald Trump figures it out and he defines you for you using the statements that you made in the past.
Her biggest vulnerability is what she said when she was running for president before way outside the political mainstream, every position she took. And then her second biggest vulnerability is that she's vice president to the most unpopular president in the modern era. And she said he was extraordinarily strong to you on the night of the debate, and she helped cover up his condition and she helped him plan and execute all of his policies. These are massive vulnerabilities.
Now, she may be able to try to wash these --
COOPER: But are these vulnerabilities?
Like in the world of Donald Trump --
JENNINGS: Yes.
COOPER: -- who has flip-flopped on, you know, he'll say anything and JD Vance, who has completely altered his policy positions, his hatred of Donald Trump to now alleged love of Donald Trump.
I mean, in a world where that has happened, does it matter if Kamala Harris is now saying she'll not tax tips as well. I mean, why not? If this is the way it is
JENNINGS: I mean, what you're asking me is does it matter what the president of the United States would do once they get into office? I would submit --
COOPER: So, does it matter whether a candidate changes their position -- does it matter whether a candidate has changed their position from one year to the next? I mean, because it certainly hasn't mattered for the Trumps.
JENNINGS: It only matters whether you believe them. And I think a lot of voters are going to have a hard time believing that someone who was for defund the police, permissive immigration policy, and a whole bunch of way outside the mainstream stuff --
COOPER: She actually wasn't for defunding the police
JENNINGS: I mean, she was pretty all over it back in the day and was during the presidential campaign.
COOPER: Cori Bush was defund the police. Anyway, go ahead.
JENNINGS: Okay, well.
BEDINGFIELD: She also spent --
JENNINGS: Let's agree to disagree. But my point is you have to believe that she's no longer a left wing progressive, and I don't believe that.
BEDINGFIELD: But she spent four years in Joe Biden's White House working alongside him. I mean, you're having this debate about can she define herself? I'd argue she's defined herself pretty dang well. I mean, the country is embracing her. She is riding high in the polls. People were eager for a change and they see it in her. And she has a record of four years of serving alongside Joe Biden.
She is not -- yes, is she less defined than Joe Biden? Well sure, he was president for four years, but she's not unknown to the public and I think what she's doing here is smart.
I mean, she's taking all of her advantages, her energy, this positivity that she's infused, a vision for the future, which by the way is not really what we ever hear from Donald Trump. We always hear grievance and complaint in the ways he has been wronged and she's out laying out are really positive vision and doing it effectively.
She was barnstorming the country while Trump was essentially silent over the last week. She was hitting all the key swing states.
So, I don't think it's fair to say she's not defining herself. I think she's defining herself quite well. And Donald Trump is clearly envious of the way that she is defining herself as evidenced by this meltdown that we're watching him have.
COOPER: We've got to get a quick break. We'll have more from all of you.
Coming up next, John King at the Magic Wall, with more on how the polling has changed over the last three weeks since the race was upended. Also, he is reporting from several key Pennsylvania counties, which could decide the state and the entire race. How voters there are making decisions they never expected to have when we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:17:46]
COOPER: We showed you polls at the top of the program for three battleground states showing Kamala Harris up by four percentage points in each. Now, we should point out that they are all within the margin of error, which range actually from 4.0 to 4.5 points. So, they are still technically tied.
That said, they do seem to have gotten under Donald Trump's skin, whether they have or haven't, certainly mark the difference between now and what the race looked like before Biden-Harris gateway to Harris-Walz.
Speaking of Walz, John King is at the magic version with more.
John, so, how has the vice president on the Democratic ticket changed the race in battleground states or has it?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some numbers in a moment, Anderson. But first let's just start with this. I have the map this way because we are now back in what we thought at the beginning of the year before Biden's debate, before the questions about his age, that this would be the state race, right.
Six essentially, battleground states, after that debate, remember the Trump campaign was saying, we're going to put New Mexico in play, we're going to put Virginia in play, we're going to put New Hampshire in play, were going to run away with this. That was the mood after the Biden-Trump debate.
Well, Biden's gone. Harris is the candidate now. So at a minimum, we have reset the map to a traditional battleground state. But remember after those last debates, it was, Trump could win here, Trump could win here, and Trump could win here. Not only did the polls show that, I'll bring them up, Anderson, what we talked about that after all my travels into those states.
So let's just look a little May and now. Trump ahead in Pennsylvania, you're exactly right. This is no clear leader statistically within the margin of error, but Trump had momentum. This Michigan poll, "New York Times/Siena" had Biden ahead slightly. I can tell you from my travels, Trump had momentum there as well. And Wisconsin tighter, but Trump with momentum.
The question is, don't believe any one poll, which way is the arrow pointing? Who has the momentum? Well, look at this in August now, Harris up a little bit within the margin of error. But in Pennsylvania, up a little bit more, in Michigan, up a little bit more in Wisconsin.
So, what does that mean? That means if the election were tomorrow and the energy and momentum you see out there right now played out you would get that and even if Harris lost Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona, she could get to 270 electoral votes.
So, those three states, the blue wall, make all the difference in the Democratic calculation. If she is strong in these, it opens up the possibilities across the Sun Belt.
COOPER: John, let me just ask you. I mean, when polling says that the more that margin of error though in those states seemed really big, do those polls then matter? I mean, isn't it essentially still then a toss-up between them?
[20:20:08]
KING: It is a very competitive race. We cannot say that enough. A very competitive race, and we lived through 2016. We lived through 2020. You should expect a very competitive race.
Polling is you poll 800 or a thousand people in a state. Some polls do 500 people. The statisticians run the margin of error. That shows no clear leader. We're especially cautious here at CNN on how we characterize polling. So this is how I do it. Do not believe anyone poll, any one poll is a snapshot. But when you see a bunch of polling, which way, right?
Does somebody have clear momentum? Is it a straight line or is it going like this. Right now, in the spring, when I was coming back from those travels, it was going that way for Donald Trump, right now it's all Harris everywhere.
COOPER: One significant change regarding poll is the gender gap, right?
KING: Absolutely, so there's a whole number of things we could break down, but Randi Kaye for your program is doing a great series on the 53 percent, right? The 53, why? Women are 53 percent of the population -- the voting population roughly. So, if you want to get votes, why don't you go to the big buckets of votes, right?
If you can get more women to vote for you, they are a larger slice of the electorate. Look at this, May 2024, again, the battleground polls by "New York Times/Siena," Trump and Biden, Trump ahead by 14 points among men running roughly even among the women.
Now, look at this, Harris up 20 points, about the same margin among men. Trump is still winning among men. But look at this, so you're talking now about Harris' vote in the cities has come up, Harris' vote in the suburbs has come up. You have a woman candidate, a woman of color at the top of the ticket. At the moment, it is making a very big difference in the change in the race.
COOPER: And what about ad spending? How much of the campaign spent in ad sales since Biden stepped aside and actual campaign stops has gone where?
KING: Forgive me for turning my back to stretch this out, but there's been more talk today from a pro-Trump super PAC that you've got to see even more money come in. But this is where we are right now.
This tells you both campaigns agree. Look at all the spending in Pennsylvania, it's about evenly matched. It tells you both campaigns agree. Pennsylvania is a huge battleground. But then Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Are the Democrats behind in North Carolina? Waiting to see if they really mean it, waiting to see if the Harris campaign will put significant money into North Carolina. The Trump campaign put more money into Georgia today.
We're going to watch this play out. This will change again, Anderson, when you come out of the Democratic debate. But right now, again, the campaigns essentially agree, the traditional six battlegrounds and maybe North Carolina, although I want to keep an eye on that to see if the Democrats, if they can see huge African-American enthusiasm, they'll continue to play there, especially with the progress among women in the suburbs. But that's' a test case. Watch that.
COOPER: All right, John, stay with this. I want to bring in Scott Jennings, Kate Bedingfield, Van Jones. They also may have some questions for John as well.
Scott, you just heard from John. When you look at how much the Trump team has changed their ad spending, what does that say?
JENNINGS: Well, the map is smaller now, I think John is exactly right. They were envisioning a much larger map. Now, its smaller. We're, back down to the core states that we all thought were going to be the battleground states.
And really, it's still the competition between the Sun Belt and the Northern Blue Wall. And if I had any question for John, it's really about the state of Pennsylvania. Obviously, the person that wins Pennsylvania is highly, highly likely to win the race and given her past stances being on both sides of the fracking issue, given Biden's special personal connection to Pennsylvania, I wonder if John has any commentary on whether he thinks she is going to run or be as strong in Pennsylvania as Biden might have been, giving his personal connections to the state and his connections to some of the older White working class voters where he had a little bit more strength than you might have expected.
COOPER: John.
KING: I think you raised you raised a critical question, Scott, for what we will see. how does she try to play this in the Democratic debate? What does she say in her Pennsylvania ads, are they different from other ads?
We've essentially become a national electorate, but let's see what the differences are. But you are right. Joe Biden has a personal affinity here. You see him get to 50 percent.
I can tell you this, since the change was made, I've been to North Hampton County, a swing county, and I just came back. You'll see the piece in a little a few minutes right here from the Philadelphia suburbs and you see Harris making progress there -- progress there.
She has a great opportunity, but she also has challenges. There are a lot of voters who have voted for Joe Biden. They thought he was more centrist. We were also in the middle of pandemic, who say, is Harris maybe a little bit too liberal for me? But there's also a lot of voters, Scott, who do not want to vote for Donald Trump, moderate Republicans, Reagan Republicans don't want to vote for Donald Trump.
Many of them, were going to hold their nose and vote for Trump, if it were Biden again. Now, they say they're saying they're give Harris a look. So she has the opportunity but with that comes a challenge.
COOPER: And, Van, I mean, how is it you think that Vice President Harris hasn't been able to essentially run as a changed candidate, as John says, even though she is part of an incumbent administration with a track record of running herself back in 2020.
JONES: She looks like change. You've never seen anybody like that doing what she's doing. And so, it's just arresting. It's interesting. What I want to know from John is, how much of this momentum is just people coming back to the Democratic Party who should have been with us the whole time? Is she actually cutting into anything? Is she picking up people that were surprised by her? Or is this just young folks, people of color, and women coming back home?
KING: I think again, like Scott, you guys are smart, you know, that's why you're here. You're hitting the nail on the head. That's why the Harris campaign should not be overconfident. They should be confident, they should be happy, energy and enthusiasm help.
When your party won the last election, if you can put that coalition back together, maybe you can win the next election.
[20:25:10]
They've made a lot of progress. Like I said, they still have challenges. Can you get the Nikki Haley voters or suburban Republicans, the Reagan Republicans? Can you get back a slice of those young voters who are still holding up because they're mad at President Biden over Israel, and Hamas, and Palestine. And she is his vice president to Scott's point, can she somehow find a way to thread that needle, find the right nuance?
There are challenges going forward, but to the point about change, I don't have the numbers here. Go deep into the New York Times-Siena polling. This country wants change. I can tell you that from traveling the last year.
And when they had the Biden-Trump choice, there were a lot of people who were just exasperated by it.
If you look at now and they asked Trump versus Harris, who's the candidate that would bring good change? The numbers have flipped dramatically. People view her not just as change in how she looks, not just she's different and Governor Walz helps here as well because he's different and he is new.
People want new and different. They're tired after COVID, after inflation, after Biden and Trump. So she has that advantage right now. It gives her an opportunity to pull people in. Can she take advantage of it, is the question.
COOPER: Kate, Vice President Harris and President Biden are campaigning together later this week. Do you think they're going to do that a lot in the coming months or do you think she's going to keep some distance?
BEDINGFIELD: Well, I believe him when he says that he'll do whatever she thinks is helpful. And so, I'm sure he will take his cues from her and from her campaign. He wants to do nothing but be helpful to her.
I think he has, as Scott, kind of referenced in his question to John. He certainly has a connection, particularly with White working class voters that other Democrats have struggled with over the last couple of decades. And so, that's a place where I think he can be really helpful.
I would imagine we would see him out. Imagine you'll see him speaking to Pennsylvania. You'll see him in Scranton, his hometown, is a place where he can help kind of put that bigger broader coalition together. I would imagine that they will use him strategically on that front.
John sort of touched on the question I had in his answer to Van, but part of the discussion over the course of this last 10 months has been about young voters, whether they can overcome some of this frustration that they have particularly around the Gaza issue.
I'm wondering if you see John, that these young voters see Vice President Harris as aligned with Joe Biden. Does she carry that burden, I guess, that Joe Biden has had with young voters over the Gaza issue, or do they see her as a clean slate? You sort of touched on this, but I'm wondering if you're seeing that in your conversations.
KING: I think we get a much better answer to that question when people return to campus in just a few weeks, which is why I think the vice president has a tremendous opportunity with the Democratic convention next week to try to tee this up.
There were two big reasons, young voters in my travels over the last year were just apathetic about Biden. They agree with him on the abortion issue, LGBTQ rights, the climate, and other things. They're mad, furious, angry about Palestine.
They think the president has green lighted a lot of Israeli conduct that they find reprehensible. But they also had no connection to him because of his age, no connection at all. The younger part, the vibrant part, seeing the vice president out there, her deciding to go on to TikTok, that has helped.
Is it enough? That's the question.
For the younger voters who have made the Israel-Hamas conflict, the cause, that's her challenge. How do you get enough of them back because, you know the numbers. And Arab American voters, but Michigan, Georgia, one of the reasons those states went Democratic are younger voters.
She's made progress, is it enough? Big question.
COOPER: Kate Bedingfield, Van Jones, thanks. Scott, stick around. John, thank you.
We mentioned Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Next, what all this looks like person-to-person on the ground. More from John as he goes "All Over The Map" with a look at how voters in those all-important Philadelphia suburbs are reacting to Vice President Harris' rise to the top of the ticket.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:32:38]
COOPER: Vice President Harris has been barnstorming through battleground states to try to reintroduce herself to voters since the ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket. That includes Pennsylvania, where John King went back there for a new installment of a series all over the map to speak with moderate Republicans and former Republican voters in the Philadelphia suburbs about where they now stand that President Biden has exited the race.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING (voice-over): Bucks County, Pennsylvania, this covered bridge, a local treasure. Michael Pesce often stops along the trail here to fish and to think. Not a great time to be a Reagan Republican. Pesce supported Nikki Haley, but won't vote for Donald Trump ever. And he sees Kamala Harris as more liberal than he would like.
MICHAEL PESCE, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: I have doubts about her. She's going to be tied to the Biden record regardless of what she says or what she does.
KING: Does it impact your calculation for what you do?
PESCE: No, doesn't change anything at all. I'm still not going to vote for Trump regardless. So, I'm not excited about voting for Kamala Harris, but it's better than the alternative.
KING (voice-over): Every vote counts, though, enthusiastic or not. Big margins in the suburbs that surround Philadelphia are critical for Democrats. Bucks is more blue collar, and of late, the most competitive of the collar counties.
KING: If I were here the day after the debate and I asked you, do you think Biden could win Pennsylvania? You would have said --
PESCE: No way. There would have been no way.
KING: Do you think Harris could win Pennsylvania?
PESCE: I think she can. I think she can. I think the energy she's brought to the campaign, the fact that she's a woman and women's rights are going to be a big deal here in Pennsylvania. And I think that's kind of where Pennsylvania will go.
KING (voice-over): Berks County is more rural and more Trumpy. Just outside the suburban collar, but margins matter everywhere in the battlegrounds. Joan London is an attorney for local governments.
JOAN LONDON, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Bloom Farm zoning permit status. We had a meeting this morning, a very productive meeting.
KING (voice-over): London cast a primary vote for Haley, then switched her registration to independent. She worries about Trump's coarse tone and what she sees as angry populism. A new worry since our last visit in May, Trump running mate, J.D. Vance.
No cats, but married and childless. Now, even more proud she left the GOP.
LONDON: I've led a very full life that way and to say I don't have a stake in the future of the country, I had some difficulty with that. And all I could think of Senator Vance, are you going to tell Ann Coulter or Condoleezza Rice or Elizabeth Dole that they're miserable cat ladies? I don't think so.
[20:35:06]
KING (voice-over): London plans to write in a conservative, but she leaves the Harris window open just a crack.
LONDON: If Donald Trump or J.D. Vance really says something so outrageously offensive, that could drive me to vote for Vice President Harris, but it's highly unlikely. She just doesn't -- she doesn't represent my values, my beliefs about policy.
KING (voice-over): Media is in Delaware County. Cynthia Sabatini knows a lot about the change here.
CYNTHIA SABATINI, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: My street was rock ribbed Republican. Now, you have to shake a stick to find a Republican.
KING (voice-over): Sabatini is also Never-Trump.
SABATINI: I watch his campaign rallies. It's all about him. It's not about the country.
KING (voice-over): This is now the third campaign in which these Never-Trump voters hold significant sway. In 2016, Sabatini wrote in a Republican senator, Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania. In 2020, she voted for Biden.
KING: Was that hard?
SABATINI: No, because I don't want to see Trump elected after the chaos of the prior four years.
KING (voice-over): Sabatini says she's read things that worry her about Harris, about immigration policy, and about being tough on her staff. Probably another write in this November. But the 2016 results? Still stings.
SABATINI: I'm trying to keep an open mind about Harris If the rap on her, as I read, is correct.
KING (voice-over): Bala Cynwyd is in Montgomery County.
CAROL CARTY, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: It was very Republican --
KING: And it's not anymore.
CARTY: -- when I was growing up and it's Democrat now. KING (voice-over): Carol Carty is an attorney, a registered Republican. She's angry that Trump constantly attacks courts and judges and election results.
CARTY: I am now turning on 80s songs to go back to the 80s. In my lifetime, the Republican Party has changed with Donald Trump.
KING (voice-over): Clinton 2016, Biden 2020. A Never-Trumper, she thought. But inflation and immigration soured her on Biden. And then she watched the June debate.
CARTY: When Biden was on the ticket, I was going to vote for Trump. But now it's a harder call. Just because I am not a fan of Donald Trump.
KING (voice-over): Nor now of Senator Vance.
CARTY: I'm not a cat lady, I was a childless dog lady. Because I didn't meet the right person until I was over 40 years old. So I could very well be one of those childless women. And I found the comment insensitive and narrow minded.
KING (voice-over): This is near Carty's summer home on Maryland's eastern shore. She says the conversations back home among her Philly suburban mom friends are crystal clear.
CARTY: Definitely, I have more friends saying that they're leaning towards Harris.
KING (voice-over): But she still has reservations and hopes a Harris- Trump debate helps.
CARTY: Tell me what you did exactly at your last job. And what are your goals for this job, if you get the job. And that's what I want to hear from Kamala Harris.
KING (voice-over): Scoring the campaign just like a job interview, in the suburbs that usually decide who gets hired.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: John, does the polling support what the voters told you?
KING (on-camera): Yes, the trend lines support Vice President Harris momentum in the suburbs and everywhere else. Let's just say, look at some of the numbers, and again, forgive me for turning my back. I want to stretch this out, though.
Comparison, New York Times battleground state polling in May. Biden and Trump essentially tied in the suburbs. New York Times/Siena College battleground polling right now, Harris up 11 points in the suburbs. So clearly momentum on her side. You notice it anecdotally when you visit, especially with Republican women who don't like Donald Trump.
And again, this is where the J.D. Vance comments in the past about a childless cat ladies and all that have hurt him. There's no question about it. The challenge, Anderson, is if you can win, if you come down here, Chester County is out here, then you come into Delaware County and Montgomery County and Bucks County. Those three, the last three are really the color counties right around Philadelphia, then Chester, then you go up to Berks, the suburban [ph] counties.
If you have good margins there and you win big in Philadelphia, you win Pennsylvania. And if you're doing well in those suburbs, you're probably doing well in the Detroit suburbs and the Milwaukee suburbs, the Atlanta suburbs and the Phoenix suburbs. The Vice President is making progress.
Enough yet? That's why we have weeks left to campaign, months left to campaign. But again, Trump's going to come after her on liberal and on crime. She needs to go after Trump on tolerance and on a plan, you know, to go forward on abortion rights and on the J.D. Vance comments. This is the struggle for the suburbs that will decide who wins.
COOPER: John King, thanks very much.
Next, breaking news on the X livestream with Donald Trump and Elon Musk that was supposed to be happening now. What Musk says is causing the holdup, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:43:37]
COOPER: Elon Musk seems to have just begun to start his livestream with the former president. There's been a delay and Musk just took his own network -- took to his own network with an explanation quoting from his post, "There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X working on shutting it down." DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service.
He went on to say, "Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later."
Now this is reminiscent of the glitches on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis own livestream with Musk to launch his failed presidential campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: It just keeps crashing huh?
ELON MUSK, CEO OF TESLA: Yes, I think we've got just a massive number of people online, so it's -- servers are straining somewhat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, sorry about that. We've got so many people here that I think we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Joining us now, CNN's Kristen Holmes covering the former president. So what's the campaign saying about all this? This thing was supposed to start, like, at the top of the hour, wasn't it?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, so we're 40 minutes in here, and the campaign is saying that Trump broke the internet. I'm going to show you a tweet here. This is obvious spin from Donald Trump's team. We can see a right-wing activist posting, let's -- time to break the internet. And then you see Chris LaCivita saying, Donald Trump did.
I do want to point out, you know, you noted what Elon Musk said there in the tweet, but then he went on to say that this was a giant server attack and that this shows how much opposition there is to even hearing Donald Trump speak.
[20:45:05]
The reason why this is interesting is given the fact that Elon Musk is a supporter of Donald Trump, he has endorsed him and now he has given him this massive platform to speak, essentially saying that people are against even having Donald Trump out there speaking, feeding into yet another conspiracy theory, which was one of the things that we were watching closely to see how this played out when it came to Donald Trump sitting down with Elon Musk.
Obviously, you have seen the way we've all seen Donald Trump really play into these various conservative far-right wing conspiracy theories of late reposting pictures that he says that the crowds at Harris's event were AI-generated, that there's really not those kind of crowds.
That was something we were watching closely to see and it seems like even we're starting off here, Elon Musk saying that part of this attack is because there's so much opposition to even hearing Donald Trump speak.
COOPER: How was the Trump team framing this conversation with Musk earlier today?
HOLMES: Well, one of the questions I asked Donald Trump at our press conference last week, when we were down at Mar-a-Lago and he took questions, was why he wasn't out on the campaign trail. And I posed that same question to his campaign senior advisers, and they said that they believed that this election was going to be decided by a small margin of voters.
And of those voters, a lot of them were low propensity voters, meaning people who don't usually turn out or first time voters who weren't going to get their news the traditional way. Meaning, they weren't going to necessarily sit and engage with politics in terms of watching a rally in a swing state.
But those same voters might tune into a podcast. They might tune into an MMA event, and they might tune into an interview with Elon Musk. So that's part of the strategy here. Obviously, it's untraditional. We'll see if it works as we get closer to November.
COOPER: Kristen Holmes, thanks so much. Back with us is Scott Jennings, also joining us is 2020 Biden-Harris senior campaign official Ashley Allison. Scott, Trump's co-campaign manager tried to put a positive spin on the situation saying that Trump broke the Internet. I mean, to Kristen's point, is that -- do you think this interview with Elon Musk is going for those people who may not normally vote, those low propensity voters just like having Hulk Hogan, you know, rip his shirt off at the convention, which I know was a high point for you.
Was reaching a different audience and having Dana White, you know, intro the president, the former president?
JENNINGS: Of course. I mean, I think there are obviously going to be people who follow Elon Musk that may not be as politically engaged as your average, you know, five out of five or four out of four voter.
I was just listening to the space. There's over a million people in this thing, according to what's on the phone here. And Trump was recounting at the beginning of the space, what it was like to be shot in the ear. And so maybe there are people who, you know, find it kind of intimate to hear directly from Trump about this and a platform that they're most comfortable in.
I mean, ultimately, this is about reaching people where they are. I expect Kamala Harris, by the way, to do things that are non- traditional communications devices as well. I don't know what it will be, but you just can't rely on the same old stuff anymore. You've got to do everything you can do. And obviously he's not coasting anymore.
He's in a dog fight now to try to win this election. And so he's now having a conversation with a massively influential and massively wealthy person who supports him in front of over a million people. You know, I'm going to give it a provisional good idea. We'll see what the content produces, but provisionally, I think it's wise to try to talk to as many folks as you can.
COOPER: Ashley, you know, Elon Musk is claiming there was some sort of cyberattack on the site that caused the technical problems. We have no evidence of that at this point. We obviously saw similar problems, technical problems, with the launch from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's presidential campaign.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, you know, God bless Elon Musk. You know, like, you could have figured out the issues that when your campaign has or your site has a surge that you need to expand capacity. I -- if he was actually just paying attention what it seems like Donald Trump has been doing to the Kamala Harris campaign, they would have realized that there are people who are engaging in this election in ways that they haven't engaged before.
Kamala Harris broke the internet when they had over 100,000 white women join Zoom. The only person who has -- actually, I just have to say this out of respect for the culture, the only person who has actually really broke the internet is Beyonce.
So, I know that Chris LaCivita is going to try and say that this is cause of the overwhelming influx of folks, but the difference between what Donald Trump is doing on X and what Kamala Harris was able to do spontaneously is that Donald Trump is going to a platform that already has tens of hundreds of millions of people who already engage in saying, come pay attention to me because I can't get you at my rally.
The difference is, since Joe Biden decided he wasn't going to run for the race, Kamala Harris had people who organized this organically and got some of the same numbers that Donald Trump is getting on a platform that is curated for them to show up. So, I don't think Donald is breaking the internet, but good try.
[20:50:14]
COOPER: Scott, do you think -- I mean, is Elon Musk somebody that the former president wants to be -- I mean, he clearly, he feels there's value in associating with him. I mean, despite, you know --
JENNINGS: Yes, I mean, super rich guys --
COOPER: Yes.
JENNINGS: Yes, super wealthy, super influential, has an audience that they're trying to cultivate in this kind of tech bro, you know, innovative space. Yes, I mean, of course. I mean, look, when you're Donald Trump, you know what range you sort of exist in with, you know, most voters.
What you got to ultimately do is change the composition of the electorate to give yourself a little bit more of an advantage. That's Trump's superpower is that he may actually be able to reach people. Maybe they're followers of Elon Musk, maybe they aren't, but he ultimately may be able to reach people who aren't politically engaged except but for someone like him.
So using the Musk platform and using him and getting the transference of his credibility to you with that kind of voter, I mean, it's a total no brainer. Now, what he says when he gets on there, we'll have to analyze after the fact. But just to reach people who may otherwise be unreachable? Yes, I mean, it's a worthwhile thing to do.
COOPER: Ashley, do you think this is a return to X for the former president?
ALLISON: If he thinks it will help him win, yes. You know, for so long, Donald Trump stayed on Truth Social because he wanted to build that platform. Remember, just a couple of months ago, we were talking about how much Truth Social was worth so that he could sell it, and that kind of fell flat.
But if Donald Trump thinks there's an audience for him on X, he will definitely be there. Same as the Vice President. I mean, I think --
COOPER: Yes.
ALLISON: -- the reason why Donald Trump actually came back to X was because of the virility and the viral moments that the Vice President had around brat and the coconut memes and he's like, I want to be over there, too. So, yes, I think he'll stay if he thinks it's by -- it makes his campaign more viable.
COOPER: Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, thanks so much.
Coming up more on crowds, crowd size and the former president and his love of crowd size.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:23]
COOPER: ?Earlier we told you about the former president's patently false claim that the Harris campaign manipulated photos of a Michigan rally to show an immense turnout. Quoting him now, "She AI'ed it." Just to underscore, she did not. I mean, it's just one more example of his long standing obsession with crowd size as the measure of a candidate and how he reacts when fantasy and reality collide.
Randi Kaye takes a look back.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I made a speech. I looked out. The field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people.
RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was Donald Trump in January 2017, boasting about what he believed was the size of his crowd on Inauguration Day. He falsely claimed that his crowd was the largest ever. His press secretary at the time shared the same untruth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe.
KAYE (voice-over): The National Park Service never provided an official crowd count, but aerial photos taken during Trump's inauguration and Barack Obama's show Obama's first inauguration attracted a larger crowd. Also, Donald Trump drew 570,000 riders on the metro system.
In 2009, during Obama's first inauguration, there were 1.1 million riders. Trump's fixation with crowd size is not new.
TRUMP: I've had the biggest crowds. They never say how big the crowds are.
The line was like 30 blocks long. It went all the way back to a highway.
We have 7,000 people outside trying to get in.
KAYE (voice-over): In 2015, Trump took issue with my AC 360 report about him speaking in South Carolina in a ballroom that was two-thirds empty. The ballroom had hundreds of empty seats.
Trump was furious when he called into CNN's morning show the very next day.
TRUMP: Your reporter in South Carolina, who is absolutely terrible. And the room was full, every seat was full.
KAYE (voice-over): Every seat was most definitely not full. Take a look at these pictures and video from the event. The Washington Post ran a story about our story with the headline, "Donald Trump says he didn't speak to a half-empty room. But he did."
The paper posted pictures of the half empty room and summed it up this way, "CNN's assessment appears to have been the correct one."
More recently, Trump bragged about the size of his crowd at the January 6th rally preceding the attack on the capitol.
TRUMP: The biggest crowd I've ever spoken. I've spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody's spoken to crowds bigger than me.
KAYE (voice-over): Trump went on to claim his crowd on January 6th was larger than the crowd for Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech in August, 1963.
TRUMP: If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech and you look at it, and you look at the picture of his crowd, my crowd, we actually had more people.
KAYE (voice-over): No, he did not. Trump drew about 53,000 people on January 6th while around 250,000 people showed up for Martin Luther King. At that same press conference, Trump also bristled when asked about Vice President Kamala Harris crowd sizes.
TRUMP: Oh, give me a break. Listen, I had 107,000 people in New Jersey. You didn't report it. I'm so glad you asked. What did she have yesterday, 2,000 people? If I ever had 2,000 people, you'd say my campaign is finished.
KAYE (voice-over): Harris's team says 14,000 people were at her rally in Philadelphia and 15,000 in Detroit.
GOV. TIM WALZ, VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not as if anybody cares about crowd sizes or anything, so.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (on-camera): And Anderson, it's not just crowd size, it's crowd style too. Remember Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide. Well, she testified before the January 6th committee under oath saying that team Trump would arrange for their crowds to be in long and narrow fashion to make for better picture taking. She also testified that on January 6th, when he gave his speech before the attack on the Capitol, the former president was very frustrated because the crowd was more spread out and there were obstructions in the way that made photographing the crowd very difficult. So here you have these very pivotal days, Anderson, and the concern is about the crowd. It's truly remarkable.
COOPER: Randi Kaye, thanks so much.
The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now. See you tomorrow.
