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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Trump Policy Speech Quickly Turns Personal; WaPo: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Tried To Meet With Kamala Harris To Discuss Cabinet Job; President Biden And Vice President Harris Set To Appear At First Joint Public Event Since Biden Left The Race; Trump And Allies Try To Paint Harris As A Liberal Extremist; Authorities Identify Suspect In Break- In At Trump Campaign Office. Aired: 8-9p ET

Aired August 14, 2024 - 20:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Leaving vulnerable young minds susceptible to recruitment in corners of the Internet beyond the reach of authorities and away from the eyes of family and friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABDELAZIZ: We have reached out to Abul Baraa for comment, but he has yet to respond.

Meanwhile, here in London, the city is preparing for five sold-out Taylor Swift concerts set to begin on Thursday night. Authorities have asked only ticket holders to make their way to Wembley Stadium. Fans will not be allowed to congregate outside the venue -- Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Salma, thank you very much from London tonight.

And thanks to all of you for being with us, AC360 starts now.

[20:00:38]

COOPER: Tonight on 360, after days of urging the former president tries to trade policy for personal attacks. How he did on stage and how he's doing in new polling from one key battleground state.

Also, breaking news, new reporting on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the outreach he made to the Harris campaign and what he wanted in exchange for endorsing her.

And later, my conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders, what the former Democratic presidential candidate has to say about the campaign and the current candidate should be running.

Good evening, thanks for joining us.

We begin tonight with the former president's speech on economics today in North Carolina. It came after days where Republicans all but begging him to drop the personal attacks on Vice President Harris and stick to policy. Today, he did, but only to the extent that he, Donald Trump could.

He spoke about inflation, insurance prices, credit card debt, and said that if he's elected incomes would soar, savings would grow, and homes would become affordable again. There weren't many specifics which in fairness can be said for many things, can they say. But to the degree, there was policy talk. A lot of it drifted quickly to trash talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Does anyone here feel richer under Kamala Harris and crooked Joe than you were during the Trump administration? Is anything less expensive under Kamala Harris and crooked Joe?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, barring the name-calling, it's a reasonable question for any candidate in any race to ask, are you better off now than you were four years ago? Just as it's reasonable to cast doubt on your opponents upcoming policy speech in this case, Harris' on Friday, except the former president did not leave it there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Think about that. When Kamala lays out her fake economic plan this week, probably will be a copy of my plan because basically that's what she does.

For nearly four years, Kamala has crackled as the American economy has burned. What happened to her laugh? I haven't heard that laugh in about a week. That's why they keep her off the stage. That's why she's disappeared. That's the laugh of a crazy person. I will tell you, if you haven't noticed, it's crazy. That's a laugh of a person with some big problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, new polling out today from Quinnipiac shows that the vice president is leading 48 to 45 percent among likely voters in Pennsylvania. That's outside the poll's margin of error. So it is a lead though, a slim one.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. gets four percent. Also out today, pulling from Monmouth, suggesting a sea change in how Democrats view their choice now, compared to before President Biden bowed out.

Take a look, 85 percent of Democrats now say they are enthusiastic about the Harris-Trump race that's up from just 46 percent back in June for the Biden-Trump match-up. Republican enthusiasm is unchanged at 71 percent.

Starting us off tonight, David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to president Obama, also, Ashley Etienne, former communications director for Vice President Harris, and Matt Mowers, who served as a senior adviser in the Trump administration. David, is there any way that the strategy to let Trump be Trump, will work in this election or does the Trump campaign really need to settle on a message?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's almost a rhetorical question, Anderson. Yes, they have to settle on a message and I think the message they tried to deliver on the teleprompter was probably close to where they want to be, which is to try and saddle the vice president with the president's record or the parts of the president's record that people don't like or appreciate.

But it always gets bogged down in Trump's own acting out, his characterizations of her as low intelligence or references that are gratuitous and nasty and have nothing to do with the central thesis of the speech. And this is a problem. He clearly is somebody who feels like he had a race in hand. The candidates changed at the top, now he's in a very, very close and pitch battled for this election. And he's resentful and maybe just a little bit unsettled by that.

And for that reason, he's not necessarily a great asset when he's out there on the stump. And I'm sure his team, which he has a very proficient professional team is trying to puzzle about how to keep him on message.

COOPER: Ashley, I mean, do you think it works? The former president calling Harris incompetent, socialist, lunatic. He called her communist, Marxist. I mean, does that work? It seems like a very old campaign playbook.

[20:05:02]

ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR VP HARRIS: Yes. I mean, it's very clear that the former president is unraveling. I mean, he's having a complete meltdown. I mean, Kamala Harris has got him in an incredible choke hold that's really driving him to the point of insanity and driving his campaign to the point of paralysis.

Here's two things that I can tell you. One, is you know, you underestimate Kamala Harris at your peril and Donald Trump is finding that out now.

Two, "The Wall Street Journal," I think put it best that, that the GOP have a candidate problem. They have a candidate problem in Donald Trump. To your point, earlier, Trump can't help himself, but to be Donald Trump and the more people see of him, the more they're turned off by him.

There's too many people as they put it that don't like Donald Trump. And he's got no path to growth. Actually he has -- he needs new customers and has no path to growth right now. So, that's why he's hitting a ceiling in the polls and all of this sort of is frustrating him. And the other thing I would add is, you know, he's totally having a meltdown because all of his attacks against Kamala Harris are being undermined by the facts.

You know, the economy is the strongest it's ever been, it's the envy of the world as "The Wall Street Journal" put it, you've got inflation down, border crossings down, crime is down. So Donald Trump, what we're seeing right now is having a complete and total meltdown with no path to growth and no strategy to get there.

COOPER: Matt, do you believe he's melting down?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SENIOR ADVISER: No, I don't think so. I think today's speech actually showed that he's kind of finally getting some traction and really a direction where to go. I mean, clearly, it's difficult to shift campaign strategies partway through an election. You are spending years and hundreds of millions of dollars running against one opponent, that opponent then changes.

But in a lot of ways the speech he gave today and the statistics he's bringing up, the economic vision he is putting out, are ones he could have been giving even against Joe Biden and part of that is because he's doing exactly what he needs to be doing, which is tying Kamala Harris to Joe Biden. He's there reminding the American voters that despite what Vice President Harris is trying to say, she has been living in Naval Observatory for the last four years. She's been working out of the White House, in the executive office building.

I mean, she has been part and parcel with all the things they don't like, despite, God bless Ashley for flying the flag, but the fact is that most Americans do not feel like the economy is working for them right now.

We saw unemployment tick up in the last labor Jobs Report. Most Americans still feel like they're stuck they're not going ahead. Wages are not keeping up with the increase in the cost of goods. And despite the fact that inflation may be leveling off a little bit, prices are still stubbornly high for most American families right now when they fill up the gas tank, when they go to the grocery store.

COOPER: Right.

MOWERS: Hence, it is affordability as much as inflation.

COOPER: David, Tim Walz has agreed to a vice presidential debate on CBS on October 1st, JD Vance was asked about it on Fox last hour. Let me play on what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JD VANCE (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES NOMINEE: Look, Laura, we're certainly going to debate Tim Walz. We just heard about this thing three hours ago, so we're going to talk to them and figure out when we can debate. I actually think we should do more than one debate. So, hopefully we're going to see him on October 1st, but hopefully we're going to see him either before or after that because I think it's important for the American people to actually see us discuss our views.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Does a campaign typically ask for multiple debates if they feel like they're ahead?

AXELROD: No, I mean, plainly and the example of that, of course, Anderson is Donald Trump in the primaries who completely refused to participate in a series of debates with his opponents because he thought he was in command of that race.

They understand that they're in a very tough race here and what is very unusual is a vice presidential candidate asking for multiple vice presidential debates, that has never happened in history. And I suspect there'll be there to debate on October 1st.

But you know, if I can comment on what Matt said, I mean, one of the challenges for the Trump campaign other than Trump himself and his inability to stay on a message and that gets sidetracked into kind of gratuitous personal attacks is they want to now ascribe everything that happened in the Biden administration to the vice president and it would be as if saying everything that happened in the Trump administration was because of Mike Pence or any other administration with a vice president.

I mean, they are jerry-rigging a strategy here. It's probably the best strategy they have but what's really happened is Donald Trump has become the embattled incumbent in this race and Kamala Harris has become the turn the page candidate. And that's what's so threatening because people -- Donald Trump's never exceeded 47 percent of the vote and there's no indication that he would do that here.

[20:10:04]

There are a lot of people who do not want to go back to Donald Trump and they found Biden wanting primarily because of his age and now there's a candidate who seems acceptable. If you just look at how the favorables have risen and sentiments have changed and that's very threatening to Trump.

And so, they will try what Matt suggests. It's, as I said, maybe the best strategy they have but it's a tough road to home.

COOPER: Ashley, to that point, how much do you think Vice President Harris should campaign with President Biden?

ETIENNE: Well, she's in this unprecedented position of being both the incumbent, as well as the challenger. She's got, and that's actually working to her advantage, she'll be able to claim aspects of the record that people really resonate with, that's infrastructure bill, guns, I mean, you know, the Biden-Harris record is incredible in terms of bipartisan success on some really entrenched issues.

But she will also be able to create some space and chart out her own vision about how she wants to build the economy in the direction in which she wants to take the nation and that's what she's going to do on Friday.

So I anticipate that she will spend some time with President Biden, but I think they are better and more effective if they are apart. There's parts of the country that absolutely adore and love President Biden and appreciate the president that he has been, the leadership taking us out of COVID, to building a record economy.

So, there's parts of the country where I think he'll play well, there's Biden parts of the country where he will do well and he'll go there and I just think that they are more effective if they're apart, but they will spend some time together.

I anticipate that Friday will feel more like the passing of the baton where she will acknowledge the legacy of the Biden-Harris administration, but start to lay out a vision, her own vision.

But having President Biden go into the parts of the country to really drill down on the arc of his legacy, I think will be helpful.

COOPER: Matt, do you think it's an issue for Republicans that, I mean, there does seem to be enthusiasm on the Democratic side right now. Far more than --

MOWERS: No, I mean, yes. Well, I think that some of this was going to be inevitable anyway, and you are going to see Democrats come home. After the debate in June, you certainly saw in polling that a number of Democrats across the country were dispirited. They may not want to acknowledge they were going to vote for Joe Biden, but chances are, they would have gotten there.

And by the way, unenthusiastic vote counts just as much as enthusiastic vote, at the end of the day. I think what you're seeing is just a natural tightening of the race, which is where we always thought it's going to be. I mean, if a year ago we all probably would have thought that we're going to look at a single digit net popular vote. We're probably going to see a very tight race in seven battleground states and that's really what we're seeing right now.

So, Democrats are coming home. That's really not much of a surprise. And we've got a close election, but ultimately it's going to come down to how voters feel about the direction of the country and to this point, they overwhelmingly say they disagree with it.

COOPER: Everyone stay right there. I want to get your take on some breaking news.

"The Washington Post" is reporting that just a few weeks after shopping his endorsement to the Trump campaign, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Tried to do something similar with the Harris campaign.

Later, President Biden's former chief-of-staff, Ron Klain joins us to talk about the race, the bad debate, and whether he still thinks President Biden should not have dropped out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:17:25]

COOPER: Some news just breaking tonight, which sounds remarkably familiar. It just went up in "The Washington Post" website. The story's headline reads: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to meet with Kamala Harris to discuss Cabinet job." The reason it sounds familiar is revealed in the subhead which reads in part, Kennedy has also had conversations with Republican nominee Donald Trump about a role in his administration.

Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey share a byline on the story. Michael Scherer joins us now.

So, talk to us about what you've learned about this outreach from the Kennedy campaign to the Harris campaign. Did they meet?

MICHAEL SCHERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": They did not meet the Harris campaign did get the message. It was sent out through intermediaries and has not responded really. There's no interest on the Harris side for this meeting, which is a big contrast to the conversation that started with Trump actually, hours after that assassination attempt last month.

They talked on the phone. Kennedy flew to Milwaukee, met with Trump on the sideline of the Republican Convention there. Kennedy right now finds himself saying he's in it to win it. He's in it for the long haul. He has campaign events planned, but actively seeking out alternatives, talking to both of these campaigns and trying to figure out if there is a way that he could broker support from himself before the election into some sort of a policy rule.

If he's not going to win the presidency and his polls have been falling through the summer, can he broker that in some way to get a role in the next administration to focus on the issues that he cares about.

COOPER: So, there was -- I think there had been reporting and it may have been your reporting that when he talked to Trump, was it a Cabinet level position he was wanting something regarding health?

SCHERER: Right, yes. Josh Dawsey and I reported that story as well. That conversation was sort of wide-ranging and amorphous. It was -- it started with just between the two candidates. He had talked about something focused on health issues and science. They had mentioned Cabinet position. There was concern within the Trump orbit about him getting confirmed by the Senate, what you need to do if he was a Cabinet-level official.

And there was also concern about whether they could trade an endorsement in some sort of explicit way for a promise of a position whether that would have legal complications.

Now, the conversation since with Trump, I think are ongoing and we also report in the story that Kennedy was down in West Palm Beach earlier this week. He won't comment about why he was there if he was there or whether he met with Trump, but we know from the Trump side, they think this is still an open conversation about whether they might get an endorsement from Kennedy going forward and Harris has made the calculation, Democrats and made the calculation that there's not really an upside right now.

[20:20:18] Although, I would note, I think it's important for yours to note that his polls have dropped recently just as Harris' polls have gone up, which suggests that if he gets out of the race, he is going to benefit Trump because the people still supporting him are the people who were already on the Trump side of the fence. So, there is some risk here of Harris not engaging.

The best thing probably for Harris right now would be for -- if the polls basically stay where they are is for Kennedy to stay in the race through the election and bleed off some of these Trump voters.

COOPER: Matt Scherer, it's fascinating. Thank you so much.

Back with the panel. David, I mean, what do you make of this reporting? Does it make sense for either Harris or Trump campaign to seriously entertain this outreach?

AXELROD: Yes, I think it makes sense for the Trump campaign to think about it. I mean, I'm not suggesting they should be trading offices for an endorsement for him to get out of the race and I do think that would raise a lot of questions,

But Michael is exactly right. What's happened since Harris has gotten in the race is the third party's candidates generally -- Jill Stein, Cornell West in particular, who are candidates of the left they've deflated, but so has Kennedy's support among Democrats deflated and what is left with is this sort of vaccine-resistant kind of conspiratorialists who are the core of his base, who would likely be Trump voters if they were not Kennedy voters.

So, it would certainly serve their purposes right at the moment that he's in the race. Earlier in the race the third parties were, I think a disadvantage to Biden, right now with Kennedy, I think he's a disadvantage to Trump, but I will say this, whatever they do, don't put him in charge of the National Park Service because I think a lot of bears would be really uncomfortable with him in charge over there.

COOPER: Matt, would you like to see Trump making a deal with Kennedy?

MOWERS: Yes. I don't think he should do a sort of horse trading and I doubt he would at the end of the day, anything that explicitly. I think Trump recognizes the fact that RFK would repel a number of voters as well if there's any sort of deal.

RFK's influence is not uniform across the country. I mean, he actually polls often better in some of the southwestern states, areas where you have many larger pockets to libertarians or folks who are less connected to the political establishment. So, his impact on the race does vary state to state.

But generally speaking, it's been impacting Trump more and that goes back to even the spring. Now, it was a larger impact when you had RFK getting upwards of 15 percent or so in some states. Certainly, his impact has dwindled precipitously since then, and I'd expect that actually goes down even further. You traditionally see third-party candidates poll significantly better than they actually perform on election day. A lot of voters who are kind of fed up with politics when they're answering the poll, but they actually show up to vote, they stick with one of the two major candidates. I would expect that's probably going to happen even if he does stick around the race.

COOPER: I mean, Ashley, even if she wanted to make a deal with Kennedy, it would seem hard for Kamala Harris to do that.

ETIENNE: Yes. I mean, but why would she do that, right? It's not in her interest to do that. I mean, not only is he an uneven campaign or he's got all these bizarre positions that don't align with her own and, you know, from a Democratic perspective, you want him to stay in the race because he draws voters from Donald Trump. So it makes perfect sense that they would not pick up the line on this one because why would they need it?

COOPER: David, there's a new Quinnipiac poll which finds that the number one issue among Pennsylvania Democrats by a wide margin is preserving democracy. Does that surprise you?

AXELROD: Yes, it does. You would expect the economy would be well up the list there. And I'm a little suspicious. I need to look at the cross tabs on this because what you find is that you have Republicans and Democrats both answering the question the same way, but they mean something entirely different.

So, I think fundamental and certainly abortion rights is going to be a big issue, particularly in those suburban areas around Philadelphia. But in a lot of that state, it's a working class state, a lot of non- college educated working class people.

And I think fundamental economic issues are going to play big there. And I think that's what you're going to see both candidates emphasizing. Certainly, that's what Kamala Harris seems to be emphasizing and I think that's right. So, yes, I'm surprised by that.

[20:25:12]

COOPER: Yes. I mean, that's you according to the same poll, I think the economy is number one issue with Pennsylvania voters. With the former president, do you think he would have been better served focusing in today's speech rather than just more on the economy rather than, you know, calling Kamala as crazy and talking about her laugh.

MOWERS: No. I mean, look, I think part of the reason he is probably bringing up her laugh is if you actually look at some focus groups, something that voters have actually occasionally do bring up. It's something that's just been drilled in their mind and whether it's through media or memes, or what have you, for some reason that is an attribute voters would occasionally bring up in focus groups. That's probably why Donald Trump brought it up.

But at the end of the day, the voters that he needs are going to be concerned about two big issues. It's going to be obviously how they're feeling about the economy. I think it's going to be larger attitude about how they're feeling about their overall wellbeing in the world.

When we see regional conflicts in the Mideast potentially growing into global conflicts, when we continue to see lack of progress in any sort of possible peace negotiation around what happens in Ukraine. There is a sense of uneasiness around the world right now that I think is also going to settle in for voters. And again, that's going to be ultimately, I believe the biggest challenge for Kamala Harris is trying to disassociate from some of that Biden National Security record as well.

COOPER: Matt Mowers, Ashley Etienne, thanks very much. David Axelrod is going to stick around.

With Harris' campaign on the move, and the convention coming up, I will talk to one to one of President Biden's closest advisers and his former chief-of-staff, Ron Klain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:30:30]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST OF 'ANDERSON COOPER 360': Tomorrow, President Biden and Vice President Harris will share a stage for the first time since he dropped out of the race more than three weeks ago. Joining me now is one of President Biden's longtime advisers, former White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, who helped him prepare for his first and only debate with Donald Trump.

Mr. Klain, appreciate you being with this. You did not want President Biden to drop out. You've said he deserved a second term. Given what you've seen in the three weeks since he did with the Harris-Walz campaign, where you wrong you think?

RON KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Well, I don't know if I was wrong or not, but the president made the decision to drop out and I think he executed extremely well. He handed the baton off clearly to Vice President Harris. One of my concerns was, if he dropped out, there were some people in our party who wanted to have an open process, an (inaudible) process to pick a nominee.

But I knew -- I thought that if he was going to drop out, the one thing to do was to give the baton clearly to the vice president. She is prepared to be president, uniquely among other Democrats and experienced a national campaigns, and the success she is had these three weeks proves that he made the right choice to endorse her and to point the party towards her, and to rally the party behind her. She's been a great candidate. She will be a great president. And I think there has been a lot of success these past three weeks on the campaign trail for her.

COOPER: When the president dropped out, you -- I think it was a tweet you send out, you publicly blamed what you call donors and elected, saying that they "pushed out" the president. They pushed out Biden from the campaign. Is that -- is that really the case? I mean, after that debate, certainly, there was huge dismay among Democratic voters, wasn't there? And certainly, just this latest poll that we just talked about at the top of the program with in terms of enthusiasm, it said 85 percent or something right now, as opposed to 46 percent in June.

KLAIN: Well, I read enthusiasm is up, there is a lot of rallying around the vice president. I'm so glad to see it. It's hard earned and well-deserved for her. But I do think the president was pushed by public calls from elected officials for him to drop out, from donors calling him to drop out. And I think that was wrong. I think he made the decision, ultimately, and he made the right decision to say if I'm going to leave the race, I think the vice president should take over and --

COOPER: Why was it wrong though, for them to do that? Why was it wrong for donors to raise objections to other elected officials?

KLAIN: I think that -- not wrong immoral, but I think it was unfortunate because I think that the president had won the nomination fair and square. 14 million people went and voted for him and the vice president as vice president. But again, that's all in the past, Anderson. He decided to drop out. He decided to endorse the vice president. Her campaign is going well. We have a better chance than ever to defeat Donald Trump this fall and to elect an experienced, talented, intelligent president to lead the country for the next four years.

COOPER: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who obviously played a key role in convincing and pressuring President Biden to step aside, has said that she hasn't spoken to the president since he dropped out and that she loses sleep over the fate of their friendship. She's also been quite blunt telling David Remnick of "The New Yorker," "I've never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was, this ain't happening and we have to make a decision for this to happen. They were not facing the fact of what was happening."

I'm wondering how you respond to that criticism and if you take issue with anything that Speaker Pelosi has said just in the past several weeks?

KLAIN: Well, I'm not looking for a fight with Speaker Pelosi. She has view and she's entitled to it. I will say about the president's political operation, it did win in 2020 and delivered the best midterm result for Democrats of any Democratic president since 1934. So that's a pretty good pedigree right there. I acknowledge that the president was at best tied and perhaps a bit behind in the race. And as he said, the party was divided about his future and the way to beat down Trump is to unite the Democratic Party, and he had lost the ability to do that. And he thought Vice President Harris is the right person to do that and he's been proven right in that regard.

She has united the party behind her forcefully and effectively, and that's what we need to win this fall.

COOPER: You had stepped down as the White House Chief of Staff, obviously back in 2023, you came back to oversee that the debate that the president had with Donald Trump.

[20:35:00] Was there -- I don't want to go over all of what happened, but I'm just wondering, there was a lot of talk in the run-up to that debate about the prep that the team you all put in place was doing. There was talk about an airplane hangar where you recreated the stage. I mean, the night of the debate, was there anybody raising any concern about the president that night, and his ability to -- was there any talk about having him not go out on that stage?

KLAIN: No, the president was suffering from a cold and he was tired from four trips back and forth across the Atlantic in the days leading up to the debate. But he had done well in the practices and we thought he was going to do very well that night, and he obviously did not perform well. And then there was --

COOPER: But even though -- like, even the way he walked out onto the stage and the way he looked in cutaways, look -- I mean, it was really a complete surprise to you?

KLAIN: I mean, the way he walked out on the stage is he walked out on the stage, and so I think that he -- we expected a better performance. He expected a better performance, it didn't happen. And then people reacted to that and so, I think that in the end, he made the right decision to hand the baton over to the vice president, and strongly and enthusiastically backed her candidacy. And it's been a very successful candidacy, as it should be. She is extremely experienced. She has been involved in national security decisions. She has represented our country at the Munich Security Conference twice. She's known by world leaders. She's well regarded on the world stage. And here at home, she has been fighting for freedom and economic justice for all Americans for these -- as a Senator, as a state attorney general, and now as vice president.

COOPER: Yeah. They're -- just finally, I mean, there have been a number of political observers wondering out loud if people in the president's inner circle had their judgment clouded by their desire to stay in power. New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman, wrote right after the debate, he said, "I had been ready to give Biden the benefit of doubt up to now because, during the times I engaged with him one- on-one, I found him up to the job. He clearly is not any longer. His family and his staff had to have known that." Is that fair? I mean --

KLAIN: No, I don't that's fair.

COOPER: Did they had to have known that?

KLAIN: First of all, I think he's absolutely up to the job. If you saw after the debate -- he had a bad night at the debate, I won't deny that. But after the debate, he gave an hour-long press conference. After the NATO Summit, where he talked about world events and some have called it one of the best foreign policy press conferences any president has ever given. He navigated that NATO Summit and rallied NATO behind the Ukraine Declaration to support Ukraine, continue to support for Ukraine, and then explained his policies about China and Europe, I think, very effectively in that press conference.

So I think he's clearly up to the job. He brought home a number of American hostages since then. So, I just think that Mr. Friedman is wrong about that. I don't deny that it was a bad debate performance, that's different than whether or not the president is up to the job. He's clearly up to the job. He's doing it every day. He's doing it successfully.

COOPER: Ron Klain, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

KLAIN: Thanks. Anderson.

COOPER: Back with me now is David Axelrod who served as Senior Adviser to President Obama. David, what do you make what Ron was saying?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, look, I know Ron well. We worked together in the White House. I was involved in a lot of debate preps with him and he's excellent at what he does. I do think that there was -- and you could see in his own comments, a tremendous sense of loyalty among the group around the president, and I don't -- I'm not going to criticize them for that.

But the truth of the matter is what happened in that debate was that long-standing concerns that people had had, that grew over time about the president's performance in public just broke open a dam, and it wasn't public officials who drove the president from the race. It was public opinion. And you can see now that 80 percent, 90 percent of Democrats say he made the right decision and a like number say they are happy that Kamala Harris is the candidate.

He is right by the way that the president's decision to quickly embrace the vice president as his successor, as a candidate, helped her enormously.

COOPER: Yeah.

AXELROD: And it helped her consolidate very quickly. So, he's right about all that. But, let's be honest, the president made a very tough decision and it was the right decision, and the result is we now have a very competitive race for president and we wouldn't have had he not that decision.

COOPER: It is interesting. I mean, had the president not immediately, you know, sort of indicated that the baton should go to the vice president, there had been all that talk among donors and others and publicly, and a lot of hand wringing of, should there be some sort of three or four sort of prominent people who suddenly get elevated, who then go on some sort of barnstorming tour, doing town halls.

[20:40:00]

I mean --

AXELROD: Yeah.

COOPER: It was never very clear of how all that would work.

AXELROD: No. I was proposing debates on AC360 over a series of nights and then the audience could vote -- COOPER: I appreciate that.

AXELROD: -- on that. But I was, yes. Yeah, but look, I think that regardless of whether there had been such a process and you can see there's a lot of talent in the Democratic Party, a number of those candidates were in contention for vice president. But regardless of that, I think she was always the front runner. I think had she participated in a process or not, she likely would have been the nominee. But the rapidity, the speed with which she consolidated this nomination, I think was part of why she's had such momentum because it was very efficient. It was very professional, and I think it said something about her as a leader.

COOPER: David Axelrod, thanks so much. Quick programming note, just ahead on "The Source," Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joins Kaitlan Collins to talk about the 2024 race. Plus, with abortion rights on the ballot in Arizona, the former vice president contender is going to also discuss the possible election impact for Democrats there in terms of turnout. That's "The Source" about 20 minutes from now.

Still ahead for us, the former president and his allies doubling down on attacking Vice President Harris as a radical liberal and repeatedly comparing her to Senator Bernie Sanders.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was to the left of Bernie Sanders.

CHARLIE KIRK, AMERICAN POLITICAL ACTIVIST AND HOST OF "THE CHARLIE KIRK SHOW": She ranked and scored (ph) the left of Bernie Sanders.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She is considered more left-wing than crazy Bernie Sanders, look at her. She's worse than Bernie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, up next, I'll speak with Senator Bernie Sanders.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:45:57]

COOPER: As Vice President Harris appears to have momentum in the polls, the former president has tried to paint her as a liberal extremist, often comparing Harris and her running mate to former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, suggesting their policies are even further left.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As she gives off this California, San Francisco vibe, he has this sort of Bernie Sanders in hunting gear vibe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She was trying to position herself to the left of Bernie Sanders. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She was to the left of Bernie Sanders.

KIRK: She ranked and scored the left of Bernie Sanders.

TRUMP: She is considered more left-wing than crazy Bernie Sanders. Look at her. She's worse than Bernie. She made Bernie Sanders look like a moderate.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because she is an extremist, further to the left than Bernie Sanders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Joining me now, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. I don't know if they sent out a memo and everybody is just like reading off this memo, but --

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I-VT): Guess so. I guess so.

COOPER: Yeah. Just like -- to me, this is like when Woody Allen had Marshall McLuhan in the line in any hall and said I happened to have Marshall McLuhan right here. So here is Senator Sanders. Do you take that as a badge of honor? I mean, is that a fair comparison in your view?

(LAUGH)

SANDERS: Look, Kamala Harris is a, I would say, a very strong mainstream Democrat. She has been -- she has her views on this or that issue. But if anyone is worried that she is more to the left than Bernie Sanders, I think it's not quite accurate.

COOPER: Harris has clearly --

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: -- for worse.

(LAUGH)

COOPER: Right, yeah. Harris has clearly reversed herself though on a number of more progressive policy positions that she held when she ran in the primary -- for the Democratic primary in the 2020 election. Do you think she's at risk of losing some of the core progressive base because of it?

SANDERS: No.

COOPER: Does that raise concern for you?

SANDERS: This is the most -- this is the most consequential election in her lifetime. She is running against somebody who is not only a pathological liar, I hear he is a very dangerous guy. You are familiar with the reality that just the other day he announced that the 10,000 or 15,000 people who came out to the vice president's rally in Michigan, they really weren't there. It was just artificial intelligence.

I mean, you're in a crazy world here. And I think every progressive in America understands that we've got to do everything we can to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. And it's not only he is lying, he denies women the right to control their own bodies. He thinks climate change is a hoax, et cetera, et cetera. So I think the choice is incredibly clear. And I think progressives from one end of this country to the other are going to do everything we can to elect the vice president.

COOPER: You obviously endorsed Harris when you and I spoke before, you had endorsed her. You had said you wanted to make sure that she would represent and fight for all the working-class issues that you have devoted your life to. Clearly, you feel she has met that bar. You've endorsed her. I'm wondering what you make of the campaign that she and Governor Walz are running?

SANDERS: Well, look, she has come -- I mean, you've got to have enormous respect for the fact that just in the last few weeks, she has put together a campaign. She's been in many parts of the country, brought out huge and enthusiastic crowd. She's raising money, the polling is good. She selected, I think, a very good vice presidential candidate. All of that speaks a whole lot to her leadership and she deserves a lot of credit for that.

The point that I have made is that I happen to believe when at a time when so many of our people in this country are struggling, when you've got 60 percent of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, when we have massive income and wealth inequality, when we have half of our elderly people living on $30,000 or less, I think not only is it the right thing to start talking about issues that are of concern to working-class people, it is really good politics.

[20:50:00]

I did a poll last week, our campaign did a poll and what it showed is that overwhelming majority of Democrats, independents, Republicans, for example, believed that we should expand social security benefits by lifting the cap on taxable income, which is now I think at $168,000. You do that, you can raise incomes for low-income seniors in a very significant way. Overwhelming majority of the American people think we should not pay more for prescription drugs in this country than people around the world, which means lowering prescription drug costs by 50 percent.

Can we do that? We really can do that. We could expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, and vision. We should have a tax system which finally asks the billionaires to start paying their fair share of taxes. Despite what Donald Trump may think, these are not radical left ideas. This is what the overwhelming majority of the American people believe is good policy, including a majority of Republicans.

COOPER: "The Washington Post" is reporting tonight that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attempted to reach out to Vice President Harris to meet about a possible endorsement, just as he met with Donald Trump about a possible endorsement. Would you see any reason why Harris should do that? SANDERS: They got to figure that stuff out. I have not paid a whole lot of attention to the Kennedy campaign. They will make their own decision on that.

COOPER: There are likely going to be large demonstrations by pro- Palestinian groups opposed to the war against Hamas at the Democratic Convention. The Biden Administration has got a lot of pushback, obviously, from progressive voters on the issue of Gaza and U.S. support for Israel.

SANDERS: Yep.

COOPER: Do you think that, that animosity -- I don't know if animosity is the right word -- but that concern, do you think that has crossed over to Vice President Harris? How much of an issue is this going to be for her campaign moving forward?

SANDERS: Well, look, in this (ph), let me be very honest with you. I have believed that -- I believe that the Biden Administration has been probably the most progressive administration in the United States since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Biden said he wanted to be -- he wanted to do that and I think he has kept his word. And Kamala Harris has been by his side. So on domestic issues, they have a whole lot to be proud of.

But I think the president has been wrong in terms of his support for Netanyahu. I happen to agree with the International Criminal Court that what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza, the massive killings, the destruction of the healthcare system, the destruction of housing, the bombing of every university, and now creating a situation where tens of thousands of children face starvation. The United States, in my view, should not be providing another nickel to Netanyahu and his war machine. That's my view.

President Biden disagrees with that. Do I think that will have an impact among young people, among some progressives? I do. But at the end of the day, I think most progressives will say he is wrong, the president is wrong on Gaza. But the alternative is Donald Trump and that is not an acceptable alternative. So, we've got to keep pushing the administration to change its views regarding funding for the Israeli war machine. But we have got to defeat Donald Trump and elect Kamala Harris.

COOPER: Senator Sanders, appreciate your time.

SANDERS: Thank you very much.

COOPER: New developments in the break-in at one of the former president's campaign offices, who police are looking for and the help (ph) they said they need to find him. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:57:38]

COOPER: Law enforcement authorities in Northern Virginia have released this picture of the individual they believe broke into the former president's campaign office in Virginia Sunday night. He is 39-years- old. Toby Shane Kessler is his name. Authorities say that Kessler has a history of criminal behavior and no fixed address. For more on all this, we are joined by our Senior Justice Correspondent, Evan Perez. So, what more do we know about this person?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, one of the key mysteries here is what he did in that office. He appeared to have gained access through a backdoor and what they don't know is what was the reason why he was there. They don't believe he took anything. They also said one of the big concerns for the investigators was to see whether he left anything behind, perhaps a bug or something like that.

Nothing like that was found in their search. And so now, they're trying to put a request out for law enforcement in this region to try to find him. They say he has no fixed address. He has a California driver's license and has, as you said, a criminal history, low-level criminal history from that state, Anderson.

COOPER: And I mean, is there any evidence this was politically motivated?

PEREZ: Yeah. You know, at this point, they have no indication that this is at all politically motivated or that he has any connection with any of the things including, of course, these threats from Iran that we've been talking about in the last few days, Anderson. And so, from the perspective of law enforcement, it appears this is somebody who because he doesn't have a fixed address, perhaps just happened into this strip mall, this shopping center in Loudoun County, which is by the way, not only a Trump campaign office, but also a local Republican office. And it appears that this is something completely unconnected to politics. So from now -- for now, at least, the request is for law enforcement to try to find him in case he does something else.

COOPER: It also seems unconnected to any form of actual intelligence because I mean, he's not even attempting to hide his identity. And clearly, there were cameras all over that place. Are they -- are authorities concerned about him committing more crimes?

PEREZ: Yeah. Look, I mean, this is somebody -- from what we can tell, he is not a very sophisticated person when it comes to trying to commit alleged crimes, right? I mean, if you look at his criminal history, this is something that is more like retail crime back in California. So as you've pointed out, Anderson, no attempt to try to hide his identity, no one who would be trained would be doing these types of activity.