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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Hours Away From High-Stakes Debate Between Harris & Trump. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired September 10, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:05]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The federation apparently says the scores from the Olympics and Olympic qualifiers do not contribute to the ranking list. She apologized for her performance. I say she has nothing to apologize about.
We've been practicing these moves. They require immense flexibility. They're not easy to do.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: They're -- actually, I thought they would be easier than they are.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
KEILAR: But they're not.
SANCHEZ: She's like that one, where she's like doing --
KEILAR: I can only do the arm part.
SANCHEZ: Doing that.
KEILAR: I'm just not flexible enough.
All right. We got the kangaroo.
SANCHEZ: We should make that like a silhouette. That's the one like that.
KEILAR: THE LEAD WITH JKAKE TAPPER starts right now.
(MUSIC)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to THE LEAD, live from Philadelphia, the site of tonight's presidential debate. I'm Jake Tapper.
The big moment is just a few hours away. We just got some video of tonight stage setup. Vice President Kamala Harris will take the podium. That is screen, right. And former President Donald Trump will be screen left.
Not only will this be the first debate between these two presidential nominees, it will be the very first time that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have ever met face-to-face. You might remember Donald Trump boycotted the inaugural in 2021.
Today, CNN is learning that Vice President Harris has spoken multiple times now with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee eight years ago who thrice debated Trump in 2016, Clinton advised Harris, we're told, to bait Trump into self- destruction this evening, creating what Clinton calls low moments for Donald Trump's such as in her view, this exchange over Russia and Putin from 2016.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Putin, from everything I see, has no respect for this person.
HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: For Trump, sources tell CNN allies are cautioning him, do not take the bait and they are advising him to not to respond if Kamala Harris tries to get under his skin.
We're going to into all of this. We're going to speak with two people who ran communications for Harris and for Trump. In addition, we're going to talk to the mayor of this great city, Cherelle Parker is here. She's pushing hard for Harris in this part of must-win Pennsylvania where Kamala Harris must rack up huge margins in order to make up for the expected Trump turnout in less populous, more rural parts of the commonwealth.
Also, this hour, a big interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson. I'll ask him what he expects tonight. And we'll talk about much more.
Let's kick things off with the panel.
And, Erin, let me ask you, advisers are cautioning Mr. Trump, don't take the bait, stick to policy, stick to the issues. That's easier said than done.
ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: It's always easier said than done when it comes to politics. But this is an opportunity for Kamala Harris to try and define herself. But because that a vacuum exists, it's also Trump's opportunity to do the same as well.
People know what they're going to get with Donald Trump. There aren't questions or confusion about his policy or his positions. So he has a bit more of an upper hand here and he should be held to high expectations for this evening.
She should as well. She's the vice president of the United States and a former prosecutor. This woman will do very well on this debate stage tonight.
But for Donald Trump to be able to stand there not only to litigate what he's done, but to try to pull her into far left conversations and make her look like she is the extreme radical, that's the opportunity has tonight, if he doesn't get into the personality attached, and stays policy focused.
TAPPER: Jamal, the vice president, Vice President Harris and the campaign, the Harris-Walz campaign, made a big issue out of wanting the microphones to not be muted. They were muted in the last debate. They're going to be muted tonight despite the Harris campaign protesting. Why? Why did they want the microphones to not be muted?
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So I think they believed that the microphones weren't muted, people would hear Donald Trump sigh and hear him make asides from the other side of the stage. I think there's another reason why they did it, too.
They like trolling Donald Trump. And every day as you keep Donald Trump focused on some minute issue like this, the day he's not listening to his advisers about how he should be trying to win this race. I think that's a big chunk of what it is his campaign is doing every day.
I think what you see from the vice president today is from what I'm hearing. So it's going to go out and tell or story. Of course, you hold Donald Trump accountable when he says things that aren't true, she'll tell the story about why he's not the right choice. But they're more interested in telling the story about why she is the right choice what she wants to do, how she wants to lead the country.
They know they've got a little bit of a gap to fill to get through that. And I think you'll see some of that tonight.
TAPPER: So, Jasmine, we're told hold that Kamala Harris has sought the advice of not only Joe Biden, her boss, and the man who debated Trump in 2020 but Hillary Clinton, who debated him three times.
[16:05:04]
She did lose. I mean, she did ultimately not win the election.
JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS POLITICS REPORTER: Sure.
TAPPER: What kind of advice does Hillary Clinton have that could be useful?
WRIGHT: Well, I think she has incredibly important advice because she is the only woman to have done this before, to have only -- did the showdown, face down with the former president.
And so, her advice with the vice president is really invaluable. It's actually something that she's been doing over the course of Harris's vice presidency. She is often called her to ask things Hillary Clinton has called the vice president, talk about things.
But, of course, in this debate I think what Harris has been practicing from the folks I've talked to is trying to confront Donald Trump, not necessarily get tit for tat for him, but goad him into attacking her, into showing the country who the campaign believes that she is, that he is, and that is something that the -- that Hillary Clinton was able to do in the past and something that Kamala Harris is going to try to do again on the debate stage.
TAPPER: So, Manu, according to CNN -- go ahead.
SIMMONS: One thing I just on this point, I think Trump has to be careful on this point because one thing about attacking Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton had 20 years of people not being very favorable about her. So she didn't have the same kind of goodwill.
Kamala Harris is a newer figure on the scene. She doesn't have the same built-in negatives Clinton did. I think him treating Kamala Harris the way he treated him like Hillary Clinton, would blow back on Donald Trump a lot tougher.
TAPPER: So let's talk about the fact that Kamala Harris is not as well-known as Hillary Clinton because, Manu, CNN's latest poll shows an average of 15 percent of likely voters in six key battleground states are still undecided.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.
TAPPER: So that's -- that's a big pool of people who know Donald Trump pretty well.
RAJU: Yeah.
TAPPER: And still don't know what they're doing. They're waiting for Kamala Harris to give them a reason to vote for her or against her.
RAJU: Yeah, and even in that "New York Times"/Siena poll from over the weekend, roughly 30 percent of voters nationally still don't know exactly what she would do if she were president. The views about Donald Trump are largely baked in, which is why this is such a key moment for her.
It will be interesting, too, Jake, is how much does she represent a change from Joe Biden? That will be one of the -- I'm sure one of the questions that will ultimately come up, what would she do policy-wise? Of course, she's a different candidate. She brings her own historic nature to her candidacy.
But that same poll from "New York Times" over the weekend, 60 percent of voters want a major change from Joe Biden. And what is -- how does she balance that? She doesn't want to distance herself too much? It was president, of course, but she has represents some level of change, convince those voters who are Kamala curious to come her way. She's got the base in line, but those undecided voters was soldiers were skeptical of Trump, still an open question.
TAPPER: She has a -- she has a challenge as she needs to. She's trying to present herself as more centrist. Than some of the positions she took, for instance, in 2019, when she was pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination, usually what happens is people run to the left or the right during their party's process, get the nomination and then run back towards the center. She didn't really have a chance to do that, right?
PERRINE: Right. She hasn't. Neither of them really had much of a primary and I say that because for Donald Trump, he didn't get very involved in Republican primary process. He's stayed out of it.
The same with Kamala. There wasn't a Democratic primary process. So for both of them --
TAPPER: Well, there was one, it's just that she wasn't.
PERRINE: It was just Joe Biden instead, right? Democrats made their choice. It just wasn't Kamala originally.
But if you look at that, both of them normally would get those kind of policy evolutions and jitters kind of out already, but neither of them really had that opportunity to do that. But for Harris here, really the big thing is going to be to Manu's point, this is like the toughest night of her professional career, because what she is looking at is, wow, okay. I've got to keep the Democratic coalition. I just got back together, held.
But if they believe I'm too close to Joe Biden's foreign policies. I could see that pro-Palestinian break again in the voting box, especially in a state like Michigan, that could be a big problem for her, but then she's got to be your own percentage. She can't walk too far away from the Biden-Harris administration because if she does that, she's still the serving vice president of the United States.
TAPPER: It sounds like America Ferrera in that speech in the Barbie movie about how tough, how tough it is woman.
The bigger issue here in Pennsylvania is Kamala Harris saying she opposed fracking. Now, she says that she's not going to do anything to stop fracking. She hasn't really given a full detailed explanation the way that's, you know, like a Shapiro -- Governor Shapiro might do, which is fracking as part of what we need to do in order to get away from fossil fuels, go to natural gas, blah, blah, blah, blah. But she hasn't really done that.
SIMMONS: Yeah, she gave an answer in that interview with Dana Bash week or so ago. That was it kind of meandered a little bit, but then it landed exactly where I think she wanted it to be and where it should be, which is --
TAPPER: Yeah, but the explanation is what I'm talking about.
SIMMONS: Yeah, the explanation which was I've seen that we can grow a green energy economy and it's not ban fracking.
TAPPER: Yeah.
SIMMONS: That's really the answer. So she could do both -- that we could do both.
TAPPER: But she hasn't yet is what I'm saying.
SIMMONS: But that's what she said in the interview with Dana.
TAPPER: I know, but she didn't give the full detailed explanation of like I've learned as vice president.
RAJU: And that's a risk for her not doing all these interviews, right?
TAPPER: Yeah.
RAJU: She could have batted this one earlier if she does sit down for more interviews.
TAPER: Stick around. We're going to talk a lot more with you guys, don't go anywhere.
Just hours before tonight's debate, Trump is making specific demands of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
[16:10:04]
He wants them to help shut the government down unless he gets what he wants and the House Speaker is here. I'm going to ask him if he's listening to this new Trump demand and we're going to talk to him about his take on tonight's debate.
Much more from Philly here on THE LEAD, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: We're back here live in Philadelphia.
There's so much to discuss today, both in terms of the House being back in session, but also this huge debate this evening. One topic we anticipate that Donald Trump will bring up is the controversial and deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Abbey Gate bombing, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed.
And with me now to discuss all of this is the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
Mr. Speaker, thank you so much for joining us.
So you were part of a congressional gold medal ceremony today that posthumously honored the 13 American service members killed in the Kabul airport bombing during the Afghanistan withdrawal. You met with some of the Gold Star families.
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What were their emotions like today?
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: It was a day of high emotion for all of us, for the members of Congress, the Senate and the House, who are participated in the ceremony.
The gold medal, as you know, the congressional gold medal is the highest honor that we can give to any group or individual. And it was right to bestow upon these families. Thirteen service members, as was noted many times today, they were brothers and sisters and fathers. They were -- they were the best of America and they gave their lives in Afghanistan. And it didn't have to happen. That's the great tragedy of the whole thing.
The most objective analysis of the withdrawal from Afghanistan I've seen faults both the Trump administration and the Biden administration for the disastrous withdrawal the Trump administration part being for the Doha agreement.
What H.R. McMaster called a surrender to the Taliban, McMaster being Trump's second national security adviser.
In fact, before the Abbey Gate disaster back in 2021, Mr. Trump bragged about how he was responsible for the war ending and for the deadline. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I started the process. All the troops are coming back to them. They couldn't stop the process. Twenty-one years is enough, don't we think? Twenty-one years. They couldn't stop the process. They wanted to, but it was very tough to stop the process.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Do you hold the Trump administration responsible at all for the way the U.S. got out of that war?
JOHNSON: Absolutely not. And what I would like to do is commend to your audience the reading of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's extensive report. It was published and released publicly today. They've looked into this for over three years. The first year of the Democrats stalled the investigation, but it's an alarming set of facts and it is objective facts that are proven by testimony and the extensive investigation.
What it shows is the Doha agreement was a conditional agreement. Certainly, President Trump made that a priority to try to end the conflict in Afghanistan. But the conditions of that were not met. And so, obviously, he did not go through with the withdrawal.
President Biden did. And what we know from the investigation and what the facts that have come out show clearly is that this was an abject failure. It was a total catastrophe in the way that it was handled. They were concerned much more about the optics than they were the safety of our service members.
And that's why people died and that's why hundreds of Americans were left behind. That's why $17 billion in military equipment was left in the hands of the Taliban. That's why the Taliban took over.
By the way, President Biden and Kamala Harris insisted that no one projected that Afghanistan would fall if we pulled the troops out. Now, we know that that was not true. There was a number of intelligence officials and top military officials from the Department of Defense who said exactly the opposite. They had no emergency withdrawal plan, Jake. They had never more than a day supply of food and water at the airport there. It was a total failure from top to bottom and brave servicemen and women died because of that.
And I'll point out today, we read the names of those 13 service members who lost their lives. Their families so that was such a relief to them. We apologize to them.
To this day, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not said the names of those service members. In fact, Joe Biden said on the debate stage in June that we hadn't lost any service members on his watch. I guess he forgot about them.
TAPPER: What do you say to those who say that this report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- and we had Chairman McCaul on the show yesterday to discuss the report. But what do you say to those who look at this report and say that given that the interim report in 2022 only mentioned Vice President Kamala Harris twice, and this latest report released yesterday mentioned her more than 280 times, that that makes it look more political?
JOHNSON: Well, Jake, I think what the report reflects is Kamala Harris his own admission. She bragged until recently that she was the last person in the room with Joe Biden before he made all these fateful decisions, she tied herself to all those decisions and she is the co- sponsor and co-owner of the results. That's her own testimony. That's her own words. That's what she wanted the American people to believe.
And so they went back to properly annotate that and noted in the report, that's what the investigation showed and Congress has an obligation to put the facts out there and let the American people decide.
I think the decision on this one is not difficult. I think people understand what's happened.
By the way, they have subjected over 20 million Afghanistan women to horrible humans rights abuses because they're now at the mercy, at the -- at the peril of the Taliban. This never had to happen. They erased 20 years of progress that we had made there. We've had thousands of American troops serve in that theater and we lost almost 2,500 servicemen and women.
All that was erased by this catastrophic foreign policy disaster, and I think it's one of the worst in American history. And I think that's what the history will show. And I think that's what the facts show.
[16:20:02]
TAPPER: Well, I'm not defending Biden or Harris or the withdrawal. I'm just noting that the Doha agreement and the release, for example, a 5,000 Taliban prisoners and the motion of this agreement to withdraw all U.S. troops was started by President Trump.
So, are you saying that Donald Trump would not have withdrawn U.S. troops even though he was in that clip we just played taking credit for it in the summer of 2021? Are you saying that the U.S. should still have troops in Afghanistan right now?
JOHNSON: No, no one can go back in history and it would be total conjecture on our part to determine where we would be right now, if none of this had happened. It is true, obviously, that President Trump wanted to get us out of Afghanistan, but he was a wise and judicious leader on that front.
He had a foreign policy that made sense. He would never have abandoned our troops to be killed there at the airport. He would have had a plan to get out.
And when the conditions were not met, he decided not to withdraw. That is a fact that no one can change. Biden did, and he did it haphazardly and people died because of it. And an untold number of people are suffering because of that decision even today.
Those 13 service members who passed, their families, as they said, in their own words today, and that moving ceremony in the Rotonda, they'll have to live with that every day of their lives. We all do. We mourn their loss and it never had to happen. And America owes them a great debt of gratitude.
And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris owe them and apology.
TAPPER: I want to turn to government funding because this afternoon, former President Trump posted on Truth Social, quote: If Republicans in the House and Senate don't get absolute assurances on election security, they should, in no way shape, or form go forward with a continuing resolution on the budget. The Democrats are trying to stuff voter registrations with illegal aliens, don't let it happen. Close it down, unquote.
Your colleague in the Senate, your counterpart, Minority Leader Republican Mitch McConnell, is pushing back against Donald Trumps demand that House Republicans shoot down this continuing resolution to fund the government, which you've spent a lot of time trying to get passed. McConnell says shutting down the government is always a bad time.
Who do you side with when it comes to passing the continuing resolution to continue to keep the gun government open, Mitch McConnell or Donald Trump?
JOHNSON: I don't think they're saying different things, Jake. I think President Trump is saying exactly what I have been saying and that is we need assurances on election security and to fund the government. We should get those assurances, and here's why. The American people believe at a rate of 87 percent, that's what the last poll says, that only U.S. citizens should decide U.S. elections. That is federal law right now, but it is not been abided by, because we don't have any proof of citizenship required.
That's all the Save Act does. That's why we attached it to the continuing resolution to fund the government. Every Democrat in Congress here is suggesting right now that they would oppose that. There's no reason to oppose it. We should do a resolution to fund the government. Everybody agrees
with that, and they should all agree that we need a free and fair election, but we can't guarantee that unless we get the Save Act passed. That is what's going to prevent these hijinks of non-citizens voting. It is a real issue.
We have a number of states who have done audits of their voter rolls and found thousands of non-citizens on their voter rolls. And it's in some of the swing states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, states that could determine the outcome of the election. It certainly could determine congressional races. Some of these races in modern times, you know, Jake, you and I've talked about this. We had a colleague who won her first race in 2020 by six this votes, we have routinely have members who win a seat in Congress by 200 or 300 votes.
So if you just have a small percentage of the 10 million plus, I think the number is 16 million illegal aliens who have come across the border since Biden-Harris open that border wide, if just a small percentage, participate, we have, serious chaos in the election.
So this is a simple matter that should be done in a bipartisan manner, but the Democrats here don't want to do it. In fact, 198 House Democrats already voted against the Save Act and they have no explanation as to why.
TAPPER: Well, I think they think that it's already against the law for undocumented immigrants, for noncitizens to vote and they think that this is creating an election issue where, there really is not any evidence of widespread undocumented immigrants voting.
But let me turn to this last --
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Well, wait, Jake, look, let me just wanted to thoughts on this.
TAPPER: Okay.
JOHNSON: Look, I was just going to -- I'm just going to say this, it is illegal for underage persons to buy alcohol, right? But we don't let him come to the liquor store and check a box and say, I'm over 21. We asked for identification. We require ID for all sorts of transactions in society. Voting is a sacred thing. Why would we not require proof of citizenship?
It doesn't matter that you have a statute that says it's illegal for noncitizens to vote.
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If you're not enforcing it, it has no import. And that's all were saying. This is common sense. The American people demand and deserve it and we're going to fight for it.
TAPPER: I think young people trying to get alcohol is a bigger problem in this country than an undocumented immigrants wanting to vote.
But let me ask you about --
JOHNSON: Do you, Jake? The sanctity of our elections is a big, big thing.
TAPPER: I think that there are elections are very important. I think that there is a lot of data and evidence that young people getting alcohol is a major problem in this country.
JOHNSON: Of course, it is.
TAPPER: And I don't think that there is the same prob -- there is not the evidence that undocumented immigrants running to vote every November is the same problem. I don't even think you can compare the two.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Well, look at Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas --
TAPPER: You're just using it as a metaphor.
JOHNSON: No, look, I'm trying to create a simple example that in society, we require proof to do things and that's how we prevent them from being broken.
TAPPER: Yeah, absolutely.
JOHNSON: And there are a number of states who have shown they have non-citizens on their voter rolls. That is enough to create chaos in the election. And we have to stop it.
TAPPER: You have advised House Republicans to avoid attacking Vice President Kamala Harris in ways related to her race and gender. Donald Trump has done both in the past, attacked her relating to her race and to her gender.
Do you give him the same advice tonight? We should he stick to the issues and stick to the policies as you've advised, to House Republicans to do that?
JOHNSON: Yeah. I'm consistent. You know, I've talked with the president. I talk with the president a lot, President Trump, and that is always been my -- my advice that we run this race on policy, on record, not rhetoric, on policy, not personality.
Kamala Harris was the most liberal member of the Senate and the modern era, she was to the left Bernie Sanders. She has a lifelong record that is far-left. She's a San Francisco radical, but they're engaging in a campaign of fantasy over fact right now. And what we have to do is make sure the American people know the truth about who Kamala Harris is and what her values and our philosophy are.
She's going to try to convince the American people tonight, for example, that she's great on the economy. She'll solve the problem. She was the head cheerleader of Bidenomics.
I mean, she's going to try to convince everyone that she can solve all these problems in their lives. She's been in the administration for three-and-a-half years and hasn't done a single bit of it. She has a big a big task ahead of her tonight, and I don't think she's going to -- I don't think she's going to perform well because that record is hard to run from.
TAPPER: House Speaker Mike Johnson, thank you so much for your time today.
JOHNSON: Thanks, Jake.
TAPPER: In the run up to tonight's debate, Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio, which Speaker Johnson was just talking about, is making a stunning admission out loud about the 2020 election and fake electors. Much more from the debate stage here in Philadelphia, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:20]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOST: Would you have not certified?
SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think -- I think what I would have done -- I mean, look, I happen to think that there were issues back in 2020, particularly in Pennsylvania. Do I think that Mike Pence could have played a better role? Yes. We have.
HOST: You wouldn't have certified, to be clear?
VANCE: I would have asked the states to submit alternate slates.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So that's Republican vice presidential nominee, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio on the "All In" podcast last night.
Let me bring my panel back in. I don't know that telling all 7 million voters who cast ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020, that he would have tried to throw out their votes 3.5 million for Biden, 3.4 million for Trump is a wise thing to say.
RAJU: Yeah. I mean, he didn't have the constitutional authority to do it really, but it just shows you the impossible position, a Trump running mate, his in particular when it comes to an issue like this.
What did he say here? You say that Mike Pence did the right thing? Well, that'll be a problem for the man he's running with at the top of the ticket, even though maybe he deep down, he actually believes that.
But he has -- you know, Vance's made very clear where he stands with the former president on this issue of January 6, he is even downplay the violence that these protesters were trying to engage with on Mike Pence that day, saying I didn't think Mike Pence's life was really in danger, but really he's playing for an audience of one here. But it may not play so well with say, those swing voters.
WRIGHT: And I think just an another note, these are the types of things that the vice president's campaign want to hear Trump repeat on the debate stage. They want him to make claims about --
TAPPER: Vice President Harris.
WRIGHT: Vice President Harris.
TAPPER: Yeah. Yeah.
WRIGHT: Want to hear Trump make these claims about fake electors or make these claims that the election was stolen because again, that they believe that that shows the contrast between the two players on the straits, between Harris and former president.
TAPPER: Yeah. I mean, if I were kamala Harris and I'm certainly far from being commonly Harris, but if I were Harris would be an issue that I would -- I would -- I would bring up. I would say Pennsylvanians, Donald Trump wanted to disenfranchise you, all of you.
SIMMONS: Of course, you have the opportunity to make that case about Pennsylvania, to have opportunity to make the case about a variety of things that are in the Trump kind of lexicon over the last two years. She's making the case fundamentally, that we need to change.
And so people think she's making the case about Biden. She's really making the case about the Trump year. It's been ten years of Donald Trump on the national scene, and those ten years, we've had birtherism, frankly more than that.
We got birtherism. We've had denial. We've had children being separated at the border. We've had January 6. We've had the pandemic which was turned from a tragedy -- from a crisis into a tragedy.
But they're all these things that maybe we can get back to a normal kind of government where we can all talk to each other, disagree about a few things, find a middle ground, and then move on together.
[16:35:06]
Hold on.
And what you're seeing is she's seeing a coalition that goes from the AOC and Bernie left all the way over to the Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney right. And all of those people are about democracy and a functioning government.
TAPPER: And what would you say if you were Donald Trump tonight on the stage? If the issue of the election comes up, which it probably will?
PERRINE: Probably --
TAPPER: The 2020 election.
PERRINE: Yes. Yeah. If the 2020 election comes up, you need to be forward-looking. Nobody wins a race by looking in the rearview mirror. They win by looking through the windshield. That's what we need to be talking about.
Want to see what happened as a result of the 2020 election. Look at our southern border, look at the economy, look at inflation, look at how expensive it is to buy a home.
Look forward and give that message. That's how you win. You don't win by relitigating the past. You're going to win by giving people a hopeful, optimistic message that your policy positions, Donald Trump's policy positions are ones that are going to keep taxes lower, that are going to make your community safe, are going to give you a better chance than you have right now with Biden and Harris.
TAPPER: You should go up on the stage. You're very, very, your very own message.
Everyone, stick around.
The mayor of Philadelphia is going to join us next. She is a strong supporter of the Harris-Walz ticket. How would she advise Vice President Harris to address her many shifts in policy positions? Well, I'll ask her, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:40:45]
TAPPER: This hour, a fresh look inside the National Constitution Center, just a few years yards away for me. That's where the stage is set for tonight's debate.
I want to bring in the mayor of this great city, Cherelle Parker.
Mayor, thank you so much for being here. Really, really good to see you as always.
Did you see my pocket square here for the I love you, Philly.
MAYOR CHERELLE PARKER (D), PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you. I did, Jake, and welcome home today, my dear.
TAPPER: In first place, they're not letting me go to the Tampa Bay game, unfortunately. I have to do this.
All right. Let me ask you, ahead of tonight's debate. A new updated CNN poll of polls continues to show no clear leader in this race. Harris averages 49 percent of support across six recent national polls, Trumps stands at 48 percent. Basically, it's just a tie.
Why is this race so close?
PARKER: Let me say to you that tonight its extremely important because America is going to see a stark difference between the two options that are on the table. And I will believe when this is over, when she shows through her message that there's a vision of hope, of economic opportunity for all you know that matters right here in the city of Philadelphia. Jake, we're very proud, blue collar, working class, middle class city.
And when she talks about the vision and when she talks about the tangibles, the creating 3 million units of affordable housing in the nation childcare, things that matter, bread and butter, kitchen table, issues. That is what people will sift through.
I think they'll get through the noise on today, and it will be clear that the vision, the best vision for the future by city, state, and nation to be implemented is from the Harris-Walz team.
TAPPER: So, first of all, the polls in Pennsylvania have it -- have it dead even, both the public polls and the private polls, and Democratic polls that I've been told about, dead even, basically 50/50.
Don't you think as some opinion makers have it, that Kamala Harris would be doing better if she had actually picked your first choice for her to be our vice president, Governor Josh Shapiro, not only because she would be doing well or better in this must must-win commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but also that it would have been assigned that she is a center left candidate and not just a left candidate?
PARKER: So first things first, Jake --
TAPPER: You love Josh Shapiro. Let's acknowledge that.
PARKER: Listen, my former colleague and a friend, and he's a great governor. But let me say this to you, you're talking to a woman who knows what its like to be behind in the polls. So I don't put a whole lot of credence in them because if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here as the 100th and first woman mayor in the history of the city.
TAPPER: To people who don't know, in the Democratic primary, she was not in the general.
PARKER: They didn't just call me to underdog. You know, listen, we were under the dirt according to the polls.
So I think Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, they're doing exactly what they need to be doing right now, focusing on those issues that matter the most to Americans how are we going to create and then kind of me in which all Americans, no matter their place of station in life they get an opportunity to compete and not just, you know, fight to just try to move an inch a little, but to really get ahead and have access to opportunity. That's the difference here today.
TAPPER: What do you make of the -- if the Harris-Walz campaign were to have to pick between campaigning to get some of those either independent or conservative Democratic white men in Erie for the Republican women in the collar counties outside Philly, Republican women, I've heard people say that the Harris-Walz campaign is going after those white men and they should be going after the Republican women, that that's actually a better place for them to be devoting resources.
PARKER: So Jake, I would argue that that is a very narrow minded focus. If people pay attention to the message from the Harris-Walz team, they wouldn't know that they don't change it based on the race, the class, socioeconomic status, or zip code of the American right here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, whether you live in rural, urban, or suburban Pennsylvania, the message of access, the economic opportunity for all it is resonating. We are very unified.
Listen, all roads to the White House lead through Pennsylvania, and that means Philadelphia.
[16:45:02]
We won't forget our numbers. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes and in 2020, President Biden won by 80,000-vote margin.
We need to make sure that we turn out Philly. And so our eyes is on the prize, it's on a victory. We have to turn out the vote in Philadelphia. Debate parties all over the city, every neighborhood in the city on today, excited about watching our Democratic nominee put her skills to work.
She's a fighter. She's defended people all of her life, every skill. We're excited about this and she's going to wear him out tonight.
TAPPER: All right. America's mayor, Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker. Thank you so much. It's always -- always so good to see you.
PARKER: Thank you, Jake. Thank you.
TAPPER: And I know I speak for you when I say "go Phillies".
PARKER: Philly's going to save democracy again. We're ready. It's where it started.
TAPPER: I'm talking about the Phillies, but that's okay.
How far can Trump and Harris go tonight without hurting their own campaigns? We're going to bring back the communications folks who worked with both of these candidates. The balancing acts you might see on stage tonight, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:50:35]
TAPPER: Welcome back to Philly.
You're looking at live pictures from the National Constitution Center here in Philadelphia, the site of tonight's debate, just hours away.
Let's bring back two members of our panel who has some communication expertise.
Erin, let me start with you because the Harris-Walz campaign just put out a brand new ad. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, crowd.
OBAMA: This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on.
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
OBAMA: America is ready for a new chapter.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So this spot seems to be rather intentionally placed --
PERRINE: Yes.
TAPPER: -- in two markets, West Palm Beach, Florida, where Donald Trump lives, and Philadelphia, ahead of tonight's debate, just in case he's flipping, which is his want. We talked about -- Jamal talked about how the Harris campaign loves to troll Donald Trump. This seems to be that.
Might it have an effect?
PERRINE: I don't think that ad will have an effect. I think the larger narrative maybe at the time when he saw Obama do might have upset them, but it's certainly getting headlines and it's certainly driving the message right? That is showing their strategy is, she's going to try to find a way to just knock them a little bit.
What is it? Is it going to be the crowd sizes? Is it going to be some little flip comment she's able to make about him, what he comes off something about the economy or the border, or geopolitics where she's going to be able to just shift them enough. He's going to feel personally slighted because the crowd, that's a personal thing for him.
Having a big audience, a big crowd, breaking records at rallies, I can tell you, I remember we were in a rally at an SNHU in Manchester, New Hampshire, and he beat Elton Johns crowd rally size. He was so excited that they want to try to find what is that one sore personal spot to move him off his message, and let them go loose.
TAPPER: And, Jamal, we can talk about this ad until we're blue in the face, but a Pennsylvania Democrat told me that the ad that the Trump campaign is playing in Pennsylvania in which they kind of pay Kamala Harris as an elite liberal who doesn't understand Pennsylvanians, doesn't understand jobs here, doesn't understand the need for fracking, et cetera, et cetera, that this Pennsylvania Democrat told me these are good ads and they're having an impact. SIMMONS: They are. I've heard that as well. They're also doing a lot
of radio ads. It's African-American radio into places like Philadelphia. There's a mail to people, I got a brother in Detroit who has gotten five pieces of mail from Donald Trump, hasn't gotten an email from kamala Harris yet, right?
So they are running an aggressive program targeting Democrats or Democratic leaning voters and we'll see it that has an impact on the election. And who turns out for them.
TAPPER: Yeah, but maybe -- maybe they should spent more time focusing on the voters and less times focusing on trolling Donald Trump is my kind of larger point.
SIMMONS: It's true. It is also true that the kamala Harris campaigns have enough for what, is it six weeks now. Now they've done. They've done a lot. They've got a lot of --
TAPPER: TikTok, Jamal.
SIMMONS: TikTok is right. They got to get busy. So, I'm not giving -- I'm not letting them off the hook, but maybe it's a reason why its taken so long.
TAPPER: We have one minute left, so 30 seconds each. What's your best advice for Donald Trump on in your best advice for Kamala Harris? Keep a quick if you can.
PERRINE: Yes. The best advice is talk about how the Biden/Harris administration, you saw what 2020 brought. It's been devastation to your economy and to your communities and to this country. If you want change and a new direction for Donald Trump, he can be that voice tonight if he stays on message.
TAPPER: On message.
SIMMONS: Fire up the Democrats by taking on the criminal felon Donald Trump, but don't get stuck there. Pivot quickly to the future and a new way forward and that new messaging about what you're going to do for average everyday voters.
TAPPER: Okay, Jamal, Erin, thank you. That was a fantastic.
Just in from the Trump campaign, Trump is in good spirits ahead of tonight's debate. I mean, what are they going to tell us, that he's not? He's going to be arriving here in Philadelphia soon. What we're hearing from the Harris campaign, that's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:58:43]
TAPPER: We're back here live in Philadelphia, site of tonight's presidential debate.
Priscilla Alvarez, our White House correspondent, is also here in Philly. Let's check in with her -- Priscilla.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jake. Look, I've been talking to sources all day and what they tell me is that the vice president is feeling very prepared for tonight. Of course, that comes after what was a robust debate prep in Pittsburgh shortly before she arrived here in Philadelphia yesterday.
Now, that's a preparation included identifying where they can needle former President Donald Trump, and sources tell me that one of the issues that the vice president is going to be leaning in on is reproductive rights and trying to needle him on his muddled messaging on abortion. Now, the vice president over the weekend also sought out advice from those who have already debated Donald Trump. That includes Hillary Clinton.
And moments ago, President Joe Biden saying that he also has spoken to the vice president, saying that she seemed cool and collected.
Now, Jake, close to Harris ally tells me that at the end of the day, one of the things that the vice president is keenly aware of is that she needs to introduce herself to voters. This maybe what have the last opportunities that she has to have a large audience and she needs to use that to present her vision and her policies, moving forward.
And that is something that her team has tried to keep in mind, knowing of course, that this could easily go off track. So, again, the debate prep so far has gone well.
