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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

GOP Struggles To Define Harris As Polls Show Tight Race; New Poll Shows No Clear Leader Between Harris and Trump; Trump Campaign Files FEC Complaint Over Biden-Harris Heist; "NewsNight" Tackles Campaign Funds Raised For Democratic And Republican Parties. Aired 10- 11p ET

Aired July 23, 2024 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, reset. New polls confirm the 2024 race is now wide open as Republicans try to get on target against a new opponent.

Plus, Kamala Harris says she's the future and Donald Trump is a bridge to chaos and hate.

Also --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): J.D. Vance is a phony.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People like J.D. Vance know nothing about small town America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Auditions kick off with a game of who can strike first.

And battle of the sexes, billionaire edition, the uber rich women backing Harris stare down the tech bros behind Trump.

Live at the table, Lee Zeldin, Ashley Etienne, David Axelrod, and Bomani Jones.

Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Thank you for being here. Let's just get right to what America is talking about today, the Republican riddle. How exactly to run against Kamala Harris? So far, the GOP is trying to convince you that she is a DEI hire, a San Francisco liberal, the border czar, crazy, nuts, dumb as a rock. Democrats aren't very impressed with all of that, and neither is her husband, the second gentleman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG EMHOFF, HUSBAND OF VICE PRESIDENT: That's all he's got. Look, you heard the vice president yesterday making the case against Donald Trump very clearly.

You see the enthusiasm, you see the excitement, you saw the money raised, you saw the party coalesce. You saw the broad base of support that she had in just one or two days, because she's talking about an America that we all have a place in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I saw Ashley do a little jig. She's ready to go. Okay, so just to set the table here, the state of the race, according to a couple of new polls out today, Reuters, this Reuters/Ipsos poll shows no clear leader. It's a statistical tie between Trump and Harris, another poll, a Marist poll, also showing basically the same thing.

So, where do you think the state of the race is?

ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR V.P. HARRIS: Well, can I just start by saying every woman deserves a husband like Doug, okay? Doug will scratch your eyes off of Kamala Harris. I really appreciate him.

PHILLIP: People jump on the stage.

ETIENNE: That's what's getting me worked up, all his energy there. No, I mean, here's the reality, you know, in talking to the now Harris campaign, they feel like Donald Trump has really hit his ceiling, that he has no growth strategy. And the benefit that the vice president has at this time is that she's brand new. She's fresh. She's new on the scene. So, you know, she has an opportunity to increase her favorabilities within the polls. So, they're feeling really good about it. And the reality is, is the president has -- the former president has hit a ceiling.

The other thing I would say too, what's I think shocking about all of this, is adding J.D. Vance to the ticket. And, you know, CNN has polls out that he's at net negative 6 percent coming out of the actual -- out of the convention. So, Donald Trump doubled down on crazy during the convention, his mini me reinforced that. And so now they're in a cycle where they have no growth strategy and they've hit their ceiling. And that's what the Biden campaign or the Harris campaign feels now. And she's got nothing but opportunity because she's fresh, she's new, and there's nothing but enthusiasm around her.

FMR. REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): Listen, it's going to be a long four months, but at the same time ballots are going down North Carolina in about 45 or so days. So, the race to define the race, the contrast, my best advice for anyone who would be running for president on either side is focusing on the issues. And substantively, if you ask an undecided voter what are your top issues, what's most likely to decide your vote in November, people are concerned about the border and economy and crime and energy policy and foreign policy and more.

So, substantively, I think that the American people deserve a substantive contrast on where the two candidates stand on these issues. There's going to be a lot of spin. There's going to be a lot of attacks on opponents. But for our process, for democracy, for the American public, they deserve as much substance as possible.

[22:05:00]

PHILLIP: But it looks like it's a game of, you know, you got the Republicans on the Hill, they're screaming, DEI hire, every day at this point, even the speaker is trying to tell them to stop, because the other line of attack that if you're in a swing state, like Pennsylvania, I'm going to play the ad in just a moment, they have a different strategy and it does not involve calling her something that is a racist dog whistle.

Listen to this ad from David McCormick in that critical Pennsylvania Senate race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Outdated. It is wrongheaded thinking to think that the only way you're going to get communities to be safe is to put more police officers on the street.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, they're running the tape back on a lot of stuff from that 2020 primary where everybody was running to the left, including her. And that is what they're going after Bob Casey, the Democrat in that race on.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Listen, you can't really say, well, that's off limits. The fact of the matter is that she's got a record. She's got a record as a prosecutor. She's got a record as attorney general. She's got a record as vice president. But, yes, they're going to use that campaign, which was kind of an ill-conceived venture at a particular time when she was running in a primary. And they're going to take that and she's got to be prepared for that.

The other stuff, as you say, I mean, the things that are sort of, you know, thinly veiled kind of racial characterizations, I'm accustomed to this. We faced some of that back in 2008 when Barack Obama was running for president. You got to power through those things.

And what I've been impressed by is her presentation in the last couple of days. She seems confident. She seems collected. And she seems on the attack.

PHILLIP: Yes.

BOMANI JONES, ESPN PODCAST HOST, THE RIGHT TIME WITH BOMANI JONES: She seems like she won, right? Like it's a lot easier to feel certain and to look confident when you won, right? There wasn't a contest person necessarily, right. But she's in a position now where you're not trying to win people over. Everybody right now, like this is, again, the fun where our sports people understand what's going on here. You have hired the new coach. The new coach is here. Everybody has decided they're on board with this. You had to get everybody behind it to decide that this is the person we're going with. Cool.

So, at the very least right now, everybody's going to say they're on board because there's no incentive to pretend otherwise. There's no incentive for dissent, within this group. You're not going to pop up and say, you know, I'm not sure about this one, and then have all these people come behind you. That's not going to happen.

The first game is the convention. I don't feel like anything that happens between now and the convention matters, but so much because that's where all the eyeballs are. That's where the whole presentation is. That's where you sell yourself to America and to everybody else. And then from there, we have a contest. Like the Republicans wound up in a trick bag where they just had their convention and it's really like it never even happened because the whole game changed immediately after.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, quite the hat trick, the Democrats (INAUDIBLE).

ETIENNE: Can I just add one thing? If we get back to sort of the Republican tactics and the Republican playbook, you know, today is very different than 2000 and even incredibly different than 2008, the world and the environment that we're in now. And those attack lines that Republicans are going to use against her, her gender, her race, even being a prosecutor, all of those things in this current environment work to her advantage, right? You've got the GOP that has a complete all out assault on women, reversing Roe. Back in 2000, it was theoretical. Today, it's a real threat. People understand that. You know, they're going even further to the extreme, trying to roll back IVF, et cetera, et cetera. You've got -- the head of their party is a convicted rapist. So, that's going to play --

ZELDIN: He's not a convicted rapist. But, I mean, I was going to say substantively --

ETIENNE: He's been found liable.

ZELDIN: Listen, if you ask people, what are your top issues? And they say, we're concerned about our border. I mean, but she was the border czar. The numbers skyrocketed. She was supervising a policy that ended up -- and right now, there's 3,000 people coming in a caravan. She was going after our Customs and Border Patrol agents. She was going after ICE.

AXELROD: You want to be factual and substantive, and I appreciate that. That is a good instinct. So, she wasn't the border czar. She was assigned to work to go to the countries where -- that were the source of these immigrants and try and work with them to remove inducements for people to come here. But she never was the borders czar. She wasn't in charge of the border.

You will call them that, her that, and she's going to have to contend with that. You're going to have to contend with the fact that when the president and the vice president was on that team agreed with the most conservative or one of the most conservative members of the Senate on a bill that would have been the strictest border bill that we've seen in decades, that the thing was blown up because Donald Trump said, we want the issue. Don't solve the problem. She's got to stay on the attack and she will stay on the attack.

And I think people -- that underscores something about Trump that they're going to have to deal with, which is, this is a guy who thinks about Trump first all the time, even on a matter that he says is of urgent importance to the country.

ZELDIN: This administration, they stopped construction of the border wall.

[22:10:01]

They got rid of remain in Mexico. They got rid of Title 42 without a replacement. They ramped up catch and release. These were policies of this administration. It's going to be very hard for Kamala Harris right now to say, I wasn't the border czar. I'm not responsible for these policies. She hasn't spoken up at all against the implementation of any of this saying that she disagrees with any of it.

ETIENNE: Well, the president implemented an executive order to address the border, border crossings down. The border wall actually is down itself. I mean, it actually fell down. But here's -- I don't disagree with you that voters care about the issues. But the problem is, I mean, Republicans don't want to talk about the issues. That's where the vice president is actually trying to drive this conversation. If you watched her, her rally today, she was trying to refocus the conversation around Project 2025, which is going to not only reverse rights that we hold true today that are consistent with our American values, but also is going to be an all-out assault on the middle class, et cetera, et cetera.

So, the problem is that Republicans don't want to talk about these issues, that's why you want to talk about race and gender.

PHILLIP: This is a great substantive conversation, but the other thing that is very notable is that there's been a vibe shift that has happened in this race. And Democrats are doubling down on now the fact that Donald Trump is the oldest candidate in the race. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): He is the oldest person running for president ever.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): He's the oldest person to be president.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She's running against the oldest nominee for president.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is the old man in this race.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's only one person that, if elected, would go into the White House and be 80 years old, and that's Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: Well, that's the thing that happens when it used to be two old people running against each other. And now it's only one, right? Everything that you said about the last guy now flips around to your guy, except your guy is also Trump.

PHILLIP: And so much of the Trump -- I mean, so much of the Trump attack on Biden really was about his age. I mean, all the viral videos of him walking up the stairs and the stumbles and all that stuff, I mean, that was part of the attack, perhaps more so than all this policy stuff.

AXELROD: Well, where it's really going to be evident is in this debate. I mean, the whole setting is going to be different because now Donald Trump did not have a great debate in Atlanta, and that would've been the story, had the president not faltered. This is going to be an entirely different matter and you're going to see, you know, a young and energetic, a younger and, and I would say young and energetic candidate versus a president who sometimes doesn't make sense.

And so it does sort of -- it is sort of a reversal and it does undermine -- you're right, their entire campaign was Biden is too old. He's not in command. He's weak. Trump is strong. Vote for Trump. That was their whole campaign. They've got to blow that up now and start again.

PHILLIP: Yes. Tony Fabrizio says -- this is Trump's pollster. He says, this is all a sugar high. But he almost suggests that it's going to last for a little longer. And he's preparing Republicans in the campaign for that possibility that she could have a bit of a polling bump, at least until the convention, maybe through the convention.

ZELDIN: The honeymoon period right now is one where I think the Democrats are happy that they have a new nominee. They're happy that they were successful in getting President Biden to end his campaign. They're happy that right now they're trending towards what isn't going to be likely an open civil war at a convention. And I think that, you know, you've seen it with the fundraising that has opened up and, you know, and the reality is that Harris has more energy on the stump than what you saw with President Biden on the stump.

You know, I think with regards to President Trump, as we talked about age, and I wasn't somebody who was critical of President Biden for his age. It was criticism of what, in my opinion, was a cognitive decline. Now, the reality is that if you were seeing what President Trump was up to tonight at 2:00 A.M., he's awake. And at 5:30 tomorrow morning, he's awake. And he's capable of going to do four rallies tomorrow in four states.

So, I actually think the way that this race is trending is not towards, you know, two campaigns that are in a basement. I think that you're going to have two very active campaigns.

AXELROD: I've seen what he's tweeted at 2:00 in the morning. I'm not sure that's evidence of cognitive health.

ETIENNE: Actually, wasn't he sleeping through the convention?

PHILLIP: That's the kind of stuff that people used to have heartburn about waking up at 5:00 in the morning to a Trump tweet. We'll be back to those days, I imagine, very shortly.

Everyone stick around for us. We've got two developments just in, Hillary Clinton now breaking her silence on Kamala Harris and the sexism that she might face in this race.

Plus, the Trump campaign has filed a complaint saying that the Harris campaign can't use Joe Biden's campaign stash. We'll have a special guest joining us in our fifth seat.

Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, Donald Trump and his advisers think the Democrats are pulling off a heist with Joe Biden's campaign cash. The campaign has now filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying that the funds that were meant for Biden's re- election can't be used for vice president Harris' campaign.

Joining us at the table now is the legal mind himself, Elie Honig. Elie, so explain it to us like we are five. Can they do this or not?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, let me start by saying something that we're going to all be saying a lot of in the next four months. This is brand new. We've never been here before, and we don't know for sure. However, it seems to me, based on the scholarship that's out there and the expertise that's out there, that this is a serious long shot by the Trump campaign.

So, first of all, this is not a lawsuit. This is a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, which is part of the executive branch.

[22:20:01]

They have quite limited enforcement powers. But problem number one is a practical problem. There's no realistic way the FEC, which has six members, three Republicans, three Democrats, would even answer this in the hundred days or so remaining between now and the election.

I think what Trump's people are trying to do is set the table to say, we're not getting a satisfactory answer from the FEC. Therefore, they're going to go -- I think their next step at some point is going to be to go into a federal court and ask for an injunction, but I think it's a real uphill climb for them.

PHILLIP: So, I mean, we talked about this already. They're going to try to throw every possible legal thing at the wall on this just as a strategy, just to create chaos and muck up the works.

JONES: Just being a nuisance. Like it seems to be worth the stress just to be like, okay, one more thing for you to have to worry about and if everything goes absolutely perfectly, you'll lose all your money, which is not going to happen, but I see the argument. HONIG: Yes. I think the core argument they're making is donors donated to Joe Biden. Now, it's Kamala Harris. But, of course, the response, and I think probably the winning argument is, no, the donation was made to Biden and Harris. Both of their names are registered on that campaign. And so it's much easier to slide that money over to Kamala Harris.

By the way, if it was not Kamala Harris, highly unlikely that that money can be transferred over to her. If it was Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer, it probably wouldn't work. But because Harris' name was already on there, it's logical she should get it.

AXELROD: We should point out that they raised more money in one day than was in that account. So, you know, I'm sure they want that $96 million and it may not be $96 million anymore, you know, I don't think money is going to be the problem. I do think this is sort of a nuisance, like a harassment suit.

ZELDIN: And we were talking about almost $100 million and how it can get spent. And, Elie, I love the way you're starting off by saying, yes, this is uncharted territory. The FEC chairman came out just quoting what the CFR says and reading it verbatim, saying the money was donated to one candidate. That candidate pulls out for the general. The money needs to be returned. And then you have people who are on the opposite side of the fence. They have a different interpretation. And we'll see.

And the FEC obviously has jurisdiction. But to your point at the end, which also was really good, is, you know, let's say, because it will take so long, maybe there's a request that gets filed inside of a court, maybe for an injunction, I don't want to speculate, but there is a reading of campaign finance law that says when the candidate for the general who received the donation steps aside, that the donations have to be returned.

HONIG: Yes. I have shocking breaking news, by the way. Basically, all the Republican members of the FEC who have spoken out in formers are saying it's not okay. And all the Democratic members of the FEC and formers are saying it's perfectly fine. Yes, I mean, who knows?

But, I mean, to David's point, there will be a string of lawsuits. This is just the first of many. I mean, I think, you know, the Trump campaign and the Heritage Foundation have signaled that they intend to challenge the ability to even put Kamala Harris name on the ballot in certain states.

PHILLIP: This is my brain being kind of a little paranoid because I lived through 2020, but the string of frivolous lawsuits as a strategy being used later on to question the validity of an election is something we ought to be on the lookout for, because I don't think it's out of the question.

ETIENNE: It's definitely part of the strategy. But the problem is, though, this election is going to come down to 1 to 2 percent of the population in key states and this kind of stuff, these kind of tactics turn them off. They're over Trump's antics when it comes to these things.

And so, you know, it might be great for the base. It might get the base ginned up. It might be a distraction for the Harris campaign. But the reality is you're not making up any ground with the people you need to win.

AXELROD: My favorite, my favorite part of this whole discussion over the last few days is all the -- I heard the speaker of the House say, you know, they're disenfranchising 14 million people and, you know, overturning the will of the people. And I'm thinking, isn't that what January 6th was about? I mean, is this really where you guys want to go? I don't think so.

ZELDIN: So, yesterday -- go ahead.

PHILLIP: I want to get this Hillary Clinton thing in, because people are talking about Hillary Clinton's new op-ed today. She wrote about Vice President Kamala Harris. She says, Ms. Harris record and character will be distorted and disparaged by a flood of disinformation and the kind of ugly prejudice we're already hearing from MAGA mouthpieces.

I know a thing or two about how hard it could be for strong women candidates to fight through sexism and double standards of American politics. I've been called a witch, a nasty woman, and much else, but she says Kamala Harris can beat Donald Trump in spite of all of that.

AXELROD: Yes. Well, you know, we have -- time does go on here. I mean, my advice honestly to the Harris campaign is not to get involved in this discussion. She looked to me like a candidate who was unafraid and unbothered the last couple of days. That's a good look for her. So, I wouldn't get into these conversations.

PHILLIP: Yes. Lee, look, the other thing I think about is whether Republicans are just going to be so emboldened by Trump's victory over Clinton, that they're going to try the same playbook against Harris.

[22:25:09]

And it's going to be a mistake.

ZELDIN: Listen, substantively, I want to see a clash of ideas. And what's going to be important is if there is a criticism of Kamala Harris, that we take it at substantively allowing a conversation over where Kamala Harris' record is or what her positions are on issues. And, really, she should welcome that. I mean, that's really, I think, what the American people are longing for.

There's going to be another debate and I think that there are going to be undecided voters who are going to tune into that debate actually wanting to know where these candidates stand on these issues and where there might be back and forth that are distractions away from that substance. Again, I mentioned earlier in the show, I think it's a disservice.

PHILLIP: And you got to get Donald Trump to stop saying dumb as a rock, that's for starters.

JONES: But am I the only person though that read that op-ed and thought rather than reading, these are the obstacles I had to overcome and Kamala Harris can do it? It seemed like it would be much more functionally beneficial to say, and these are some of the things that I wouldn't do if I ran again, these are some of the pitfalls that I ran into that could be avoided. Because I read that op-ed and it read like a whole lot of it wasn't really my fault, when I think most of us could look back and say --

PHILLIP: You know, they've had those conversations in private.

JONES: Right. But I think -- but in public, I don't think it served Clinton or Harris to put it out there in the way that she did, which was just basically a whole bunch of the world is really mean, but you can still beat it. How do you beat it? What did I not do? What could I do? And I didn't think that op-ed got to that.

ETIENNE: I'm really curious. I mean, I was on the '08 campaign, you know, and I felt like we were sort of, to your point, trying to avoid race, right? What would your advice be to Harris on what she -- you know, the onslaught of, you know, sexism, racism that she's going to experience? I mean, how does the campaign functionally address it?

PHILLIP: And that seems much more explicit this time. I feel like the Trump era has made that stuff much more explicit than it was even in 2008.

AXELROD: Yes. I mean, look, I think a lot of it has to do with how she carries herself. And like I said, I think the most eloquent rebuttal to this is to be unbothered and to keep pressing your case. And that's what I would advise her to do.

You know, yes, President Obama used to say, Senator Obama used to say, I'm proudly of the black community but I'm not limited to it and I'm running for president of the United States.

PHILLIP: For all.

AXELROD: For everybody.

HONIG: There was that moment when President Obama made that speech, I think, at the Constitution Center in Philly, right, the big speech where he took on the race issue directly. What exactly led to that moment?

AXELROD: Well, there was a there was a mashup reel of some of the sermons of his minister that became -- look, there was a really big effort to paint him and his wife, Michelle, as sort of scary radicals. And Barack Obama is anything but a scary radical. And so now then his minister became sort of a surrogate target and that prompted him to want to respond.

ETIENNE: But I think in this environment she can flip it and make these to her advantage.

PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, stand by for us. Elie Honig, thank you very much for joining us.

We've got more breaking news tonight. Musk is now backing down apparently from his pledge to give $45 million dollars each month to Donald Trump's election. We'll hear his reasoning. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:32:57]

PHILLIP: It's the battle of the sexes and the billionaires. In one corner, you've got female billionaires backing Kamala Harris. In the other, you've got the Silicon Valley tech bros playing Daddy Warbucks to Trump and Vance and that ticket. But one bro is now backtracking on his recent support for Trump. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA MOTORS: What's been reported in the media is simply not true.

UNKNOWN: Okay, okay.

MUSK: I'm not donating $45 million a month to Trump.

UNKNOWN: Right.

MUSK: And now, what I have done is I have created a PAC, a Super PAC, whatever you want to call it --

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

MUSK: - which, you know, I simply call it the America PAC.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: CNN media analyst Sara Fischer is joining the table. Sarah, wow, that's quite the rollback from Elon Musk. What do you think is going on there?

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I think he's playing semantics. So, what was reported was that he's donating this money to this PAC. And when pressed, are you giving this money to Trump? He's saying, no, no, the media got it wrong. It's not going to Trump.

PHILLIP: Right. Right.

FISCHER: It's going to this other PAC and that's all about American values. But let's be real. These two things are completely aligned. Because the values that he's talking about, you know, corporate tax breaks, rolling back things like ESG and DEI.

Those are things that are more aligned with the Republican Party. And by the way, he's already said that that's where his support is going to be. So, I think he's just trying to push back at the mainstream media because that's part of what he does. PHILLIP: Yeah, it's so interesting to watch, like, the Elons, you

know, the Teals, the Saks of the world. And they're lining up with the Republican ticket because of a particular worldview. But on the other side, you know, you've got Democrats, Democratic women, Hollywood. You've got people like Lorraine Powell Jobs, who's a long-time supporter of Kamala Harris. She hasn't spoken out just yet.

But also Melinda French Gates. She recently created her own foundation. She's being much more vocal about these issues. Interestingly, I saw an article that talked about how Hollywood wants to, like, smack down the tech bros because they find them so annoying.

[22:35:00]

And they're giving heavily to Kamala Harris.

JONES: Yeah, I mean, logically, it all makes sense. Like, I would also imagine when you start talking about female billionaires in particular, the resonance of the right to choose seems to go to a whole different place.

PHILLIP: Yeah, yeah.

JONES: Because the existence of this, the female professional class, is largely tied to the ability to make these decisions about when you do and do not have children. So, those are the people that are going to lean in this the hardest. And now, there are more and more of them who then have more and more money to give.

On the other side, the tech bros, I mean, you talk about Teal and those guys, such a particular interesting set of people. Yeah, this division that we see makes perfect sense that it would go the way that it has, so far.

FISCHER: One thing I can just note, there's a very big difference between the Silicon Valley money versus Wall Street money. And I don't want people to conflate the two because you're seeing Wall Street executives starting to voice concerns about what a Trump administration would look like.

Some are saying, hey, we have concerns, but we're nervous, the former American Express CEO, about vocalizing them for retribution. This is a different class than the types of PayPal mafia crew in Silicon Valley. It's different money.

PHILLIP: Yeah, some of it has to do with the, you know, Wall Street folks are worried about the shareholders. And people like Elon Musk, they're just throwing money out.

AXELROD: Also, these guys, by their nature, are disruptors. And in a sense, they are investing in Trump as a disruptor. And particularly in J.D. Vance, who they promoted aggressively, he's a protege of Peter Teal, promoted aggressively for this ticket. And I think we shouldn't dismiss the fact that, you know, they probably like Trump's tax policies.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

ZELDIN: I would just add, by the way, it was framed with the amount of guys who are stepping up and supporting Super PACs for President Trump and women who are stepping up. And there are a lot of women who are stepping up in a very big way supporting President Trump. And not to start, you know, naming different names.

And there's also males who are stepping up in a big way to support the Democratic ticket. And there fortunately are also a whole lot of low- dollar donors all across this entire country on both sides of the aisle who are donating $5 or $25 to their candidate of choice.

PHILLIP: But don't you think, Lee, that something - here's an interesting thing I want your take on. Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, he said this. Some of my friends are embarrassed to say they're voting for Trump, but not as embarrassed as they used to be. Is that shift happening, and is Trump benefiting from it?

ZELDIN: Yeah, I remember traveling with President Trump when he was president, and we were on Long Island. And I remember us passing a house, and in the garage, the garage door was open, and there was a woman standing in the doorway. And she was holding an American flag, but she wouldn't step out of the garage doorway.

And I don't know, maybe it's neighbors. We were just entering the Hamptons. It's possible that everyone else around her, all were supporting President Biden in that election. And now, there are people who are wearing MAGA hats, who before --

PHILLIP: In the Hamptons -- the MAGA hats in the Hamptons.

ZELDIN: Right. The dynamics have changed. And I think, I mean, you saw Elon Musk put out his statement right after the assassination attempt saying, I endorse President Trump. You had other people do the same.

PHILLIP: Yeah.

ZELDIN: I think that in 2024, there are more people who are prouder and wanting to speak up and let people know, not only that they support President Trump, but why they support President Trump.

AXELROD: There's also the presumption, I mean, money chases the presumption of winning.

UNKNOWN: Sure.

AXELROD: Trump was a pariah at the end of 2022 And certainly when he left Washington. Now, it looks like he could win. Not to say that people would make cynical judgments like that, but I'm kind of saying people make cynical judgments like that. And they chase -- and money chases the presumption of winning.

ETIENNE: Can I just raise this? The one thing that we're missing in this conversation is that Elon Musk said he's not supporting Donald Trump or not giving this money because he doesn't support cult of personality. And I've just been sort of dealing with this for a while. You know, I spent some years, a lot of years on Capitol Hill working

for Speaker Pelosi. And I've just been so baffled at how quickly the Republican Party has rolled. I mean, what Trump represents is antithetical to everything that the Republican Party used to stand for. Now, everyone's walking around in blue suits and red ties and Trump ties. And it just sort of -- is mind-boggling. So --

ZELDIN: Yeah, but I support President Trump. And I'm not ashamed, embarrassed to say it. I want our borders secure. I want us to be energy independent. You know, he was a president that wasn't starting new wars, but he was ending foreign wars. Our economy just before COVID hit was ripping.

ETIENNE: What about those things?

ZELDIN: But I disagree that. I believe that we need to be defending the Constitution. We should be defending freedom and parental rights, that the quality of education or public schools aren't good. I believe that we should have school choice.

Now, these are all issues that Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are on different sides of, and we should debate those particular issues.

[22:40:06]

But the reason why I support President Trump and there are tens of millions of other people who support President Trump is our belief that our country is heading in the wrong direction. And we believe that in order to secure our border, to make our streets safer, to make life in this country more affordable, that we can't have more of the same. I disagree with the policies coming out of the White House. And you agree with the policies coming out of the White House.

ETIENNE: Trump cares less about policies.

JONES: There's got to be a way for you to support the ideas and not support Trump, right? It feels like those two things aren't necessarily wedded together.

ZELDIN: President Trump is a nominee and President Trump, I believe, is somebody who wants to secure our border. I believe that, you know, he wants to support law enforcement. That we shouldn't have prosecutors who refuse to prosecute. That we shouldn't be passing cashless bail in places like New York, which was part of the Biden- Harris agenda for the entire country.

These are all ideas. I mean, we were talking about earlier about border security policy. President Trump enacted policies to build a border. Title 42 Remain in Mexico, ending catch and release. By the way, you see right now Kamala Harris said that she is in favor of Medicare for all illegal immigrants.

AXELROD: Lee, I raised this before and you didn't answer it. The fact is there was a bipartisan bill on the floor of the United States Senate negotiated over a series of months by one of the most conservative members of the Senate, and Senator Murphy. It was headed for passage and the President said, don't vote for it. We need the issue.

ZELDIN: If President Trump never spoke up on that bill, that bill would not have passed. So, there are a lot of conservatives who spoke up against that bill because the bill wasn't to close the border. The bill was to allow a certain number of people to come illegally into the country every single day. And there are people who feel like we need to go further than that, that we should be combating illegal immigration.

AXELROD: That's not the case, Lee. That's not the case, you mean.

ZELDIN: Yeah, but I'm just telling you that in Congress, there were many conservatives who were speaking up against this bill out of the gate before President Trump even weighed in and would have voted against that bill no matter what, substantively as it relates to that bill.

ETIENNE: For political reasons.

ZELDIN: No, no. The bill wasn't a bill to stop people from entering the country illegally. It was a number to try to cap how many people were coming into the country illegally. And when you do the math of how many, people don't want to see millions of people coming illegally. They want to see a number closer to zero.

AXELROD: That was a rationale chasing an action and the action was the President saying, hey, we want this issue. Don't let Biden have a victory. Don't let him sign this bill. Vote no. That's what he said. But I mean, what you're saying now is a rationale chasing what was a political decision.

ZELDIN: There's a good reason why we opposed it.

PHILLIP: All right, guys, everyone. Hang on, guys. Hang on for just a moment. We've got more ahead. There is a trend that is developing among the Democratic V.P. contenders in their audition tapes. And his name is J.D. Vance. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:47:28]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MINNESOTA): People like J.D. Vance know nothing about small-town America.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KENTUCKY): J.D. Vance is a phony. He's fake.

WALZ: Their policies are what destroyed rural America.

BESHEAR: He claims to be from eastern Kentucky, tries to write a book about it to profit off our people. And then he calls us lazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Democrats are like Republicans tonight in one regard. The men who want to be on the presidential ticket are finding any media purse to audition for their role. And so, in the absence of an actual vice presidential nominee on the Democratic side, you've got a bunch of people out there on T.V. every day knocking the other guy. It seems to be working well for them.

But this is in earnest now happening. The people we haven't really -- well, one person we haven't really heard from much is Senator Mark Kelly. But he's on the list. And, you know, when I talk to people, that is a name that comes up a lot among people who actually know the vice president. But there are also others, Roy Cooper, as well. How are they doing?

ETIENNE: Well, I mean, everyone's auditioning for the job. I mean, all these guys are auditioning for the job. I mean, I seem to believe that if I'm Kamala Harris, I would want my ticket to be above the fray, to really draw the contrast with Donald Trump in profound ways. You've got an entire --

PHILLIP: Not with J.D. Vance, but with Donald Trump, you think?

ETIENNE: Oh, absolutely, right, because the ticket, you're running against Trump. But you've got an entire Democratic apparatus that can be doggedly on Donald Trump every day, characterizing him, you know, using J.D. Vance's line that Trump is America's Hitler. Like, you know, you've got people that can do that work for you.

But I just think that, you know, the desire from the -- not just the American people. There's a fatigue on both sides of the aisle. People have had enough with Donald Trump and his antics. And you've got that one to two percent again that's going to make the difference in this election. And they want something different. They want America to rise above this stuff, right?

PHJILLIP: Yeah, so maybe the attack dog thing is not the way to go.

ETIENNE: Yeah, you give it to the apparatus.

FISCHER: I think talking about J.D. Vance is like a bat signal to Eric Holder and the vetting community and people who are looking at who's the V.P. pick that you're interested, right? Like, it's table stakes at this point. But my question is, what are the people who are vetting this nominee looking for?

Like, do they want somebody who has a really clean track record in terms of their governance? Are they looking for somebody who's smart in terms of media, has a press strategy? Like, David, you might know this better than I.

[22:50:01]

What is it that you think that they're trying to hone in on?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, you know, basic stuff. What you don't want is to appoint someone and then have some story pop about some financial problem or some legal problem they had in the past. I mean, that's just basic stuff. You chase down rumors of such things.

And, you know, it's less about -- I think the political people will evaluate the political assets of each candidate. This is basically to make sure that, you know, if someone is appointed, that it doesn't blow up in your face. But I would just say two things.

One is, you know, I think you want to appoint, especially now after what we just witnessed, you want to appoint someone who palpably is ready to be president, could be president. That's one thing. The other thing, and you and I have had this discussion before, we elect presidents through the electoral college. And that is a lens that you have to look at, as well.

PHILLIP: But at the same time, David, I mean, what is the evidence that vice presidents actually make an electoral difference? I mean, that is the thing that I am not seeing here. I get the do no harm aspect of it, but --

AXELROD: You have to go back to Lyndon Johnson carrying Texas in 1960.

PHILLIP: But that was, I mean, that was a different time.

AXELROD: But there is a different -- in this election, let's take, for example, you know, we talked about this the other day. It is very hard to conceive of a democratic victory that doesn't include the state of Pennsylvania.

PHILLIP: Right.

AXELROD: Which is -- and that's a very tough state right now. Would she be helped by having the very popular governor of Pennsylvania on the ticket? Possibly. These are considerations that she has to make. Now, he's talented in other ways. He has, you know, assets and liabilities that you weigh. But this is a numbers game in some way. It's a math problem.

PHILLIP: It's been interesting to me to see, you know, the Walz and Beshear going after the "Hillbilly Elegy" of it all. I mean, that was a bestselling book. Really popular, again, among a lot of liberals because of what it said about middle America but it's now -- this is the attack line.

JONES: That was also an indictment of the liberal class of that time. Because I remember I read that book and my thought was if this were a black person writing about black people, I would hate this dude's guts. There's no way around it. And that is what the pushback against it is. That's Andy Beshear saying he ain't like us.

It's everybody pushing back on this idea that somehow Vance had insight into these people when these people are actually saying he hates us and we hate them back. It feels to me like the vice presidential nominee for the Democrats needs to be somebody that can speak to the median voter in those swing states.

That seemed to be the value that Joe Biden provided to Obama more than anything else was the ability to speak to that median voter who we think of as a working class white man and be able to say I speak your language and this guy is okay with him.

It seems that Harris would be somebody who needs something similar. And that's part of why all these people auditioning, are looking at J.D. Vance like he is food. They are going to eat every time they see him because it's like dunking on an eight-foot goal. It's the easiest target in the world.

AXELROD: One of the things about Beshear is that he can make the accurate claim that he's actually from Kentucky. He just didn't write about it.

PHILLIP: Right.

FISCHER: How many times did J.D. Vance mention Michigan and Wisconsin and all of those states?

PHILLIP: We will see, though, if that actually comes to pass. We have not yet seen J.D. Vance appealing to those parts of the country. Sara, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone else, stick with us. We've got a little bit more ahead of us. Next, the panel will give us their nightcaps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:58:12]

PHILLIP: And we're back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" nightcap. Each of you have 30 seconds to say your piece. Ashley?

ETIENNE: Precious. Let me go first. Kamala Harris is culture. I remember our first conversation. One of the staffers on the call -- she asked how is it going. The staffer said today is a good day. She quoted Ice Cube on the back of that. She was like --because I didn't have to wring out my A.K.

And I thought at that time, this woman is cool. That Kamala Harris behind the scenes doesn't match the public persona. Now, she actually is that walking on stage to freedom, quoting Kendrick Lamar. And it's an effective, innovative strategy that her staff has implemented. It's meeting voters where they are on issues that they want.

PHILLIP: Quavo, Let be Kamala, is what they're saying.

ETIENNE: Yeah, absolutely. She's cool.

PHILLIP: All right, Lee.

ZELDIN: Well, I think this entire panel is going to agree with me that I believe that Harris' honeymoon ends with Democrats wanting an annulment, right? They could have gone with a reset of their policy positions. I don't want to put David on the spot, of course.

You're going to disagree with me, but they could have reset their policy positions, but they chose to double down. There were other options that they could go with their nominee. And I think at the end of the day, when they're looking towards 2028, I don't think Kamala Harris will be their candidate.

PHILLIP: That's a hot take.

AXELROD: I'm looking at what happens in the campaign that she's putting together to Mike Donilon or with Mike Donilon, who was the unquestioned message guru of the Biden campaign, very close to the president, of course.

There was an announcement that he'll stay on, but in a reduced role. I don't know if that's true or not. But the question is then who does play that role? And that's very important in the last 105 days of this campaign.

JONES: I just want to take a little bit of a diversion and send a shout out to everybody that's had their flights canceled, that's been sleeping in these airports because of what's going on with the glitches.

[23:00:00]

And to make a point that we don't make nearly enough, which is this -- only the airlines can ruin your day and leave you stuck and lose your bags and everything else, and they don't ever have to give you your money back. I can't think of any other business in the world where they can mess up everything that's going for you and you don't at least get 50 percent off.

PHILLIP: Paging Secretary Pete.

JONES: That's right. You guys need to talk to him about that.

PHILLIP: Much more about that. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us and thank you for watching us. "NewsNight's" State of the Race is done. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.