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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Attacks Harris' Racial Identity, Is She Black; Harris On Trump's Race Attack, Americans Deserve Better; Trump Downplays Sen. J.D. Vance's (R-OH) Role, You're Voting For Me; "NewsNight" Discusses State Of The 2024 Presidential Race. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 31, 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 HOST: Tonight, Donald Trump borrows from --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He was perhaps born in Kenya.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: -- his birth or origin story --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She happened to turn black.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: by embracing a new race-based lie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She was Indian all the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: To smear his opponent.
Plus, put J.D. Vance in a box to the right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You're voting for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump says his V.P. pick doesn't even matter.
Also, auto workers get out of neutral and into drive for Kamala Harris. UAW President Shawn Fain joins the conversation.
And live from New York -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let Mamala go to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Mamala makes a comeback just as the campaign gets wilder and weirder.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Jamal Simmons and Joe Pinion.
Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about tonight, a race- baiting replay. Donald Trump is turning back time and reaching into the past to otherize his opponent in the present.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So, I don't know, is she Indian or is she black?
She was Indian all the way and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went -- she became a black person.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just to be clear sir, do you believe that she is --
TRUMP: And I think somebody should look into that too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a short time ago, Harris responded and forcefully at that by saying that Trump will not drag the country backwards.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Donald Trump spoke at the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists. And it was the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect.
And let me just say, the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Brian Stelter is here and he's joining us in our fifth scene, but I want to start with you, Scott, of course, Scott.
Okay. So, what does it mean to turn black? I mean, first of all, it almost sounded like he'd been thinking about this for a long time, and he'd rehearsed it in his head, and then he finally came out with this new line of attack. Why?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know if I agree with that. Look, I -- first of all, I think he deserves some points for showing up at this thing and giving it a go. Where's Kamala Harris today? Not there. But that having been said, he did crap the bed today. The only question is whether he's going to roll around in it or get up and change his sheets.
PHILLIP: That's a good question. What do you think?
JENNINGS: My advice would be, get up and change your sheets, and do what your campaign is doing. The campaign knows how to prosecute the case, okay? They're on the air with it to the tune of millions of dollars on her policy record. That's what they should be doing. This is not going to end the way he wants it to end. There's a better way to do this and they know what to do, but it's on him to do it. It's on him to do it. My strong advice is to perform.
PHILLIP: Look, everybody takes their cues from Donald Trump. So, here is Alina Habba at Trump's rally just not that long ago, a couple of hours ago listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALINA HABBA, TRUMP ATTORNEY: I am a strong woman, a mom, a lawyer, and an American. And unlike you, Kamala, I know who my roots are. I know where I come from. And I don't play around with the Constitution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It sounds like they're taking this thing and running with it.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sure, but let me just say this. If you can say Anna Kournikova, or you can say Kim Kardashian, you can say Kamala, right?
PHILLIP: Yes, we've established here at this table.
SIMMONS: We can all figure that out.
PHILLIP: Yes.
SIMMONS: Listen, Donald Trump is doing what Donald Trump does, and it's funny when the vice president was saying today that it's the same old show, I thought she was going to use another word that started with S, H, but she didn't.
[22:05:03]
She pulled herself together, and she did not say that word.
Listen, he's an agent of chaos, right? And I think his objective here today is to do what is happening, which is pull us all into a race conversation. Because the more we have a conversation about race, the less we're talking about his 78-year-old convicted self. And so he needs to -- we all need to take a page and sort of wonder how do we get back to the real conversation and not spend so much time digging in on Donald Trump's race baiting.
BRIAN STELTER, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, VANITY FAIR: I disagree. This is the most important conversation we can have. Is this guy running for president a racist? Is he a sexist? Can he tolerate this woman? That's the most important conversation you can have.
PHILLIP: Does he have anything resembling self-control? I mean, that's the other part.
STELTER: Can we trust him with a nuclear code, that's right. Look, obviously he wants attention. He's getting attention today. Attention worked for him in 2016, but it's never worked for him since 2016, right? It didn't work for him in 2018 or 2020 or 2022. Attention generally doesn't help Trump anymore. And that's what I think is so striking about today, that he's winning the attention war but actually losing in the conversation.
And I think he just affirmed everything Kamala Harris said on the campaign trail about new versus old. America's getting more diverse, mixed race kids, biracial families, blended families, IVF treatments. She represents the future and he's stuck in the past today. To me, this was all about the campaign and no policy is as important as his racist views.
PHILLIP: Joe?
JOE PINION, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Look, I would -- I think there's some truth and also some disagreement in both of what you guys have said. I would say that President Trump and some Republicans in the actual influential space are dragging us into a conversation about race at the party's own peril.
And I would suggest at the country's own peril, that in the end, if you're looking for a candidate that is fluent in the diaspora of blackness, you're probably not voting for Donald J. Trump. But if you're looking for somebody who's going to be talking about policies that are impacting people across the political spectrum, across the multicultural tapestry that is America, then we're having the conversation about what's happening in our schools, what's happening in our border, what's happening with the economy. And to Scott's point, that is a conversation where Republicans know they can win. It is up to the candidate that we have selected to stay on that message.
And so when you see Kamala Harris, who has not done an interview in ten days, since becoming the presumptive nominee of our party, after nobody voted for her, when you see somebody who is staying on message, who clearly has found a better crop of speech writers than she had back in 2020, it causes much consternation on the Republican side of the aisle when we can't stay on the issues that in any other election would have us winning the last one.
PHILLIP: It almost like Trump said to J.D. Vance's childless cat lady's comment, hold my beer, because he was like -- this is from David Plouffe, a former Obama adviser. He said, 33 million-plus Americans are biracial. The highest percentages are by far younger voters.
Being biracial is not a new thing, okay? It's been around for a long time. What's the point of acting like it's a thing that doesn't exist and that you have to be either Indian or black and you can't be both?
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think you talk about it in a certain way, the way Donald Trump does talk about it, when you don't necessarily agree with it. I think he didn't explicitly say what maybe Clarence Thomas said in the opinion with the Dobbs decision about re-litigating some truths that we already have decided that women should have a right to choose, or interracial marriage should be legal, or that same sex marriage should be legal.
Instead, Donald Trump presents these like, though, he's sloppy with his words, quite honestly. Like people -- and in 2016, Brian, to your point, they landed a little bit better because they were new, there was new sloppiness. But now it's old, and old slop is messy and it stinks and it's nasty and you need to clean it up. And if you don't, well, nobody should clean it up.
But I think, actually -- I've always said this. I don't like secret racists. I want you to be -- like she said, say it to my face. Go ahead, go to NABJ and say what you just said. Let us know who you are. So, when we go into the ballot box and get to vote, we get to have a full, clear, not a message-trained, disciplined candidate that the next day then rips all of our rights away. Show me who you are and let me make a decision about it.
JENNINGS: This is such a critical time for this campaign because she's new. She's not that well-defined the way Biden was. So, this next like few weeks is going to determine whether they define her in a way that will be basically unacceptable at a policy level to the American people or not.
Now, the campaign obviously gets it. They know what they need to do on immigration. They know what they need to do on inflation. They know what they need to do on all of her past positions, which she's now running away from via anonymously sourced staff statements. They know what they need to do. But if he doesn't participate in it, it won't be as effective as they need it to be.
[22:10:05]
STELTER: But he is defining her. He's saying, she's the other, she's exotic. she's a foreigner, she's not like you, she's not like you, she's not a real American. That's what he just said to millions of people today. He is defining her. This was intentional. This was --
JENNINGS: I didn't hear him say she wasn't a real American.
STELTER: Come on, Scott. Is she Indian? Is she black? She doesn't know what she is. She's changing. She's fake.
PHILLIP: And the argument that we're hearing now, J. D. Vance was responding to this tonight, he basically said, oh, she's a chameleon. She moves around in terms of her identity too much.
SIMMONS: Pots and petals, right? I mean, like this guy is such -- he's such a like a fake, he's a phony, right? He used to think Donald Trump was the next thing, American Hitler perhaps, and now he's out supporting Donald Trump. So, for him to take a journey like this, not just a policy journey, this isn't just saying, oh, well, maybe I don't agree with Donald Trump on his environmental views and now I do because I want to be his vice president. He's saying I thought he was a bad person, he was bad for the country, and now he's recommending him for the country. That's a very different thing.
PHILLIP: I want to play how this session at NABJ started because I think it's really instructive. Let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now that you are asking black supporters to vote for you, why should black voters trust you after you have used language like that?
TRUMP: Well, first of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question so in such a horrible manner, the first question. You don't even say, hello, how are you. Are you with ABC? Because I think they're a fake news network, a terrible network.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JENNINGS: You know what I think when I heard that? Did they just cost themselves their debate? I wonder. I mean, that's the next schedule.
PHILLIP: Did they just cost themselves their debate, or is Trump looking for a reason to get out of the debate?
JENNINGS: I don't know. When I heard him say that today, I thought that's going to be a big question, is ABC going to hold this debate or not.
STELTER: But then won't Harris be onstage by herself for two hours? Do you want that?
JENNINGS: I don't know. I don't know how it's going to play out.
SIMMONS: But he's been backing out of this debate for a long time.
PHILLIP: Yes, he's been criticizing ABC for weeks now, even before all of this.
JENNINGS: But he had agreed to it. I'm just wondering now in the context of what happened.
SIMMONS: We all did. He also clearly doesn't like -- he doesn't like this idea of strong women standing up to him and asking him questions that are uncomfortable, which means another reason why I don't think he does this debate, because he'll end up on a platform where the prosecutor is going to ask him tough questions for 90 minutes.
PINION: I just think in the end, clearly, debate is going to happen. I think that --
SIMMONS: Are we thinking bets is disabled?
PINION: There is, yes.
SIMMONS: I want to take bets during the break.
PHILLIP: I'm not responsible for the outcome of that.
SIMMON: I mean, look, the debate is going to happen. I would also seemingly say that look, again, Kamala Harris has found some better speech writers. She's clearly, again, a qualified individual, somebody who has held various positions in government. The issue is, can she articulate an argument? How is she going to talk about the fact that she was in the building when the border went to chaos, when the economy went down the gutter, when we have a world in disarray, when the combination of Biden and Harris --
PHILLIP: The economy is not in the gutter, but okay, Brian, I know --
JENNINGS: I would just say that feels that way to most Americans.
PINION: I think the reality is that as -- look, as I've said, you've had -- look, Democrats spent my entire adult life talking about the fact that the stock market was not a measure of the economy, that we should not be giving the American people a macroeconomics lesson, and now all of a sudden they don't seem to care about the fact that the inflation is outpacing the wages. So, yes, I get it that --
PHILLIP: Inflation is not outpacing the wages.
PINION: Inflation has outpaced the wages.
JENNINGS: You don't think inflation is a problem.
SIMMONS: I think inflation is a problem. I think it's not outpacing wages. Let's just use the facts.
PINION: Inflation has outpaced wages literally in the entirety of this administration.
ALLISON: Can I say one thing? I think that what Donald Trump did today was actually a strategy of his and it was to appeal to a certain population of the American public that might feel like they aren't ready to have a Kamala Harris be the president of the United States.
And so I guess what I want to do in this moment is, usually the former first lady says when they go low, we go high. When they go low, I match energy. And that's why I'm not the first lady or running for president. But I think what I would say to those Americans that have question marks about Kamala Harris or maybe didn't know how to say her name, like let's start a conversation and talk about why rather than just siding with the worst of the otherism that Donald Trump presented.
That was not unintentional. That was a strategic choice he made. And just as much as he was in the room talking to black folks today, he was also talking to his base and saying like, come on, team, let's rally. And that's --
STELTER: He's showing his white supporters that he can show up and stand in the room with all of the black journalists. He's doing a tough guy shtick, right?
PINION: I just don't think that's accurate. I hearken back to --
STELTER: Well, what did he do today, then?
PINION: Well, look, I'll just say this.
STELTER: He went in there and started making up lies about this candidate. He's the birther in chief.
PINION: I think that's the argument you want to make. I looked at it as I remember when I was a very young lad, and we had George H.W. Bush there with Bill Clinton during that debate where the woman asked him about the economy and the debt.
[22:15:10]
And he didn't seem to understand that she was talking about people losing her job and not actually talking about, again, this macroeconomic lesson.
And what I saw from President Trump, I think, unfortunately, was somebody that hasn't actually been able to truly wrestle with the nuances of this kind of new, multi-tapestry system, this kind of diaspora of blackness. And so whether you hold that against him as a candidate or not, I think in the end, it's easy to run with it and say this is just rampant racism run amok. I think it's more likely, particularly when you look at Twitter and just people in their communities talking about it, people not understanding the nuance of when people that look like Kamala Harris get pulled over at 11:00 at night, they are not either Indian or somehow part Jamaican or somehow part South Asian, they're black, and that's how it's always been in this country.
ALLISON: How do you represent us if you don't understand us?
PHILLIP: I take your point about that there are nuances to racial identity. However, I don't think being biracial is that hard to understand. I think it's been around in this country, even for a 78- year-old, his running mates children are biracial. It is not a hard concept to understand.
PINION: I think the reality --
ALLISON: You also want to be the president of the United States, so understand it. That's part of the assignment. Don't go up there, like you don't get to be the leader of the free world and you can't have a basic understanding of what it means to be biracial. That is disqualifying, in my opinion.
PHILLIP: All right guys, hold on a second. We got much more ahead. Brian Stelter, thank you. Everyone else, stick around.
Coming up next, a special guest will join the conversation. Comedian Roy Wood Jr. will react to Trump's race remarks.
Plus, Trump also threw his running mate under the bus in that event, saying that J.D. Vance doesn't matter in this election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:21:17]
PHILLIP: When you think about vice presidents, what do you think about first? For most, it's pretty straightforward. Are they ready to do the job in the worst case scenario? But just listen here to Donald Trump get asked that question about J.D. Vance today, and he decides to skip right on by it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you look at J.D. Vance, is he ready on day one?
TRUMP: Does he what?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready on day one, if he has to be?
TRUMP: I've always had great respect for him and for the other candidates too. But I will say this, and I think this is well- documented. Historically, the vice president, in terms of the election, does not have any impact, I mean, virtually no impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: This does not sound like a good omen for J.D. Vance. It really does not. He talked about Yale like four times and didn't say honestly a kind word about J.D. Vance in that moment.
PINION: I mean, look, I was just at this very desk about a week ago, and we had that very conversation about the vice president not necessarily having a great electoral impact. Having said that, the ink is not even dry on J.D. Vance being chosen as vice president, so you would think that there would be a little bit more joy and splendor in the discussion. Having said that, I think as our last block dove into, the fisticuffs were already occurring from kind of a verbal standpoint. I don't necessarily think that he was really interested in having that kind of exchange of pleasantries at that particular point.
JENNINGS: Look, what he said was objectively true. The vice president does not make a huge difference.
PHILLIP: I mean, you know I agree with that generally.
JENNINGS: And he went on and he said one other thing, which we didn't show, but he said, look, at the end of the day, if you like me, I'm going to win. And if you don't like me, I'm going to lose. That was the last thing he said about that. That is 100 percent factual, take it to the bank, there's not a single voter in this country who's calibrating on Trump based on Vance.
PHILLIP: That was a question that called for J.D. Vance is qualified to be president of the United States, he's an excellent United States senator, I mean, you could just write it right here at the table.
ALLISON: I mean, who needs enemies when you have Donald Trump, right, as a running mate. You could have given like a one sentence answer, yes, he's ready on day one, pivot, start bashing Kamala Harris again, if you wanted to, but instead he went down this. It's almost as if he doesn't like J.D. Vance and that he thought J.D. Vance was going to do something for him that he's not and perhaps Donald Trump is not capable of saying nice things about people he doesn't like.
SIMMONS: J.D. Vance is Donald Trump's Dan Quayle. I mean, that's what's happening, like he's becoming this albatross around Donald Trump's neck. And I think even in public, he can't quite get a game face to be able to go through an interview and hold it together.
PHILLIP: And it's sounding like the knives are out for him even among conservatives at this point. There's a story by Mark Caputo that says Trump allies believe Kellyanne Conway is badmouthing J.D. Vance in private. There's also -- Vivek Ramaswamy had this tweet. The hard truth is we need a massive reset right now, the hard truth. The criticism that Kamala mounted a coup on Joe Biden isn't landing, neither is the claim that she covered up Biden's cognitive decline. None of that matters to voters right now. We need to offer a vision of the future.
And that might be true, but it kind of sounds like a very strong critique of what's happening in the campaign right now.
JENNINGS: Look, J.D. Vance needs to be right here. They hired this guy for this ticket because they think he's good on television.
PHILLIP: That's true.
JENNINGS: Donald Trump Jr. said it.
PHILLIP: It would be great if he were to come here.
JENNINGS: He needs to be, right? I mean, that's the whole reason they have him is because he's slick on T.V. and he's good at explaining Trump and Trumpism and MAGA and cable rhetorical combat.
[22:25:00]
That's what he's good at. That's what he's supposed to be doing. I see him at the rallies and he hasn't done a terrible job at all, but this -- I want to see him. This is his arena. So, if I were them, I'd start booking them. Let him fly.
ALLISON: I'm just still surprised Vivek said something that made sense. He's talking with some sense right now. Yes, like reset. It's not landing. The talking points are not. And so the question is, can they recalibrate? But I do want to say this. I think this election is still going to be extremely tight and I think that we are -- Dems have the momentum right now, but do not measure drapes. Run through the finish line. There's too much at stake to be assuming that anyone is a guaranteed victor. Run your race. Go talk to the American folks. Get off of Twitter and like convince people that you have a vision for the future.
JENNINGS: Trump is still ahead, by the way. He's ahead in the -- I think he's still objectively ahead in the Electoral College.
PHILLIP: Yes, he's ahead in the Electoral College, but it is largely a tied to Trump ahead race in most of the battleground states.
PINION: I think also, I mean, the reality is, I think we can acknowledge it, that it is clear by the picking of J.D. Vance that they were not expecting for Kamala Harris to be the nominee. I think that is objectively true. I think anyone who's telling you the truth will acknowledge as much. J.D. Vance is the guy you pick when you look at the 2020 numbers and realize that President Trump lost support amongst white college, uneducated white men who did not have a college degree to the tune of anywhere from 6 to 10 percent.
So, this is a new race. If you're finding yourself standing in between the history and this destination, you're probably going to be in a bad place. I think that this race will naturally reset once Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen her running mate. Because at that point, then it becomes about, what did you know, when did you know it, about the state of Joe Biden? When did you guys start printing those Kamala Harris --
PHILLIP: That's the argument Vivek was saying, it doesn't work.
PINION: Well, it doesn't work today, because right now, it's still this kind of honeymoon period.
JENNINGS: They're not running on this. He's not right about what -- the campaign's paid advertising, the message they're running on, what all the voters in the battleground states are seeing is on immigration. So, that's the online conversation he's responding to. The paid media outflow from this campaign is about the immigration crisis, which she oversaw as vice president. That is the correct --
SIMMONS: And here's what's different about the vice president now, about Kamala Harris right now. She is running right at this immigration crisis. They have an ad up.
JENNINGS: I'm going to Vidmo. I'm going to Vidmo.
SIMMONS: Wait a minute. Hold on one second. Hold on one second.
JENNINGS: I'm Vidmoing.
SIMMONS: They've got an ad up right now talking about what they did on immigration, how Donald Trump stood in the way of them actually making progress on immigration. They haven't even talked about the fact that in her remarks that she talked about when she was A.G. and she went down and walked through the tunnels and she tried to prosecute people who are trafficking guns. She didn't talk about the fact that when she was focused on the three states in the northern -- what they used to call the Northern Triangle of Central America, she focused on them. She got private investment into those states, and now we've seen 200,000 person drop and arrested the border because of the work that she did in Central America. Those are the things --
JENNINGS: I wish you all the best.
PHILLIP: Everyone hang on.
SIMMONS: But here's what's different. What's different is that now -- I'm sorry. What's different is that now, they're running at it, not running away from it. And that's a very different stance for the Democratic White House.
PINION: That's a great place for Republicans to be because I don't think that dog is going to hunt.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Stand by for us. We've got some more breaking news tonight. The vice president just secured a major endorsement. We'll have those details next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:32:49]
PHILLIP: And we're back at the table, and tonight the Vice President just secured another major endorsement, the United Auto Workers Union. I just spoke with UAW's President Shawn Fain, and here's part of that conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Shawn, the UAW endorsed President Biden all the way back in January, but there were some reports just a few weeks ago that you and other union leaders were concerned about President Biden's ability to defeat Trump in November. So, I wonder, now that Harris is at the top of the ticket, how does that change Democrats' chances, in your view?
SHAWN FAIN, PRESIDENT, UNITED AUTO WORKERS: I believe, you know, that obviously I think there's a lot of energy around the campaign, and, you know, I know our members are very excited about Vice President Harris' candidacy, and so, you know, I think there's just a lot of energy around the campaign that, you know, just seemed to be trailing previously.
So, you know, we look at it as a good thing. I mean, it's an honorable thing the President did. I mean, you got to think about that. I mean, you know, a person in the most powerful position in the world that's willing to do the right thing and put the country first, you know, that's a very honorable thing and a very selfless act that we rarely have ever seen in our lifetimes. And I know you'll never see that from Donald Trump, because he can never check his ego and put this nation before he'd put himself. PHILLIP: I wonder about J.D. Vance, though, Trump's pick as his V.P. nominee. He's from a Rust Belt state. He supported the UAW strike last fall. He visited the picket line. I mean, the presumption here is that Vance is supposed to help Trump speak to the part of the country where you have a lot of members, where Democrats absolutely must win. Do you see Vance making it harder for Vice President Harris and whoever her running mate is to win in that part of the country?
FAIN: I don't see it at all. I mean, look, let's just be real. You know, J.D. Vance, in my opinion, is a fraud. I mean, look, I've got, you know, he wrote his book, "Hillbilly Elegy". I mean, look, I've got hillbilly roots.
[22:35:00]
My grandparents all come from Tennessee and Kentucky in the hills, and they were dirt poor. They went through the Great Depression. They migrated north, like many families did back in those days in the '30s and '40s. And, you know, my grandparents, my family members were able to get jobs at UAW factories at GM and Chrysler, and they lived the American dream.
But one thing my grandparents taught us growing up, and my parents taught us, was you never forget where you come from. And, you know, J.D. Vance, you know, went to work with a venture capitalist and, you know, a billionaire. And, obviously, those people go after, they have no concern for working-class people.
They have no concern for businesses they take over and pillage and rip apart and tear communities apart. So, while he can claim he's for the working people, I mean, his body at work shows different.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: All right, back with my panel now. That endorsement is a big deal, and it's a big deal, especially in the context of the Trump campaign really wanting to make this case that they are going to go after these union households. He seems to think it's not going to work.
SIMMONS: Yeah, listen, I'm from Michigan. My family has been in the UAW for a long time. They will get a lot of support from UAW members. There will also be a lot of UAW members who support Donald Trump, right, because there is still the same dynamics that exists in the country, exists inside the United Auto Workers Union and all the unions.
But this will help Vice President Harris be able to really compete in the UAW and to really talk to not just the guy who's on the line, who's, you know, working, but the woman next to him who he probably doesn't talk to about politics, who's concerned about a bunch of things like, can she work this next shift because she got a kid that she's got to get out of school and pick up.
PHILLIP: It's interesting.
SIMMONS: That's a very different conversation.
PHILLIP: He also was pretty clear that the major change is the energy factor. They were worried about Biden's ability to energize the base. Now, they're not.
JENNINGS: Can you -- can you eat energy?
PHILLIP: I mean --
JENNINGS: Can you -- can you use it to pay your mortgage? I mean, the problem with the power campaign --
PHILLIP: You can power campaign with it, though.
JENNINGS: The problem with the UAW is in this union ball, this halfhearted low energy endorsement he gave today is when he endorsed Biden in the first place, he admitted most of my members are going to vote for Donald Trump.
And the exact same conditions that existed in the country then exist today. The only thing that doesn't exist apparently anymore is Joe Biden. But the inflation exists and the hardship that working families have faced still exist.
That has not gone away and Harris has been right next to Biden for the whole thing. So, I didn't find that to be terribly compelling. He told the truth earlier this year when he said UAW rank and file. They're looking at the Republicans.
ALLISON: There is some truth to Jamal's point about unions are just a microcosm of the working American public. I think we talked in the last block about talking about policy. The reality is that, J.D. Vance and Donald Trump are not pro labor. They do not want union members to be able to go on strike like the UAW did to get higher wages.
What Donald Trump and J.D. Vance want are the CEOs of those companies to make astronomical amounts of money when the workers rates have never gone up. And so, if yeah, that was what the strike was about.
The CEOs of the big four auto companies -- they were getting constant raises and their workers on the line were not. And so, because of collective bargaining, because of union rights, because of what Joe Biden going to the picket line did was protecting those folks, even if they don't vote for him.
And so, I think what the vice president's team is going to have to do is going to have to go into those union halls and say, I know it doesn't feel like someone is fighting for you, but I am and I won't leave you behind. And we don't want these jobs to go overseas. We want the chips act to stay here so we can have chips in our cars and we can build and have a strong working class. That's an argument that I make.
PHILLIP: I also -- I also asked him about where the unions are, where he is on this question of Kamala Harris' vice presidential pick. Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FAIN: She's got to pick who she feels most comfortable with. But I mean, you know, look, we've talked about this with our leadership and, you know, we're very look, I -- two names really resonate high with our union. The top name, it was Andy Beshear. I'm a huge Andy Beshear fan. I believe Andy Beshear, you know, he's been there with us every step of the way.
And then also Governor Walz in Minnesota. Those are really our top two people. And both of those men walk the picket line with our workers this past fall. And they've always been there for working class people. So, you know, we'll see, see what the vice president does. And, you know, like I said, she's got to pick who she's comfortable with. But that's -- that's typically that's where we're leaning, so --
PHILLIP: Yeah, so, I mean, that's not going to be everything, but that is going to matter.
PINION: I mean, look, I think Democrats want this to be about the CEOs versus the workers. I think Republicans want this to be about the union leadership versus the rank and file union members. I think that you can talk about the chip sack here in New York State.
We're supposed to be having Micron. It's coming to town. And no one talks about the fact that if you actually have that plant running at full capacity, it requires the monthly equivalent of one million homes.
[22:40:06]
And no one can tell us where that power is coming from because we have shut down the actual Indian Point nuclear plant because we had Quebec Hydro that told us that they're not going to be able to fulfill their requirement to this state.
that is just one example of how the policies have been put in place by people like Kamala Harris and people like Joe Biden under this auspices of a Green New Deal don't actually work for the rank and file members who are watching their jobs be actually eroded by this rise of A.I., by this new type of economy that we're going to be entering in, and they don't have any solutions. And we don't know what Kamala Harris' plan is because it's been 10 days and she has not gone off the script yet.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone stand by. Once again, we have much more ahead. Comedian Roy Wood, Jr. He's joining us next in our conversation as a fan favorite gets ready to shake up the election season on "Saturday Night Live" this fall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYA RUDOLPH, COMEDIAN, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": I think if there's one thing we learned tonight, it's that America needs a woman as president.
(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:26]
RUDOLPH: The font is back, baby. America's fun aunt I'm also America's cool. And the you know what? Let's not do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: She's back. Maya Rudolph, she's going to return to "Saturday Night Live" through the election because we need it. Joining our conversation is stand-up comedian and former correspondent for "The Daily Show", Roy Wood, Jr. Roy, we're going to get to that in just a second. But first, let's start on Donald Trump at NABJ. Give us your thoughts on that.
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN: Oh, that campaign ain't got no plan, Abby. They ain't got no plan. You put Donald Trump on stage with three black women in front of black people. That is not someone who has a plan. I do think that the Trump administration was able to use that as an opportunity to try to bolster their position with black voters. And I know that the whole thing was very divisive today, you know, just in terms of whether or not you platform a candidate like that.
But to me, the issue is that if he's not going to debate Kamala, which I don't think he will, then you almost have to look at every possible opportunity to talk and ask him questions. You all said this will new and improved Trump. Well, then let's see. And I think that for a lot of people that are outraged about Trump being on that stage today at NABJ, we aren't the audience that this is for.
Like, as crazy as it sounds, there are still undecided voters. There's still people who don't know who they are going to vote for. So, you have to show those people what exactly the candidate is about. And I'll be honest, I don't care if it's NABJ, I don't care if it's Shannon Sharpe. Donald Trump can go and drink champs for all I care. I need people asking him questions repeatedly.
PHILLIP: You know what? That's a good take. I tend to agree with that. But I do have to ask you, because you had a great tweet about this. We know Kamala's brave story. This is what the tweet says. When did the rest of you turn black? How old were you? I'll pose the question to you, Roy. When did you turn black?
WOOD, JR.: You know, I feel like I turned black, you know, it was somewhere around in Memphis, Tennessee, when I had that first piece of catfish with hot sauce. And I think that's, I'm pretty sure that's, shout out to Catfish Cabin on Airways. That's old school 1980s Memphis right there.
Are we not allowed to be biracial, Abby? Can we not? Does someone have to choose one race and then you file paperwork, like when you change party affiliations? Did Kamala file? Where's the black race paperwork office?
PHILLIP: That is a good question. I also want to, okay, I'm going to bring the panel back in here, because I do want to go back to the, I think a very important point that you raised about, should we quote, unquote platform the man running for president as a major party candidate in this country? What say you?
JENNINGS: I did not like all the people who were criticizing the organization today.
I thought the people who run the organization made the correct choice. And there were several people in their group that were -- made some pretty vicious comments about this. I thought that was totally off base. They made the right choice. Anybody running for president ought to be able to be invited to a group like this and as quick, and whether he does well or he doesn't do well, you know, that's up to him.
PHILLIP: Yeah, and I would like, I mean, I would like black journalists to be able to question the former president and to ask exactly the questions that they asked. They asked about Sonia Massey. They asked about, you know, qualified immunity. They were asking the questions that people want to hear.
SIMMONS: There are black newspapers burned to the ground so that people would have the opportunity to speak to people running for president of the United States of America. And so, I think whether you love President Trump, whether you hate President Trump, he is the Republican nominee for President of the United States of America. I think the notion that we're just going to ignore him, that defies logic. I think it is not in the keeping with the intent of the fourth estate and the constitutional protections that we grant the fourth estate, as well.
PHILLIP: And Ashley, I know you also have a question for Roy, but you can do that at your leisure.
ALLISON: I guess I just wonder, though, how do we do this fact- checking? Because I think that, like, the definition of what a fact is now is even in question, and that's problematic. It's like, Donald Trump got on the debate stage.
We want him to debate. And really, the whole conversation was about Joe Biden's poor performance, and little was about how much he actually lied on stage and was not truthful to the American public.
[22:50:02]
So, I do think it's not democracy not to platform both party candidates and have this discourse and have this conversation, but we've got to figure out a different way to fact-check when, because literally it will just be you interrupting the man and saying, that's not true. I
PHILLIP: I mean, that's how, I mean, someone who's tried to fact-check a lot of people like Trump and Trump himself, that is how it goes. Roy, what do you think about that?
WOOD JR.: I think for me the bigger issue is that we're talking about an hour -- what was supposed to have been an hour-long interview, but then Trump bailed 35 minutes in. We're talking about one hour out of a conference, and you all have been in been to NABJ before. It is a beautiful conference, and I hate the fact there's so many journalists that I respect on both sides of this issue.
This --it's creating what might be some real fissures within black journalistic relationships, and that part makes me very disappointed that the ripple effects of this will be felt throughout the -- throughout the entire convention that they're having.
PHILLIP: Yeah, Roy, I do want to ask you about Maya Rudolph, because I think, you know, in the spirit of what you just said, I feel like we need a little bit of levity here, and also this election is so crazy that only "SNL" can step in in this moment. What do you think about that? I
WOOD JR.: I think that "Saturday Night Live" during an election year should be required reading in every school in this country. There should be book reports on Monday about what SNL is going to do this fall. You know, Maya Rudolph is a heavy hitter, you know, between her, Colin Jost, Michael Che, and the rest of the writing staff over there, they're going to make mincemeat of this.
And I think that once we get into September when SNL premieres, then the mistakes that Trump is making are really going, those fans are going to be flamed even more by late-night comedy, even more so than it is right now between the Jon Stewart's and the John Oliver's of the world.
PHILLIP: All right, real quick, Scott.
JENNINGS: Well --
PHILLIP: I saw you shaking your head.
JENNINGS: Well, I'm glad they brought Maya back, because she's -- that's an A-plus choice. They've been hit and miss the last couple of years on politics. The dumbest thing they ever did was get rid of Daryl Hammond. He was the best Trump. Alec Baldwin's a terrible Trump, but I would love to see, I'd love to see Daryl come back. He was -- and Maya is the best Kamala Harris, so I'd love to see Daryl and Maya.
PHILLIP: She -- yeah, she's a pro. All right, Roy Wood Jr., thank you so much. Roy, by the way, is shooting his fourth comedy special in Washington, D.C. on September 7th. Roy, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it. And our panelists are going to stick with us. Coming up next for everyone, everyone gets their nightcaps at the table. We'll see you then.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:13]
PHILLIP: And we're back, and of course, it's time for the "News Nightcap". You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Jamal, you're up. SIMMONS: So, we just had this great moment of Donald Trump ditching
and giving the Johnny Heisman to J.D. Vance on the stage at the NABJ conference, saying that vice presidents don't matter.
I have a sneaky suspicion Donald Trump really does not like being out of the limelight, and he's going to do something to switch things up. My guess, he ditches J.D. Vance during the Democratic Convention, or maybe just at the end, and then brings the light back to himself to stamp on --
PHILLIP: Crazier things have happened. You know, I mean --
SIMMONS: --stamp on Kamala Harris.
JENNINGS: Like literally out of a car or --
PINION: We already had a convention.
SIMMONS: All you have to do is -- you have another vote, right?
PINION: Look, quietly as it's kept, there is still a world happening all around this, and it is in complete and utter disarray. We see what happens in Venezuela. We see what's happening in Gaza. It is not just still raging. It is expanding now.
And so I think the hard truth is that this bifurcation of what's happening in the Democratic Party, using Joe Biden as a heat shield to protect Kamala Harris from the policies they're trying to ram through, and the world they're ignoring, I think in many ways that could come back to bite not just Democrats, but all of us here in this country, because we don't know what's coming next.
PHILLIP: We'll see what happens. Look, I think the foreign policy front is definitely simmering in the backdrop of all of this domestic drama.
JENNINGS: Yeah, I had totally forgotten that Joe Biden was actually still the president until today when he tweeted and told Donald Trump to man up and go debate Kamala Harris. Now, if you are someone who was just run, you're the President of the United States who just got run out of your own party by Nancy Pelosi and a couple of rich people, maybe give it a few more weeks before you tell someone else to man up.
The reason there is no debate on the schedule right now is because Joe Biden dropped out of the race and canceled it, so I'm glad you're still out there. I don't know if he saw his tweet today or not, but congratulations on performing some duties as president, but this was an ill-advised man-up.
SIMMONS: Say what you want to say about that debate? Joe Biden did show up.
PHILLIP: That's true. And you know what, the next debate is on the books. It's a question of who's going to be there. Ashley?
ALLISON: Mine's a little lighter. "Hotties for Harris". PHILLIP: You need that --
ALLISON: So, yesterday, Megan Thee Stallion performed at Kamala Harris' campaign event. Quavo was there. Here's the thing, there's been a lot of critique right now on why was she twerking. You can twerk and still talk.
PHILLIP: Honestly, she really wasn't twerking. She was -- for Meg, she was very classy, okay, and like I appreciate culture coming, and she had a beautiful outfit on, she did her thing, but I think I appreciate culture showing up to politics. It's how you meet people where they are.
[23:00:00]
But I will also say it's not like she just jumped on the bandwagon because now, the vice president is at the top of the ticket. She has been an advocate on abortion rights. Quavo has been an advocate for gun violence prevention. They're citizens, too. They get to have a voice, and this is how they want to show up and engage in democracy, and I love "Hotties for Harris'
PHILLIP: It's an interesting -- it's important, we're not going to debate the twerking part of this at all, but I'm just saying the tapping into the culture is definitely something that is happening now that was not happening about a month ago.
Everyone, thank you so much for being here at the table, and thank you for watching at home. "NewsNight" State of the Race is done. "Laura Coates Live", though, starts right now.
