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Fact-checking Night 3 of RNC; Biden Diagnosed with Covid; Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) is Interviewed about Biden, Trump and the Presidential Race; Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) is Interviewed about Biden. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 18, 2024 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

REP. MIKE WALTZ (R-FL): Has anybody seen any charging stations in the Middle East for the Biden's electric tanks?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a Republican congressman from Florida.

What did you find on this? Does that check out?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I - it does not. I found that this electric tanks thing is complete fiction. Not only is it not Biden's favorite, it is not happening. What is true, a tiny kernel of truth, is that the Army in 2022 came out with a climate strategy in which it called for electrifying some kinds of vehicles, such as tactical vehicles. But there was no push whatsoever to electrify U.S. Army tanks. This is completely made up.

BOLDUAN: Some of this, as Daniel said, in the foreign policy talk last night of the fact check doozy that was the program.

It's good to see you, Daniel. Thank you very much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

Hello, everyone. It is the top of the hour. I'm Kate Bolduan here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, live at the Republican National Convention. The final day of the Republican gathering here, and the day that Donald Trump officially accepts the party's nomination.

This will be his first speech since the assassination attempt on him. One where he promised will - the speech will now focus more on unity.

But even before that tonight, we are now hearing some more from Donald Trump. New video of Trump speaking to a crowd here in Milwaukee. This is new video obtained by PBS News showing Trump telling the group he got lucky and that God was on his side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But I got lucky. God was with me. I tell you.

In many ways it changes your - your attitude, your viewpoint on life. And I think - honestly, I think you appreciate God even more, I really do -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Amen.

TRUMP: Because something - something happened at -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Praise God.

TRUMP: Something happened -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Kate Bolduan's there for us in Milwaukee. I'm Sara Sidner, with John Berman, here in New York this morning.

We have a potentially major shift in the 2024 race as Covid has knocked President Biden off the campaign trail for now. And we have this new, extraordinary reporting from our Jeff Zeleny that says that Biden is now, and I'm quoting here, "more receptive" to hearing from the people calling on him to bow out. That comes from a senior Democratic adviser.

Also, according to the adviser, he has gone from saying Kamala cannot win to, do you think Kamala can win?

Let's get right to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez, who is live in Rehoboth Beach, where the president is isolating because of a Covid diagnosis.

Priscilla, is he receptive enough at this hour? I mean what are we hearing as to whether he might bow out, especially given the news of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, that is certainly the question on the mind of multiple Democratic lawmakers, and even donors who have grown increasingly anxious about the president's chances against former President Donald Trump.

But two things can be happening at once here, and they certainly are. That includes the president being receptive to those conversations, having those private discussions, but simultaneously also being quite defensive. Sources tell CNN that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi showed President Biden polling that he can't defeat the former president, and that it could destroy the chances of Democrats running in House races if he continues down this path.

Now, those sources didn't indicate whether the former House speaker did ask him to drop out of the race, but the president, in that conversation, was defensive, sort of noting his own polling that shows that he can defeat the former president.

And at one point in that conversation, the former House speaker asked to get the president's senior adviser, Mike Donilon, on the phone to walk through the data. So, you can see some of the tension here within the party happening in this private conversation.

Now, when asked about this, the White House maintained that President Biden is the nominee of the party and that he can win. The former House speaker's office saying that she went - is in California, has been since Friday, and has not spoken to the president since.

But this is the second known conversation between the two. And it is, of course, notable that this is a high profile Democrat that is showing the president polling. And polling is important to him. I mean last week, during the NATO summit, during his solo news conference, he said that he had not yet seen polling that shows that he can't defeat Donald Trump, but he left the door open that if he did, he could be receptive.

So, certainly you can see that there are so many questions that are still circling the Democratic Party in terms of what the president's next steps are.

And it is no small thing that the president had to be pulled off the campaign trail because he was diagnosed with Covid. The president was using the - those moments, those campaign appearances in Nevada not only to shore up black and Latino voters, but also to show that he has the vigor to be on the campaign trial, to be the Democratic candidate, and to eventually be the nominees.

[09:05:12]

So, the president being pulled off of that right when Democrats want him out front. Certainly a dent in his campaign posturing.

SIDNER: Right. Right as Donald Trump is getting like more and more momentum and he's about to speak tonight at the - at the RNC.

What is the president, though, saying about his Covid diagnosis and how he's doing?

ALVAREZ: Yes, this all happened very suddenly, Sara. In fact, just moments before the president was expected at the Unidos event in Nevada is when the president - or the president of the group came on the stage and said that he couldn't be there because he had tested positive for Covid.

Now, the president has since weighed in when he was heading back here to Rehoboth, Delaware, where he has a residence.

Take a listen to what he told reporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you feel?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I feel good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He feels good.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ALVAREZ: Now, the president has had mild symptoms according to a White House official. This is not the first bout of Covid for the president. He also had it in 2022. He received Paxlovid, later had a rebound case. The president also receiving Paxlovid now and, again, self- isolating here in Delaware.

Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much. Appreciate you there, live for us from Rehoboth Beach

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us now is Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu.

Governor, it is good to see you. Thank you so much for being here.

GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): Great to see you. You bet.

BOLDUAN: You are not in the business of giving advice to Democrats, that's for sure, but what do you make of all of this new reporting that is coming out, especially that the former speaker, Nancy Pelosi, met with Biden to show him polling that she - and the reporting is, and she told him, that the polling shows he cannot beat Donald Trump? What do you make of this?

SUNUNU: Well, look, I was on - I was on this very show, CNN, over a year ago and I said Biden would not be the nominee on the ticket. And no one loves an I told you so moment more than a politician. But I think this is the reality. I think that the pressures are really there. There's a lot of emphasis and a lot of positive unity on the Republican side. As a Republican, I think that's great. And we're having a tremendous week.

But as soon as the convention's done, around Monday, Tuesday, all the attention is going to focus right on Joe Biden. And they're going to say, what are you going to do now, because now we're in real trouble. And as was just noted, you guys were talking about, he's - he - they're trying to - they're finally forcing him to look at the data.

So, I still very much believe Biden will not be the nominee. Kamala Harris will be there. And my warning to Republicans is, don't take that for granted. That's not an easy race. If Kamala were smart, she's going to pick a Republican - a Democrat governor, like a Shapiro or an Andy Beshear, something like that. That's a new, refreshed ticket. It's a short timeline, but don't count them out by any means. And Republicans up and down the ticket are going to have to run hard to close this deal so we can win in November.

BOLDUAN: You have been around politics your whole life. You have run hard campaigns. When a can - when a campaign gets to the point of reporting that's coming out like this, can a campaign fight through it?

SUNUNU: No.

BOLDUAN: Successfully fight through it? SUNUNU: No. No.

BOLDUAN: When you have reporting coming out and this - like Pelosi and Schumer and - and then on top of it, the - the president is off the campaign trail because he has Covid.

SUNUNU: No, because - you bring up a great point. Once it hits leadership, once the leadership has absolutely acknowledged that they cannot win, what that has now told all of America is, they don't even believe in their own ticket, right?

So, yes, anyone - anyone on the fence is going, well, they don't even like their own guys. There's a question of whether they're going to - how supportive they're going to be. Clearly that confidence is just cracked right through the party.

So, the Democrat Party is in a complete mess right now. If Biden wants to stay, he's going to stay. And that's going to be a real problem for them.

I'd love it if he stayed, because I think he's very easy for Republicans to beat. But my - my role here is to kind of hopefully remind Republicans what's really happening on the ground. And if the powers that be in the Democrat Party can convince him to move off, it's going to be a very different race here in just a month. And it's going to be a nail-biter. I still think Trump can win. I still think Republicans can be very successful. But we're going to have to work really, really hard, take nothing for granted.

I think JD Vance is a great pick. He brings a whole different kind of energy and background to the top of the ticket. That'll even - that'll help a lot of our congressional, Senate and governor seats. Even the state seats on the Republican side can all benefit from that.

But, at the end of the day, if the Republican - if the Democrats actually get their act together, we've got a race on our hands.

And I've said it - like I said, I said it for over a year. I just - I just think that that's - that's the reality we're going to be facing in November. It's going to be a wild 100 days.

BOLDUAN: As if the last hundred hasn't been wild.

SUNUNU: Yes. Right.

[09:10:00]

BOLDUAN: The big speech tonight, the former president accepting - his acceptance speech, accepting the nomination. It's going to be his first real substantive, real speech since the assassination attempt.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BOLDUAN: One that since he has said himself that it's - he now wants to - he's torn up the speech and he wants to focus more on unity. You have not always been a fan of Donald Trump. You have, you know,

shared your fair criticism of him and his policies and his - and his character with me.

SUNUNU: Rhetoric.

BOLDUAN: Yes, there you go, rhetoric. But what does unity look like, do you think, from Donald Trump? Do you - do you believe that? I mean, what are you expecting from tonight?

SUNUNU: Yes. Yes, I think unity from the former president is unity for America. And it's not just going to be a message to the MAGA base or one part of the party. Clearly, everybody has come on board on the Republican side. Folks that had their doubts and all that sort of thing. Folks like myself, who worked really hard to get another nominee in there. And we worked hard. And we had our primary. And the voters chose. Unlike the Democrats, on the Republican side, the voters made their choice. It wasn't my choice, but the voters made their choice. And now it's down to A versus B, that's Biden versus Trump today.

So, I think the opportunity for the former president is to talk to all of America. To even talk to those Democrats that are still, you know, hanging on, the Democrat ticket, with - with all fingernail saying, please, you know, give me a better option than Joe Biden. He's going to be talking to them. He's going to be talking to a lot of folks in the rust belt, in Michigan, and in Pennsylvania, back in Georgia, all those swing states. Those folks that might have walked away in 2020 but realize that we've got to bring this case country together.

So, I think it's going to be a good speech. I think what you've seen in the last hundred days, you know, well - even well before the assassination attempt, the debate showed a sense of professionalism from his campaign, a sense of discipline, if you will, on - on messaging, not just being completely blustery and - and - and, you know, going out there and just shooting from the hip. He's keeping his measures fairly controlled. And that's - that's exactly what you want to see in a candidate at this point. And I think it's going to resonate tonight and be very successful.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned JD Vance. You think he's a good running mate.

One thing that we heard from JD Vance last night, especially in talking about the economy, is - I mean it - the way he - he pitched it, it did not sound - it did not sound like something you'd hear from a Donald - from Donald Trump - from a Republican.

SUNUNU: That's right.

BOLDUAN: He went after the Wall Street barons.

SUNUNU: Yes.

BOLDUAN: He went after big business. He - one line that really stuck was, America's ruling class - ruling class wrote the checks and then it was our communities that paid the price, trashing free trade. I mean this was - this was ala Bernie Sanders, which was noted last night afterward.

Is that - is that - is that going to have broad appeal? Is that the new position of the new Republican Party? Do you see that as successful?

SUNUNU: You know, I don't know if those - how broad of an appeal those exact positions have. But what does have an appeal is the contrast between him and Donald Trump. They clearly get along. And what you're seeing is not someone that just agrees necessarily with every position and every stance that Donald Trump has taken, or I have taken, or anyone's taken. And that's OK. It's saying that within the party we can have a variety of ideas and a variety of approaches here.

So, Donald Trump clearly born with a silver spoon in his mouth and, you know, obviously had a lot of economic advantages. JD didn't. And talking about that background and about that contrast, that connects with folks that struggled with drug addiction, had, you know, that have been kind of suffering in poverty for too many years. He's lived it. That's a real life experience that could now be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That's an amazing opportunity that I think a lot of families are going to connect with.

And yes, it's not Donald Trump's story. It's not every position that every Republican initially wants to take. But it's saying, we're going to put these ideas on the table. We're going to challenge the status quo. We're going to challenge that establishment.

And I think '24 is all about that. People want the Washington establishment, the Washington elite to be disrupted and challenged. That's why Trump won in '16. I think that's why he's going to do very well again in '24. So, it's that kind of nature and that kind of disruption, I think, that as a team they bring to the table and resonates very well with a lot - a spectrum of American families.

BOLDUAN: Governor Sununu, good to see you. Thank you.

SUNUNU: Good to see you. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Donald Trump is set to take the stage tonight. This will be, as Kate was saying, his first public speech since surviving an assassination attempt. We've got new reporting on what we expect to hear.

And then breaking just moments ago, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released his response to reporting that he urged President Biden to drop out of the race. He kind of stopped short of a denial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:19:12]

BOLDUAN: More on the breaking news this morning. Sources telling CNN that Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, has privately delivered a stark message to President Biden, that the polls show that he cannot beat Donald Trump in November.

And she also warned, according to the reporting, that he, Biden, could ruin Democrats' chances in retaking the House of Representatives if he stays in the race.

Joining us right now is Democratic Senator Alex Padilla from California.

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): Good morning, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Senator, thank you so much for coming in.

PADILLA: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Adam Schiff, who's running for the other Senate seat in - in your state, he has called on Biden to step aside. And now you have this reporting from the former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

You have stuck with Biden throughout, but do you think the walls are closing in around him now?

[09:20:03]

PADILLA: I do not, Kate. I mean I have tremendous respect for Nancy Pelosi, have a good relationship with my soon to be colleague, Adam Schiff. I just happen to disagree when it comes to their assessments. I'm not just looking at the numbers, looking at the polls. I'm talking to people as well.

Here's what I take away. Number one, there's a big disconnect between the chattering class and the working class in terms of what's going on with this race. This is going to be a close race in November, just as it was four years ago. But increasingly, people remember and recognize what's at stake in this election. Not just the record and the leadership of President Biden and the Biden-Harris administration, but the contrast couldn't be clearer. And we're hearing it all week long at this Republican convention, you know, what's at risk should Donald Trump win this November.

So - but the polls show that Joe Biden more than in the ballgame. What we need to do is make sure every Democrat is doing their part for the next 109 days that we will win this November.

BOLDUAN: There is the chattering class, but Nancy Pelosi is - anyone who has watched her, followed her and knows her career, she is much more - she's not chattering. She is a tactician. And she is one of the smartest, most astute politicians out there. She knows the way the wind is blowing, and she knows how to read it.

If you have Nancy Pelosi saying to Joe Biden that he cannot beat Trump, and that Biden could destroy Democrats' chances of winning the House in November, how do you think he can - he can successfully sustain this campaign?

PADILLA: Again, I hear you. My assessment is very different. Look, it's been several weeks now since the debate that started this whole conversation. A debate performance that President Biden himself has acknowledged was not his best night.

But what have we seen since then? Not just a successful NATO summit and the speeches and the unscripted press conference that people were asking for. We've had energetic rallies in North Carolina, in Wisconsin and in Michigan and beyond. For anybody wondering if Joe Biden is up for the job, just take a good look. He's doing it.

And look, we've also had a primary season. So, there's 14 million Democrats that have voted. Unless or until Joe Biden decides and says otherwise, he is our nominee. And yes, if every Democrat pulls their weight in terms of campaigning, voter outreach, organizing, and mobilizing to turn out the vote, we will win this November.

BOLDUAN: We also have new reporting that Biden is appearing more receptive to listening to calls to step aside. Not that he's close to agreeing with it at all, but the way that it's put is that it's a senior Democratic adviser telling CNN that - here's the quote from this adviser. "He's gone from saying 'Kamala can't win,' to 'do you think Kamala can win?' It's still unclear where he's going to land, but he seems to be listening."

PADILLA: Yes, I -

BOLDUAN: Do you have that sense that he's now listening?

PADILLA: Look, that - in my conversations with the president, he hasn't gone there. You know, these private conversation, folks off the record, makes you wonder what the full context is.

Look, Joe Biden's been around the block more than once or twice, so he's going to not hesitate to hear from Chuck Schumer, hear from (INAUDIBLE) -

BOLDUAN: But, Senator, here's the thing, if none of this was true, if all of this was wrong and if all of this was off, I mean, we would hear more firm and stronger denials. If this is not what Nancy Pelosi said, if this is not the sense amongst smart politicians who are real allies and friends of Joe Biden saying this to him, they would - we would have the firm denials, which we don't.

PADILLA: Look, I - I hear you. I hear you. But here's - I wish we were paying equal attention, Kate, to, for example, the letter that President Biden sent to Congress well more than a week ago. After a couple weeks of hearing it from folks, he made his decision. He sent a letter to Congress that he is absolutely in, committed not just to the campaign, but committed to winning. I wish we would spend equal time assessing Joe Biden's performance during NATO and the tremendous agreement - necessary agreements that came out of that.

You know, again, we're here at the - at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee. Look at the contrast under President Biden. The United States has retaken its leadership - leadership position in the world. If Donald Trump were to get elected this November, we'd go backwards, not just on democracy domestically, but democracy around the globe. The stakes are too high this November. We need to make sure we're maximizing the next 109 days, communicating that contrast, President Biden's record, President Biden's leadership to the future, to voters this November.

[09:25:01]

BOLDUAN: The president also, in the midst of all of this, Senator, has gotten Covid. So, he's now in isolation for the next couple days in Delaware. How does that impact the campaign?

PADILLA: Yes. Look, it - unfortunate minor setback for the moment, but it shouldn't surprise anybody. Like, I represent the great state of California, where Covid numbers are on the upswing again because it's summer and we're out and about. But don't think that President Biden having to isolate for a few days because of Covid is going to keep them from working.

Remember, he's got a significant day job. Let's not lose sight of that. And he'll continue to communicate to not just members of Congress, leaders around the country and the voters in whatever way he can, including virtual, including radio, including a lot of other things. He's going to continue to stay active doing both the work of the president of the United States and the work of the Democratic nominee for president of the United States for four more years.

BOLDUAN: Senator Alex Padilla, it's always good to see you. Thank you for coming in.

PADILLA: Thank you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, there were tears, mixed with harsh criticism of President Biden at the Republican Convention as gold star families who lost loved ones in the Afghanistan withdrawal took to the stage. That's ahead.

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