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Donald Trump To Deliver RNC Speech He Re-Wrote After Assassination Attempt; New Pressure On President Joe Biden As More Democrats Urge Him To Exit Race; Kamala Harris Speaks In North Carolina As More Democrats Urge Joe Biden To Step Aside; Senior Democrat Advisor: "Joe Biden Is Being Receptive" In Talks About Future. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 18, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:13]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I'm Boris Sanchez live in Milwaukee at the site of the Republican National Convention. My co-anchor Brianna Keilar is live for us in Washington.

And this afternoon, we're witnessing two very different political campaigns. While Democrats are calling for the incumbent president to quit his race for reelection, Republicans are celebrating their presidential nominee less than a week after he survived an attempted assassination.

And a few hours on this stage behind me, Donald Trump will take a victory lap when he formally accepts his party's nomination for president. His speech tonight could be different from any we've heard from him before. We're told it's been rewritten after Saturday's shooting and is now expected to focus on a message of unity.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us here at the RNC in Milwaukee. And Kristen, what are you hearing about Trump's speech? And how are lawmakers expecting it to be a different version of Donald Trump tonight?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think that right now lawmakers that I'm talking to are waiting to see what exactly that speech looks like. There's always a lot of talk about Donald Trump changing, pivoting, is he a different person or not. And not everybody has had a chance to sit down and talk with him since that assassination attempt on Saturday.

But if you talk to his senior advisors, they do say that he is a changed man. And he has told allies that part of his speech, he wants to lean heavily into what happened on Saturday. And the idea that there was some sort of divine intervention that saved him from being killed on that stage.

And we actually heard a little bit of that in a video from an earlier event. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This has been our best campaign and then I got shot. What was that? How does that happen?

That was an amazing, horrible thing. Amazing thing. And in many ways, it changes your attitude, your viewpoint on life. And I think honestly, I think you appreciate God even more. I really do because something happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, this is particularly interesting coming from the former president who is not known to be a religious or spiritual man. And it's not just that he's saying this in public. It is something he has told people close to him that he believes as well, Boris. So, expect to hear that later tonight, as well as obvious campaign themes. But he does say that he wants to strike a tone of unity. We'll wait and see.

SANCHEZ: Kristen, Trump is the final speaker tonight. And we know there are a lot of other notable names taking the stage tonight. Take us through those.

HOLMES: Did you just laugh when you said that? I feel like you might giggled a little bit.

SANCHEZ: A little bit. A little bit.

HOLMES: There are -- there are a lot of notable names, one of them, Hulk Hogan, another one Dana White. Now they have been friends for a very long time and we know that Donald Trump loves a good UFC fight. He loves the entrance, the interest, he loves the energy that is around it. That is somebody who's going to speak right before Donald Trump, so that's basically his introduction.

But before you actually get to Trump, there's going to be an entire performance by Kid Rock. They are really leaning into the Trumpian kind of celebration, performance aspect of this. Donald Trump we know likes a good show, they really save the kind of big names -- oh, Tucker Carlson also coming out, big ally of Donald Trump, also big fan of J. D. Vance's. Notable, he was in the box last night. So, it's going to be a big performance angled tonight.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, we look forward to that. Thank you so much.

Let's discuss with CNN Senior Political Commentator Scott Jennings and the former governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Governor Walker is currently the President of the Young America's Foundation. Thank you both for being with us.

Scott, a lot to get to. But first and foremost, Hulk Hogan, Dana White, Kid Rock opening for president. What does that tell you about the Republican Party that it's not a former governor or former president opening?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It tells me we're the party of fun. Not since Scott Walker was winning elections in Wisconsin, and we've been the party of fun like this. We're the party of Hulkamania tonight, we're going to do our training. We're going to say our prayers, we're going to eat our vitamins. And that's how the Republicans are going to win the election.

Now, look, the Republican Party is leaning in this whole week. Big tent, big ideas, big conversations, big personalities. It all fits the Trump ethos, and he has a chance tonight. Not since George W. Bush ascended the rubble with the bullhorn has a American political figure had our attention and the opportunity to truly do something magical and game changing and Donald Trump's got the chance tonight and the people he's putting on the stage are the kinds of folks who have been beloved by and know how to communicate with the American people for a lot of years.

SANCHEZ: Did you pay the staff to play Metallica?

[14:05:00]

JENNINGS: Let me tell you something, Boris.

SANCHEZ: The timing on that.

JENNINGS: Let me tell you something, I know you like Macho Man.

SANCHEZ: I do. That theme is my favorite, whatever that was.

Governor Walker, obviously, you went to a lot of elections here in Wisconsin. It's a battleground state, one that Democrats are eyeing very closely as part of the blue wall. What do you need to hear from former President Trump tonight that gives you confidence that he's going to win this stage?

SCOTT WALKER, PRESIDENT, YOUNG AMERICA'S FOUNDATION: Well, two things. I think one even before all this happened in the last few weeks, we wanted a fighter who is fighting for us.

So, affordability, when I fill my gas tank up the Kwik Trip, it's a buck and a quarter more than it was four years ago.

When my kids, my son and daughter-in-law are building a new home. It's cost him almost a $1,000 per month more in their mortgage payments. Affordability is a big deal.

So, we need to hear that Donald Trump is going to fight for families like those, we're seeing the gap between wages and cost out there. And that's a good fighter, that's a fighter that won '16, not a fighter for the sake of fighting but a fighter for them.

The other part I think we just saw a snippet of in that little tease from the shot -- the video that was taken, and both Scott and I reacted to that. He's going to be reflective, who couldn't be? You almost died, you were not just inches, you were just fraction of an inch from dying, that's going to affect anybody to be reflected.

I want to hear about the thoughts about his family, his kids, particularly his grandkids, and I wasn't going to let them down nor America down. Man, I'm ready to go with that. JENNINGS: I just want to -- I just think we need a correction. I don't think that's Metallica, that's Kid Rock.

SANCHEZ: Initially, I thought it was Metallica, because they played Metallica.

JENNINGS: We're the fun party. We got Kid Rock tonight for goodness sakes. Unbelievable.

SANCHEZ: There are different views of Kid Rock and his music.

JENNINGS: By the way, if you had the Democratic Convention right now, there would not be this much fun happening. I mean, for sure.

WALKER: That's for sure.

SANCHEZ: I do want to ask you about where Democrats stand in part because we're waiting to hear from the Vice President Kamala Harris. She's giving a speech in North Carolina in a few moments. She's expected to respond to the Republican nominee for the vice presidency, J.D. Vance. She's expected to say about J.D. Vance and his message, "You can't pretend to stand for unity when your agenda is as divisive and extreme as Trump." How do you think that's going to land?

JENNINGS: Look, I don't think the American people see it that way. Because they're the ones defending a record right now. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both have approval ratings in the mid 30s.

So, if there is any unifying item in our politics right now, it's that the Democrat administration that's in charge has completely failed. 85 plus percent of the American people don't think Joe Biden is capable of serving another term.

And I'll tell you another thing. These Democrats who are trying to throw Joe Biden off the ticket right now, they say he's not capable of being president in January, have some guts, call for the president to resign today.

Because if you don't think he is capable of being the president in January, that he's not capable of doing it right now. Have some guts. Don't be political wheezes, have some guts to tell the American people the truth about this man's capabilities.

SANCHEZ: Scott, what do you think of this split screen moment?

Because right now, it looks like Republicans are riding high from this convention, Democrats are in a space where they're questioning the viability of Joe Biden at the top of their ticket. Do you think that we're still too far out from November to have this sort of bullish stance on where the election is headed? Do you have any caution about?

WALKER: Well, we're heading the right direction. Who would have thought six months ago the Republicans are united, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis jumped on that stage the other night, talking about the need to elect Donald Trump and not Joe Biden, and that Democrats would be in such chaos as they are. But remember, a lot can happen in the next few months. Republicans

Donald Trump's head in the right direction, but this state will presumably still be decided by a few a thousand votes.

And that's why we got to make the case as a Republican here that we get you. J.D. Vance helps, because not just on economic policy, but on just getting the forgotten men and women. He lived that life. His mother as he mentioned talked about, drug addict, raised by his grandmother, lived in abject poverty. There's a lot of people here and across the country that feel forgotten.

Donald Trump has been their champion. If he's their champion again, he went here and across the nation.

SANCHEZ: Former Governor Scott Walker, Scott Jennings.

JENNINGS: What you got to do, Boris? When the largest punditry in the world run wild on you? What you got to do?

SANCHEZ: I don't know, Van Jones will certainly advise us. We'll see. Thank you, gentlemen. Appreciate your.

Meantime, on the Democratic side, the Biden campaign says the president is feeling fine as he isolates at his Delaware home after testing positive for COVID.

I want to bring in CNN's Senior White House Correspondent MJ Lee.

MJ, obviously, the timing here as his aides had added events to his schedule, seemingly to contrast with the idea that he was in a diminished physical state. Some of those events obviously are having to be rescheduled.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and Boris, we've actually just moments ago gotten the first update from his doctors since he was diagnosed with COVID. The doctor says that he does still have mild upper respiratory symptoms, that he is taking Paxlovid as we know, but he doesn't have a fever and his vitals are normal according to his doctor.

[14:10:12]

But he is going to be isolating as you said at his home in Rehoboth for the foreseeable future until he feels better. Remember last night, he had to suddenly cut his trip to Vegas short by a couple of hours and fly directly back to Delaware. And what this COVID diagnosis has done is shined a brighter spotlight on all of the questions that have already been out there about his age and his fitness.

The last 24 hours, there have been a couple of notable moments where the president seemed to be sort of physically halting or struggling when getting on and off Air Force One, for example, a moment when he was getting into a car in his motorcade. There was also a moment in an BET interview where the Ppresident appeared to be struggling to actually find his words, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look at the heat I'm getting because I named the secretary of defense, a Black man. I named Ketanji Brown because of the people I've named.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And in terms of just how the White House and the campaign are planning on handling the next couple of days, given that the president needs to continue isolating, they're basically saying, look, we've done this before the president has had COVID in the past. I remember back in 2022 when he was running, the campaign basically came to a halt at one point when the pandemic broke out.

So, they said, you know, we got through those periods by doing a whole lot of video calls. And we should expect sort of more of the same as he tries to continue staying engaged, and really doing the daily work of the presidency as well, in addition to the political work that is so important right now.

But as you said, Boris, the timing truly could not be worse for this campaign. The president has said over and over again, since that terrible debate performance that what he needs to do now is get out into the country and show voters, show his skeptics and critics that he can run for a second term and do another four years at the White House.

But now he is going to be isolating in his home in Rehoboth when, at a moment when he is completely politically isolated too.

You know, we have lawmakers continuing to come out and publicly call on him to leave the race. We have donors saying the money is completely drying up. Of course, there's our reporting about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a private conversation telling President Biden within the last week or so that she believes the polling shows that he cannot win.

So increasingly, Boris, the picture that we are getting is one that is just completely political untenable for the Biden campaign right now.

SANCHEZ: MJ Lee live from the White House. Thank you so much.

We want to get you straight to North Carolina because Vice President Kamala Harris is there set to give remarks in just moments. She is greeting supporters, this, of course comes after a day when she was in Michigan talking about not only the Biden Harris campaign's efforts on reproductive rights, but the attempted assassination of former President Trump over the weekend.

Let's listen into the vice president as she speaks in North Carolina.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's good to be back. It's good to be back.

And I want to thank Kelly (ph), for your work and for your family and all that you have given to our country and service. And it is so good to be back with so many incredible leaders.

Including my dear friend Roy Cooper. You know, Roy and I served together when I was attorney general of California, and he was attorney general in North Carolina. I've known him for almost two decades. And he is an extraordinary leader.

And I want to also thank the extraordinary leaders who are service members and their families who are here with us this afternoon. Thank you.

You know, one of my greatest honors as vice president is to meet with our service members around the world. I have met with our service members from NATO's eastern flank to the Korean DMZ and from Arizona to Florida.

And I will tell you what everybody here knows, all our service members possess an extraordinary skill, discipline, dedication, and love of country.

And I know their families serve with equal dedication and I thank you all so much.

And I'd say everywhere I go around the world, we are so proud that the United States military is the group greatest fighting force the world has ever seen. Which is why President Biden and I are proud to have passed the PACT Act. The largest expansion of health care and benefits for veterans and military families and survivors, the largest benefit in decades.

[14:15:12]

So, thank you again, everyone here, and in particular, on military members and your families for the service and the dedication that you have shown.

So today, we are 110 days out from the election. And while many of us have been involved with these elections, for every four years, practically, nearly every time, we will say this is the one.

Well, this here is the one. The most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetime. And there was so much at stake. Last night was the latest example.

So, some of you may have heard Donald Trump's running mate delivered remarks at the Republican National Convention. He talked about his life story about growing up in southwest Ohio, and it was compelling. It's a compelling story. And it was not the full story.

Frankly, what is very telling is what he did not talk about on that stage. He did not talk about Project 2025. There are 900 page blueprints for a second Trump term. He did not talk about it. Because their plans are extreme. And they are divisive.

In recent days, they've been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. But here's the thing, here's the thing. If you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than just use the word. You cannot claim you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of Americans have basic freedoms, opportunity and dignity.

You cannot claim you stand for unity. If you are intent on taking reproductive freedom comes from the people of America and the women of America, trying to ban abortion nationwide as they do and restrict access to IVF and contraception as their plan calls for.

You cannot claim to be for unity if you try to overturn a free and fair election and threatened -- and threatened to terminate the United States Constitution.

And you cannot claim to be for unity when your entire economic agenda is designed to prioritize billionaires and big corporations over the middle class. We're too busy watching what you're doing to hear what you're saying.

And let us unpack that last point about the economy. This race can be boiled down to a single question, who fights for you? Now we know whose side our President Joe Biden is on. He grew up in a middle class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania. And he has never forgotten where he came from.

And I have been a firsthand witness. With every decision he makes in the Oval Office, he thinks about how it will impact working Americans. He understands. He understands everyday struggles because he has actually lived them.

So, friends I say the contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is like night and day. But with the selection of his running mate this week, Donald Trump is also trying to distract people. He wants to direct attention away from his record and his Project 2025 plan to suggest that he and his running mate are going to prioritize the middle class.

[14:20:02]

But we are not buying it. We are not falling for the Okey doke.

As many of you know, I am a former prosecutor. So, I say let's look at the facts, shall we? So, Donald Trump tries to claim he brought back American manufacturing. The fact is, under Donald Trump, America lost tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs. And more than 1,000 factories closed under his watch, the facts.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden and I have created nearly 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. So much so it's been described as a manufacturing boom.

Last night, we heard claims that Donald Trump is fighting for our seniors. Well, how the heck can you claim you fight for seniors when you intend to cut Social Security and Medicare? Which we all know, is the lifeline for so many of our seniors.

Let me be very clear, President Joe Biden and I will always protect Social Security and we will always protect Medicare.

All while we continue to fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs for our seniors. It is President Biden and I that took on big pharma and finally kept the cost of insulin for our seniors at $35.00 a month.

Who here has a family member with diabetes who know what that means? Right. But Donald Trump in his running may intend to get rid of our $35.00 cap on insulin, they will side with big pharma and let them make prescription drugs more expensive.

Not only that, on the issue of healthcare, they intend to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Donald Trump and his allies tried more than 60 times to end the Affordable Care Act, 60 times, to give insurance companies back the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions.

You all remember what that was like? Children with asthma, women who had survived breast cancer, grandparents with diabetes.

President Biden and I, on the other hand, have made the Affordable Care Act more strong. Because you see, we believe health care should be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it.

Pull up the split screen whereas the last administration gave tax cuts to billionaires. We gave tax cuts to families through the Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty in America by half.

And please do note their Project 2025 agenda would even end head start to take away preschool from hundreds of thousands of our children.

On the issue of the cost of living. Donald Trump says he will implement a 10 percent tariff on all imported goods. Well, understand, independent economists agree his tariffs would increase the cost of everyday expenses for families, the cost of gas, groceries and clothing.

We on the other hand have taken on big pharma, the big banks and big corporations to bring down costs. It is we who have canceled debt, including student loan debt, in fact, testify if you ever seen it. Indeed.

In fact, so far we have forgiven student loan debt for nearly five million Americans and twice as much for our public servants, including our teachers, our nurses and our firefighters.

[14:25:16]

SANCHEZ: We've been listening to Vice President Kamala Harris live in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a state that Democrats believe they can win in November.

Of course, her remarks come as there are serious questions from Democrats about whether Joe Biden the president should remain at the top of the ticket given concerns about his mental acuity dating back to a CNN debate now, some three or four potentially weeks ago. I want to point out during the vice president's remarks, she actually

started by thanking service members saying her and the president are so proud of the U.S. military, even touting a health care expansion for veterans. This comes one day after perhaps the most powerful moment thus far of the Republican National Convention when Gold Star families came forward, naming loved ones who died during the Abbey Gate suicide bombing during the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a moment in which they said that President Biden mishandled.

The vice president then went on to say that this is an existential election and took aim at the vice presidential nominee on the Republican side, J.D. Vance.

She said that the vice presidential nominee has a compelling story about saying that he did not tell the full story to the American people last night because he didn't talk about Project 2025. She went on to say that if you stand for unity, you have to more do more than use the word.

She say that -- she said that you can stand for unity if you stand for taking freedoms from women, for example, with reproductive rights or overturning a free and fair election.

Harris also adding that she believes that the vice presidential nominee and that President Trump are attempting to distract from their record and their agenda.

A senior democratic advisor tells CNN that privately President Biden has actually begun asking if the vice president could beat Donald Trump in a head to head race in November.

We want to discuss with Harry Enten who knows a lot about polling and numbers. So, Harry, could Kamala Harris win if she were to take on Donald Trump head to head?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I don't only believe she could win, I believe she stands a better chance of winning than the current President Joe Biden. And we can see that in two important states, right, Virginia, which is, of course, just north of North Carolina, and then the pivotal Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which if Joe Biden doesn't win, that map is cooked for him.

So, let's take a look at those two states. And what do we see there? What we see is that in both of those states, we see that Kamala Harris is running stronger than Joe Biden is.

In Pennsylvania, Joe Biden's down by three points at Donald Trump. Harris is down by just one.

In Virginia, a state Democrats have won in every single election going back to 2008. Yes, Biden is ahead. But just by three, Harris is ahead by five. And this is a consistent pattern that we have seen throughout the electoral map, when you average the polls, and you don't just look at any one individual poll, you do see Harris doing about a point or two better. And you may say to yourself, hey, that's not that much. But you know,

elections in this country are decided by the smallest of margins. And more than that Harris is able to do that, despite the fact that her name recognition is not as high as Joe Biden, I believe she has more room to grow. And the fact is, given that Joe Biden is trailing, she really can't do considerably worse than he does.

SANCHEZ: How is he doing?

ENTEN: Yes. So you know, there are always ways that I'm trying to understand just how bad a position Joe Biden has.

And so, I decided to look at it this way, we'll take a look at the national polling average. And we'll look at the days that Biden leads Donald Trump.

And if you look back in the 2020 cycle through this point, it was 100 percent of the days, every single day in 2020 Joe Biden led Donald Trump.

In this particular year, if you take a look at the polling average, it's a big fat zero, it is zero folks, he has led nationally and none of the days when you take a look at the average of polls, this race has been consistent, and it's been consistently bad for Joe Biden. And I think that's part of the reason why Democrats are wondering, hey, why not take a shot and maybe put Harris in the front seat.

SANCHEZ: As some Democrats are also wondering if there are potentially others that may be better positioned in that front seat to take on the former president. What are the numbers?

ENTEN: Yes, you know, I think one of the things that's just so important about this is, you know, OK if Joe Biden steps aside who's going to actually take the mantle and be the nominee? And that's not necessarily the easiest thing to do in the world, right? Because you haven't right now a very divided Democratic Party. So, you want to find someone who can take that mantle and most Democrats can get behind.

So, very interesting question that was asked in a recent poll, which is essentially saying, OK, would you be satisfied if Kamala Harris was the Democratic nominee if Joe Biden stepped aside, this was asked of Democrats, and what do we see? We see the vast majority of Democrats 77 percent, who say they'd be satisfied if Harris were the nominee.

So, if Democrats are looking to sub in somebody who has a better chance of winning the general election, and somebody who can satisfy the Democratic base, I'm not really sure they can do better than Vice President Harris. Especially given of course if you know anything about campaign.