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Democrats Coalescing Around Harris; Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is Interviewed about Biden and Harris; Poll Numbers for Harris; David Axelrod Discusses Harris' Presidential Run. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired July 22, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Fighting over immigration, crime, the economy. But this is going to be a very different campaign going forward. You think back to the convention. There were so many effecting movements attacking Joe Biden over his Afghanistan record from the families of the soldiers who died there. And those were some of the moments that are now going to be more difficult to attack senator - or Vice President Harris over. And we're going to get our first glimpse at the campaign's message going forward later today. Senator JD Vance will be holding an event behind me in Middletown, Ohio. This is the town he grew up in. It's where the setting was of "Hillbilly Elegy," his - his memoir and the Hollywood movie. And so we're going to see him for the first time step out on the campaign trail on his own. And, obviously, at this very critical moment, Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, it will be interesting to hear his shift in message today too.

Good to see you, Steve. Thank you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we do have breaking news, Kate. We just heard from a key Democratic governor who, until now, had not officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. So, what did he just say this morning? We are standing by for new information on that.

Also, quote, "we failed." That is the message the Secret Service director is prepared to tell Congress this morning during a hearing on the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Will she be able to hold onto her job?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:36:18]

BERMAN: All right, we do have more breaking news. Kentucky Governor Andy Bashear just officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. That is a key pickup for her. He is one of the more prominent people who had yet to endorse. And Beshear himself is being discussed as a possible vice presidential pick for Kamala Harris. Also just in, Harris picked up two key endorsements in the House Democratic leadership, Catherine Clark, who is the House Democratic whip. She has endorsed Harris. And Pete Aguilar, essentially a number three in the House, he too has endorsed.

There are still a few prominent folks who have not. I'm talking about former President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the top Democratic leaders in Congress, Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, they have held off endorsing, at least for now. We'll see if that lasts throughout the morning.

CNN's congressional correspondent Lauren Fox here with the latest.

Where do things stand, Lauren.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, John. We are seeing a swift number of Democratic endorsements coming out for Harris this morning. This obviously comes off the tails of last night when you saw a number of rank and file Democrats swiftly coming out, both to celebrate Biden's legacy and then turn their attention on the fact that they will do everything in their power to try to elect Kamala Harris to be the next president of the United States.

You also, this morning, are hearing those two top Democratic leaders in the House, both Peter Aguilar and Catherine Clark, coming out in support of Harris. And I want to read briefly part of Aguilar's statement. He says, quote, "make no mistake, this election will be the fight of our lives. The American people have a clear choice. We can restore reproductive freedom for millions of women living under a cruel abortion ban, continue to lower everyday costs and ensure the American economy works for every family in every zip code, or we can re-elect Donald Trump, who will sign a national abortion ban into law, eliminate the $35 a month insulin guaranteed to our seniors and roll back thousands of American clean energy jobs."

As you noted, John, we are still waiting for word from both Leader Jeffries and Leader Schumer over in the Senate to see whether or not they will endorse Harris this morning. Our colleague, Dana Bash, had reporting yesterday that they had been holding off in part because they wanted members, the rank and file, as well as voters, to have an opportunity to sort of reflect on what they wanted next. Now that so many Democrats are swiftly coming out in support of Harris, though, that may change quickly.

Lawmakers are back in Washington in the House starting this evening. The Senate returns tomorrow. But, John, obviously, we have seen a lot of endorsements coming out over the last 24 hours for Harris.

BERMAN: It's been very interesting after what was a month of sort of uncertainty and chaos, a lot of organization all of a sudden in the Democratic Party.

Lauren Fox, great to see you. Thank you very much.

Kate. BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.

It's good to see you. Thank you so much for coming in, Congressman.

You've thrown your support behind Kamala Harris. What Lauren and John were just talking about Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, they've stayed silent so far. Why do you think that is?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Well, I think in part, you'll have to ask them, but I think that there are a lot of candidates out there who are at the last time that people had asked them were interested in potentially running. And so I think they also want the process to unfold.

[08:40:00]

All that being said, I'm supporting Kamala Harris through this process in my hometown of Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, which will be must-see TV at this point.

BOLDUAN: I was going to -- that's what I was going to ask you. I mean, what should the process look like? What is the convention going to look like?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, as you know, the delegates now have been released by Joe Biden. And so, they will have to vote again on the nominee and so, you know, Kamala Harris is going to have to win their support. I believe that she will.

And so I think there'll be a process for allowing for anyone else who wants to enter the fray to do so. But I think that, you know, Kamala Harris is going to be a formidable contender.

BOLDUAN: Congressman Dean Phillips, he has been pushing the -- his idea for a process would include a straw poll among Democratic delegates of potential candidates, then Harris in the top three or something, that would come up in the straw poll, do a series of televised town halls before voting at the convention.

Is that something you think would work?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I'm open to whatever process the DNC has. I think late last night, Jaime Harrison said that they were going to kind of unfold this process in the coming days.

I have to tell you, my -- my phone was just lit up last night with text messages and phone calls. I received numerous emails. There's just a burst of energy and enthusiasm right now.

Regardless of what process is designated, I'm sure the DNC is going to do a good job in laying that out.

But I think that everyone is, A, extremely grateful to President Biden for his incredible service and putting the country above himself. And then, B, excited at the prospect of a convention that's going to select the next nominee.

BOLDUAN: VP pick, do you have someone or a type of someone that you think would be a good partner for Harris?

(LAUGHTER)

KRISHNAMOORTHI: You're trying to get me into trouble. I -- I think there are so many qualified --

(CROSSTALK)

BOLDUAN: No, never, just trying to get some answers.

(LAUGHTER)

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I -- good trouble, good trouble.

Look, I think that they're excellent candidates. Look, you know, my own governor, J.B. Pritzker, is a fabulous potential pick. But I don't know what, you know, Kamala Harris is going to decide. I look forward to learning more about that.

BOLDUAN: You are also -- just shifting because it's happening in just a few minutes, really. You're on the Oversight Committee and this morning, the Secret Service director is going to be testifying before your committee.

What do you want to learn from her? What answer are you going to demand this morning?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, there's a number of topics where there's going to be some really hard questions asked of her.

For instance, the timeline is very puzzling. You know, in the 20 minutes leading up to the shooting, there were at least three instances where Secret Service and law enforcement were alerted to the specific shooter in question. And yet, the rally was not paused.

Another issue is the AGR building, that's the building upon which the shooter was perched, was outside of the security perimeter, even though it was well within rifle range of the stage upon which Donald Trump stood.

And so, questions about this, as well as other topics are going to abound. And I think Director Cheatle is going to need to answer a lot of them today.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. There's also this new reporting that the Secret Service officials have repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Trump's security detail in like the two years leading up to that assassination attempt, the agency is admitting this now that there were requests that were denied.

I asked the Secretary of Homeland Security about this last week. I want to play for you what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: That's a -- that's a baseless and irresponsible statement, and is one that is unequivocally false.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Unequivocally false. What is going on here?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know. And that's one of the questions that are going to be asked today.

My overall read on the situation is that this was a terrible security failure. And, you know, Director Cheatle is going to have to come in and answer for exactly what happened.

And I guess -- I guess I should just mention the reason why in part we are coming together as Republicans and Democrats with regard to this particular probe, is that we have an ongoing presidential campaign, right now and we have the Democratic National Convention in about 28 days and so, given that we are right in the midst of a presidential campaign, we need answers quickly. We need the investigation to wrap up and then the lessons learned to be implemented right now.

[08:45:02]

BOLDUAN: Yeah. Congressman, it's always good to have you. Thank you very, very much.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you so much, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Of course.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, are the numbers on Kamala Harris' side to secure the nomination? And vacations delayed. The lingering issues that still have some families in a holding pattern at the airport after that glitch. We will talk about all that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: If you can believe it, it is day four of the massive flight delays and cancellations after that IT tech outage of last week.

[08:50:01]

Already more than 700 flights have been canceled today. The vast majority of them with Delta Airlines. Hundreds more have been delayed according to FlightAware. I mean people are, obviously, desperate to get home. One estimate indicates the related costs from the outage could be upwards of $1 billion. What a mess.

And at least 14 Palestinians, including six children, have been killed in an Israeli attack in Khan Younis. That's according to the Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry, which says 36 people were also wounded. Earlier today, the IDF ordered people in eastern neighborhoods of Khan Younis to evacuate, saying it would be, quote, acting forcefully against terrorist organizations.

And firefighters are battling two wildfires in Riverside, California. So far, both have burned a thousand acres and have forced people in about 1,500 homes to evacuate. More than 25 million people are under heat - heat alerts on the West Coast right now with no relief in sights. Several record-breaking temperatures are expected to be tied or broken this week. It feels like we're becoming a broken record when it comes to this, Sara.

SIDNER: True story. Thank you so much, Kate.

Now that President Biden has bowed out of the race, and Vice President Kamala Harris looks likely to be the Democratic nominee, how do voters feel about a potential Harris-Trump matchup?

CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten joining me now, straight from the beach.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes.

SIDNER: Anyway, must be nice.

ENTEN: Vacation's ruined.

SIDNER: Poor you. You're young. You'll be fine.

So, the question is, can she do better than Joe Biden when it comes to her and Donald Trump?

ENTEN: She can't do worse. So, let's take a look at the most recent polling we possibly can. So, this is the net favorability rating. This is favorable minus unfavorable rating. This was taken after the Republican National Convention. Look at Joe Biden's net favorability rating. It was minus 23 points. His unfavorable was 23 points higher than his favorable.

Now, look, Vice President Harris isn't exactly beloved, but she's at minus 11 points. That's a universe away from this minus 23 points. And more than that, it's in the same area as Donald Trump's minus 11 points. So, while Harris is no shoe-in for sure, she's a much better bet than Joe Biden, who was, let's just put it this way, deeply, deeply unpopular. And no incumbent had ever won with his low ratings. Look at that, that minus 23. You just can't win with that, Sara.

SIDNER: And look, voters said that they didn't like either candidate. Now they have someone new. That could be another thing.

I do want to ask you about the swing states. The all-important swing states.

ENTEN: Yes.

SIDNER: What do the swing states look like?

ENTEN: Yes, so this is before the RNC. And this is Trump versus both Biden and Harris. This is Pennsylvania and Virginia. And what's important to note here is, look, in Pennsylvania, which is a key pivotal battleground, the commonwealth, look, Joe Biden was behind Donald Trump by three points. Trump was up by three. Harris only down by a point. Trump was only up by a point.

We see the same pattern in Virginia. Biden, led by three points. But look at that, Harris did better, plus five. So, we see that Harris overall seems to be doing about two points better in these key battleground states. Now, we'll see how these numbers look after the RNC, after Harris, of course, is now the likely Democratic nominee. But the polling beforehand suggested that Harris would do better, even by just a small margin. But, of course, elections in this country are so, so tight that two points can make all the difference.

SIDNER: That's in - within the margin of error there. So -

ENTEN: Yes, this is well within the margin of error in the state of Pennsylvania between Harris and, of course, Donald Trump.

SIDNER: Yes. Yes. It's so interesting.

All right, I want to ask you about the endorsements that are happening. Do they mean anything? What do - what do voters think about it? And these endorsements are coming fast and furious now. We are seeing like the leadership just go one after the other come out and say, we back Harris.

ENTEN: Yes, so, look, we've never had anything quite like this in the modern era. But what we do know is that when candidates get at least 50 percent or more of the endorsements, look at that, they've won the nomination ten times. The only person to ever lose a nomination was Hillary Clinton back in 2008. Remember, she lost it to Barack Obama. But they were pretty close in endorsements. But only lost it one time.

If you get the majority of the endorsements, like Harris is getting right now, and no one else is getting any, that's a pretty surefire bet to win the nomination. But here, of course, is the thing, right? These, of course, are from members of Congress and governors as well. How about, how do the voters feel?

SIDNER: Yes.

ENTEN: How do Democratic voters feel?

So, we had a recent poll from New Hampshire. Look at this. This is not a state where I think a lot of people would expect Harris to do particularly well. It's a very white state, we know, where we believe that Harris' base within the Democratic Party is African Americans. Look at this, she led Pete Buttigieg with 50 percent of the vote. Buttigieg was way back at just 14 percent.

And if we look nationally, look at this -

SIDNER: Wow.

ENTEN: Seventy-six percent of Democrats nationally said that they would be satisfied if Harris was the nominee. So, at this particular point, it looks like she has endorsements from elected officials and it looked like the voters are behind her as well. So, unless something rapidly changes, and, of course, in this cycle, who the heck knows. It looks like Harris is going to be the Democratic nominee. And when it comes, of course, to the voters, what we see is, look at that, again, in Pennsylvania and Virginia, she is either leading in Virginia or in within the margin of error race with Donald Trump in the state of Pennsylvania. Game on.

SIDNER: She has a real shot is what you're saying?

[08:55:01]

ENTEN: Yes. That's exactly right.

SIDNER: All right.

ENTEN: If Biden didn't have much of a shot, Kamala Harris has a real shot.

SIDNER: All right, August 19th, the convention's going to start. It'll be really interesting.

ENTEN: Whoo! You got that right.

SIDNER: All right, Harry, thank you for being here.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: Thank you for coming off your vacation.

ENTEN: I know. I know.

SIDNER: John.

BERMAN: All right, you know, one key data point that you guys were just talking about there, since President Biden dropped yesterday afternoon, Democrats say that nearly $50 million in grassroots donations have poured in. So you can see, there's some enthusiasm there.

With me this morning we're lucky to have CNN's senior political commentator David Axelrod.

Axe, great to see you.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good to see you.

BERMAN: I want to talk about what we've seen in just the last hour and a half or so.

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: Joe Manchin dipped his toe in, then pulled it out. Like, said I'm looking at the process but I'm not actually running.

AXELROD: Yes. That's a practice move for Joe Manchin, yes.

BERMAN: Andy Beshear endorsed Kamala Harris. Catherine Clark, Pete Aguilar, Democratic leadership, seem to rally around her.

What are we seeing literally right now?

AXELROD: We're seeing coalescence. I mean, look, I think that the critical hours after Biden's announcement were very, very strong for Kamala Harris. It was a campaign of shock and awe they just reeled in endorsement after endorsement. And I think the impression was this train is leaving the station and it's time to get on board.

Every - almost every single potential opponent of hers jumped on board yesterday, several of them are being mentioned as potential vice presidential candidates. The message is very, very clear, she's going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party.

BERMAN: Who is this election now going to be about? Back when Biden was running, they wanted this election to be about Donald Trump.

AXELROD: Right.

BERMAN: But is it still going to be about Donald Trump? Is it going to be about Vice President Harris if it's her?

AXELROD: Well, listen, that's the goal of each campaign, right? When you're an embattled incumbent, and in some ways they're each embattled incumbents, we can talk a little bit more about that in Kamala Harris, you want to make the race about the other person. And Trump had successfully done that. And primarily because of Biden's age.

Some of the issues remain the same. But their message was, the world's out of control. Biden's not in command. He's weak. Trump is strong. Vote for Trump. And they were having success with that.

More complicated now because Kamala Harris is far younger than Trump. She's energetic. She can take the case to Trump. And she - though she - they will try and tie her to Biden's record, certainly on issues like immigration, she isn't Joe Biden and she can, in some ways, craft her own message and go on the attack.

So, this is a race that the Trump campaign didn't want. They may prefer her to someone completely unknown who would be harder to caricature in the way they want a caricature her. But they didn't want this race. They thought they had it won. They had built a whole campaign around Joe Biden. Now Joe Biden is gone, its complicated.

BERMAN: How does she handle - how would you advise the Harris campaign to handle her strengths and her weaknesses? How to address where you think she might be weak?

AXELROD: Well, look, first of all, there are aspects of Kamala Harris that people have not - that people don't know a lot about. I mean she really was a career prosecutor. And that is an aspect of her that I think she should lean into. She should have her own perspective on how to - how to address issues like the border. But I think, more importantly, she needs to shift the issue debate to issues that favor her. Clearly on the issue of abortion rights, she's going to be there. She's been the administration's spokesperson on that.

But there are a lot of sort of middle-class, working class economic issues on which Democrats are in one place and Donald Trump is in a different place. And it's not on the side of working class people, whether, you know, it's taxes or regulation or any other - any other - any number of others whose health care, pharmaceuticals, and she needs to go on the attack here and she has the capability to do it.

Again, you know, when you're a prosecutor, you know how to prosecute a case.

BERMAN: I grew up covering politics, thinking that the vice presidential selection mattered a lot. And then I think for the last 20 years we flipped in thought it didn't matter very much. Now, if the nominee is Vice President Harris, and she's picking a running mate, how important will that pick be?

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: And who might be the most advantageous?

AXELROD: You know, I think it is important in the sense that this is your first presidential decision. And it sends a signal about where you're - where you're going. So, you know, she can pick someone who I think will strengthen her in places where she needs to be strengthened. Probably a more moderate candidate, white candidate, someone who can appeal particularly in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, because if she doesn't win those states, she's likely not to win the presidency. Certainly Pennsylvania, but the other states normally follow.

[09:00:02]

BERMAN: I got to ask very quickly here. One of the groups that President Biden had trouble with were younger Democratic voters.

AXELROD: Yes. Yes.