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Harris speaks at first presidential rally in Milwaukee; Biden returns to White House after exiting race, endorsing Harris; Convicted Dem Senator Menendez resigning effective August 20. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 23, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:53]

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JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Top of the hour here in Washington, DC. We are standing by to hear from Vice President Kamala Harris as she kicks off her presidential campaign at a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, her first campaign event since becoming the presumptive democratic presidential nominee after President Biden stepped aside.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Now, today's rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin is capping just a whirlwind 48 hours where Harris secured enough delegates to lock up the nomination. And then just in the last hour, she got the endorsements of the top two democrats on Capitol Hill as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put their full support behind Harris. The Vice President's rally is happening as President Biden is returning to the White House.

These are pictures from just moments ago. And they're the first images that we've seen of the President since he went into isolation with COVID-19 just a week ago. He is headed back to the White House. And tomorrow, that's where he will address the nation from on his decision to drop his reelection bid and endorse his vice president for the nomination. We have CNN's Eva McKend, who is at the Harris campaign rally. Eva, set the stage for us here.

EVA MCKEND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the stakes are tremendously high and the Vice President is expected to speak to that. She's also expected to really lean into her former career as a prosecutor in making the case against Donald Trump. And drawing that contrast, she will argue that he is a threat to democracy, that he has undermined the effort to protect reproductive rights, and that he has not done enough to really -- during his administration, care for working families.

I can tell you from traveling with her on the campaign trail the last couple of weeks, this feels like an entirely different campaign. There is so much momentum and excitement and enthusiasm here on the ground among democratic supporters, including young people who will be so vital in this election. Take a listen to how they're thinking about this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OLIVIA JESSUP-ANGER, FIRST TIME VOTER FROM WISCONSIN: I think she is iconic. And then also, I agree with her on policy. I'm so excited for the debate, seeing a prosecutor against a felon. I think that's going to be really interesting. And I just agree with her a lot policy-wise. And just overall, seeing a strong independent woman on the ballot this November is really promising to me.

Obviously, abortion is at the forefront of all of our minds. But then something I'm also really passionate about is the education and keeping the Department of Education against going with Project 2025 is wanting to do this November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: And that woman that you just heard from, she will actually have the opportunity to vote in her first election this November. And I'll end with this, Brianna, every democratically elected leader, nearly every major one in this state has endorsed the Vice President. She is going to need the critical infrastructure in the state of Wisconsin and other battleground states that are already in place in order to be successful come the fall. Brianna?

KEILAR: Certainly is. Eva McKend, thank you so much for that. The sudden surge in endorsements and support, also a lot of cash, a lot of it for Vice President Harris is giving Democrats hope that they may be able to expand the electoral map.

KEILAR: And CNN's Jeff Zeleny joins us now. What are you hearing about this possibility, Jeff? Because just to remind everyone, when it was Biden, there were three states they really thought, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and that was the pathway. But now, they think perhaps they can expand this map.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Expand it from those three and keep it from expanding as they were worried about in the last several weeks. And as Eva was just reporting there from Milwaukee, the reason that this visit, of course, is so important, Harris campaign officials and Democrats on the ground there believe that the combination of winning a state like Wisconsin, similar to Michigan and Pennsylvania, is by driving excitement up in the cities among African-American voters and other sort of core Democrats and also doing better in the suburbs.

So these states act sort of together. At least they have in every cycle since 1988.

[14:05:02]

It's been since 1988 since those three states have not acted together. We don't know if they will this time, of course. But as this map is reset, we're going to get a sense of polling and other data in the coming days. We don't know now. This is essentially a Blake slate. And they believe, Democrats believe, and Republicans largely agree that this is going to reset. But the idea of some states now being competitive like in Minnesota may not be the case. However, Donald Trump has just announced he's going to Minnesota on Saturday. So to try and keep that state in play. We've always talked about Minnesota being the reddest blue state. It was the closest margin back in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

So look, across the battleground, it is likely to revert to what it was at the beginning of the campaign as opposed to what it looked like just a few weeks ago of that three state blue wall path only.

KEILAR: We have to be clear, Harris still really has her work cut out for her. But --

ZELENY: Without a question.

KEILAR: Without a question. But the enthusiasm that we've seen has been pretty astounding and the money has been pretty astounding.

ZELENY: It's really eye popping. Let's take a look at some of these numbers. I mean, just in the last 40 hours, really, $100 million in counting for Vice President Harris who now, of course, is at the top of the ticket, or she soon officially will be when that vote comes in just a couple weeks. But that compares to, for President Biden, 127 million the entire month of June, whereas Donald Trump won 11 million the whole month of June.

Look, she obviously won't raise 100 million every 48 hours.

DEAN: Right.

ZELENY: That's not possible. But the idea of excitement, I think, speaks to a couple of things. One, there was a lack of excitement for quite some time in the Democratic Party. So they're kind of catching up to that. But there is genuine excitement for her candidacy. But now, the race to define her is on. Republicans are seizing on that. So they will have to use that money for TV ads to really define her and defend the definition of her. So this race is just getting restarted. Important to say, everything we thought we knew about it, let's throw it out and watch it anew.

DEAN: Let's watch it anew. And it just reminds us all that we really don't know what is going to ultimately happen. We have to follow along as it goes. All right, Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much. Donald Trump is posting a flurry of new attacks on social media today, calling Vice President Kamala Harris, a liar, saying President Biden was, "pushed out of power like a dog," and slamming Fox News for interviewing a democratic governor.

KEILAR: Joining us now, we have former republican congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart. Congressman, to you, as we note that Harris still does have her work cut out for her here, there is a lot of excitement. And I wonder what you think is we certainly -- we're waiting polling numbers, right? We want to get a better sense of where things are. But I wonder what you think of the state of the race here.

ADAM KINZINGER, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, I think there's a lot of energy now on the democratic side because think about it, there was a lot of dread between another Trump Biden rematch, right? I mean, you heard that from everybody. This is like an X Factor thrown in the race. We don't quite know yet how Kamala Harris is going to do on the campaign trail. Early signs are pretty good. But definitely, she's a different person now. And so that dread that I think a lot of people were feeling, they can now look at and say, well, I either have to go with Donald Trump again, which has kind of been there, done that, or there's this new opportunity over here with Kamala.

So I think there is a lot of energy now with the democratic side. Is it going to shift the polls massively? Probably not, at least in the short-term, because, again, you know, this is a very divided country. But whenever you can enthuse, get enthusiasm in your base for election day, that's a huge benefit, making sure everybody turns out to vote. So I think it is pretty accurate to say that the battlefield map may be expanding now in the Democrats favor as long as they can hold on to this momentum. And I think fundraising is certainly going to be on their side now as there's this new level of energy with them.

DEAN: And Joe, we saw the Vice President coalesce the party around her in incredible speed, raise tens of million, record breaking number, record breaking amount of money, tens of millions of dollars. So let's look ahead now. What is the work that lies ahead for her? What does she have to do now that all of that has fallen into place?

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, she has to take her team and integrate them with the Biden team and stand up a campaign as quickly as possible. She's got something that I'm not sure everyone's thinking about, but an advantage. When a President names their vice president, those -- the vice president generally has a team that runs their politics. The president team comes in and takes over. There is inevitably tension. And there are sometimes days, sometimes weeks before that all gets worked out.

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She's been through this before. She understands how to do that. So the most important thing is she stands up the campaign quickly and it works from the beginning. I think Congressman Kinzinger hit on something, which is good news so far. But what everyone in the Republican Party and the media is going to be looking for are some missteps here. But the campaign doesn't seem to quite have it together. I think based on her experience and based on the Biden team, I mean, listen, we shouldn't forget that one of the reasons that she came out so quickly and coalesced the field is, by the way, Biden and his team did it by keeping it a secret and not allowing others to come in and organize, and sort of making it a fait accompli. That gave her a big advantage.

KEILAR: Joe, I remember not very long ago speaking with Democrats who were privately urging Biden to get out of the race. And then in the next breath saying, they didn't think Kamala Harris, the Vice President, was the person to get the votes that the democratic ticket needed to win. I mean, surely those concerns don't just completely evaporate.

LOCKHART No, they don't. But, you know, as Joe Biden once said, you know, he's running against Donald Trump. He's not running against God. I think what's happened in the party is that even those who had some doubts about the Vice President have now seen this as a clear choice. They see the excitement, they see the money, and they see what their choice is as Democrats and as activists and partisans. They have one person to get behind. We were able to avoid a free for all between now and the convention, which really could have strained a lot of relationships. So I think, again, it's early. But coming out of this, I think they've handled it flawlessly.

DEAN: And Congressman Kinzinger, I do want to ask you, because you endorsed President Joe Biden in the presidential race. With him now stepping aside, do you plan to endorse Kamala Harris? And what do you want to hear from her?

KINZINGER: Well, I mean, I think it'll be a safe bet to assume I will. I haven't heard from her yet or her team, so I'll wait for that. But I mean, look, it's -- Donald Trump tried to overthrow the rightful transfer of power in the government. And as -- you know, as much as people in the last week have said he's changed, he obviously, by his tweet, youk now, explosion today. There's nothing about him that's changed. He's all about himself, not the American people.

So I don't think it's going to be a big surprise that I would do that. But, yeah, I think the big thing is just for her, not for me, but for Republicans like me, is just to show a desire to unify the country. I don't think Republicans like me are looking for her to become a Republican or all of a sudden change what she believes, but just to understand that there's a place for us in America.

What Donald Trump has made clear is that there's not a place in America for people that disagree with him. He has this, like, term about real Americans versus whatever a not real American is. I guess, people that live in cities, which actually outnumber people that live in rural communities. So I think that's what she has to do. And show herself to be as strong on national defense or even stronger than Joe Biden.

KEILAR: Congressman, I want to ask you about, we've heard one particularly kind of gross attack on Harris. And that was Tim Burchett, who's a congressman from Tennessee, calling her a DEI Hire. And this is broadly something that we're hearing from Republicans. I want to play what Tim Burchett said, the two soundbites, actually. One is how he used this in a hearing yesterday against the Secret Service -- former Secret Service Director now Kimberly Cheatle. And then what he said about Kamala Harris to Manu Raju. Here it is.

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TIM BURCHETT, REPRESENTATIVE FOR TENNESSEE'S 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT: I don't think she should resign. I think she should have been fired. Ma'am, you are a DEI horror story.

MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Are you suggesting she's -- she was a DEI hire?

BURCHETT: 100 percemt, she was a DEI hire.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KEILAR: What is going on here considering, you know, you have, for instance, in the case of Cheatle, someone who worked for 27 years in the Secret Service. And in the case of Harris, you have someone who was elected as part of a ticket, was elected prior, you know, was -- as a senator, and also has quite a history as a prosecutor. What do you make of this?

KINZINGER: Yeah. Also, like Tim Burchett specifically, he does this thing where he has his little cute southern accent and maybe throws in some acronysm (ph) with it, you know, about a possum or something like that, and then says really horrible things. And this is -- actually, if you look at right-wing Twitter and kind of right-wing social media, this is all over. So if you see a plane crash, I'm a pilot, obviously, so I pay attention to this stuff, well, you see a plane crash, you'll always see comments under that, must have been a DEI hire. There's this belief that having black pilots at united for some reason is DEI and not that -- you know, let's remember the Tuskegee airmen, by the way, not that African-American men can actually go and become pilots on their own.

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This is a disgusting dog whistle. That's not even a dog whistle anymore, it's an outright whistle, that a white female at Secret Service is somehow a diverse. Basically what they're saying is only white men are deserving of certain positions. And I thought that we got past that about 60 years ago in this country. And so I think, look, they're feeding the trolls on right-wing Twitter, but I think this is -- I hope it's continuing to isolate them from the vast majority of Americans that actually believe that we should get beyond race and gender in terms of making hiring decisions.

KEILAR: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. If your assessment there is correct. It's pretty stunning what we're seeing. Congressman, Joe, thank you so much to both of you. We do appreciate it. And we are following some breaking news here. Sources tell CNN that democratic Senator Bob Menendez will be resigning his seat after his federal bribery conviction.

DEAN: CNN's Manu Raju is on the Hill. Manu, what more are you hearing on this breaking news?

MANU RAJU, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. This comes in the aftermath of his conviction on 16 felony charges, including extortion, bribery, working as a foreign agent on behalf of the government of Egypt. This caps a tumultuous time in Washington for someone who had rose over the last three decades from someone -- a rank and file member of the House to one of the most powerful people in the Senate as a Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Now, Menendez had been facing the threat of possibly being expelled from the United States Senate after his conviction, after he was found guilty on those 16 felony charges.

A number of Democrats had said that they would be open to the idea of pushing him out of the Senate. That is something that is rarely done, but something would require two-thirds majority in the United States Senate. Almost all of his Senate democratic colleagues had asked him to resign. So his support had been crumbling when he was indicted initially and then especially so in the aftermath of his conviction when the Senate majority leader joined those democratic calls for him to resign.

So now that Menendez will resign effective August 20th, that's when the governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, who is a Democrat, will appoint a replacement. That replacement will serve to the end of Menendez's term, which is the end of this year. There are questions about who he might replace, but almost certainly a Democrat that would potentially include the democratic nominee, Andy Kim, who's a congressman right now. He's the -- he's favored to hold that seat for Democrats in the fall, but also potentially the governor's wife as well, Tammy Murphy is someone to look at as potentially someone he could put in that seat in this interim period. Murphy, his wife, tried to challenge for that democratic nomination before ultimately stepping aside and leading to Andy Kim's ascension.

But this is a significant moment because, as I mentioned, Menendez came from -- became someone who is a pretty powerful figure in the United States Senate, was influential on immigration policy, influential on foreign policy. He even won an effort to -- when he was indicted back in 2017 because of a hung jury on a separate corruption case. But in the aftermath of that, that's when prosecutors said he started to take bribes in this other corruption case that ultimately led to his conviction just a couple of weeks ago. So we expect this announcement, guys, to be made shortly after Menendez privately told his staff and others that he would step aside, effective August 20th.

KEILAR: Yeah. And by the way, not a lot going on, on the Hill in all of August, just to point out. Manu Raju, thank you so much. We do appreciate the very important update there. And you are looking -- I should say we're looking at live pictures. There we are. Senator Baldwin there in Wisconsin who is speaking ahead of Vice President Harris at her rally in this battleground state where she's holding, in fact, her first campaign rally. We're keeping an eye on this. We'll get in a quick break and be right back.

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KEILAR: All right, you're looking at live pictures there from Milwaukee. This is where Vice President Harris will be holding her first campaign rally. Wisconsin, of course, is a key battleground state in the so-called blue wall and will be taking the Vice President/presumptive democratic nominee live as soon as she takes the stage and begins to speak.

DEAN: Meanwhile, President Biden is headed back to the White House. His first time there since announcing he's no longer running for reelection. He has been isolating in Delaware where he's been recovering from COVID. You see him there getting on the plane earlier today. And while he's no longer running, President Biden promises to keep stumping for his Vice President.

KEILAR: Tomorrow, he will be addressing the nation from the Oval Office, his first on camera comments talking about why he stepped aside. We have CNN senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche here with us. Kayla, what are we expecting to hear from this prime time address?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Brianna, when President Biden said that he would be exiting the race, he promised the American people more detail on exactly what led to his change of heart, which just a few weeks ago he had said that only the Lord Almighty could convince him to step aside. But in the weeks after that, fundraising all but dried up and prominent party leaders ratcheted up their pressure on him to step aside. But both of those dynamics reversing themselves in dramatic course in just the two days since Vice President Harris assumed the reins of the democratic candidacy for president here.

The campaign says that more than $100 million in fundraising has poured in. The majority of which it says is coming from first time donors. She's racking up new endorsements. And more than 58,000 volunteers have signed on to the Vice President's ground game for this sprint to the finish line. When Harris visited the campaign's headquarters yesterday that's now being rebranded as Harris for president, of course, before she names her running mate, which we expect in short order before the convention, Biden called in and said that he would still be supporting her all along the way through his support behind his vice president, and said that while the name atop the ticket might change, the mission has not changed.

As for the mood on the ground at the event that you guys were just showing guys, campaign spokesperson tells CNN's Betsy Klein, that the 3000 people in attendance at that event is the largest crowd of any democratic campaign event this cycle. That just shows you this infusion of new energy within the party, the supporters of the Vice President as they try to infuse this new candidate with some new energy with just about 100 days to go before the election.

KEILAR: All right, Kayla Tausche, thank you so much for that report live for us from the White House. Joining us now is Congressman Mike Quigley. He's a Democrat from Illinois and he sits on the House appropriations committee. Thank you so much for being with us. And as we are awaiting this rally to begin, well, for the Vice President Kamala Harris, part of the rally to begin in Wisconsin, I wanted to ask you because I was talking with one of your fellow colleagues not long before President Biden stepped aside. And this person said, there was a lot of concern within the democratic caucus that Kamala Harris may not be the person to pull the votes that that were needed for the democratic presidential ticket to be successful. And even as we see we are, we've seen a lot of enthusiasm for her. But certainly, those concerns that I just mentioned don't evaporate. What do you say about them?

REP. MIKE QUIGLEY (D-IL): Right. I'd say the party is unifying in a hurry. And we heard there would be chaos if President Biden stepped aside and said, you've seen a lightning quick unification. Not because she's a stranger but because we know her all so well, we know what a great nominee and candidate and president she will be. So you raise $100 million in a flick of an eye and, you know, unify the party, you get the majority of delegates behind you so that we can go forward with the virtual vote, you know, roughly the first week in August and going to the convention in Chicago with a head of steam.

KEILAR: Yeah. And she is consolidating that support in the party. But, of course, she needs to consolidate support among voters, some of which may not identify with the party. What are the conversations that are being had or that need to be had about combating perhaps some of her weaknesses or her areas for growth with those voters?

QUIGLEY: Everybody has areas of growth. But I heard -- growth. I heard these same issues and talk when a friend of mine from Chicago, Barack Obama, was going to run, right? And he did quite well. I think she's as dynamic a campaigner as President Obama was. I think you've already started to see what that means. And I think what we may be forgetting here as well is all of a sudden, the focus now shifts on an elderly candidate on the republican side who has a series of issues, not least of which crimes and misdemeanors and a lot of other problems that we can focus on with Project 2025. That isn't a mythical plan. It was a lot of what President Trump did his first term.

KEILAR: I do want to mention, we're looking at live pictures now of President Biden who is heading back to the White House. Here, he is arriving at Joint Base Andrews. And he will be heading to the White House. He's going to make this primetime address tonight. So just taking a pause from some of our talk about Vice President Harris to ask you as he speaks tomorrow about why he stepped aside, what are you hoping to hear from him?

QUIGLEY: Well, first, again, thanks to an extraordinarily selfless act by the President, which I think would cement his legacy.