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Trump Campaigning in Swing States; Interview With Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL); Democrats Kick Off Historic National Convention. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 19, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:48]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Hello. It's the top of the hour. I'm Brianna Keilar at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. And my colleague and friend Boris Sanchez is in Washington.

It is day one for the Democrats' weeklong nomination, celebration of Vice President Kamala Harris. And over the next several hours, thousands in the party will gather here in the United Center to celebrate Harris and also to salute President Joe Biden as he delivers tonight's keynote speech and passes the torch to her.

The president is expected to talk about his 50-year legacy of public service and to make the case for the Harris/Walz ticket. First lady Jill Biden and Hillary Clinton will also take the stage. With just 78 days until the election, the Democrats arrive here in the Windy City with a strong breeze at their backs, as new polling shows Harris with a narrow lead nationally.

The goal now is to build on the momentum and introduce Harris and her vision to the country.

CNN's M.J. Lee is joining me now.

I know you're learning some new details about what the first lady is going to be saying, which I think is particularly interesting tonight. What have you found out?

M.J. LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And it's not surprising at all that we are going to be hearing from the first lady, obviously no better person to introduce the president than his spouse, who knows him best.

Keep in mind, we have talked a lot about what a challenging time the last few months have been for President Biden. Of course, the same goes for members of his family. The first lady included, by all accounts and all of our reporting, she did remain supportive of whatever decision he was going to make.

Even up until the moment that he announced that he was going to be dropping out, we are told that she was really fully there. And then the speech that she is going to now give tonight is completely different than the one that she was going to give four weeks ago. We are told that, first and foremost, she will be calling on Americans

to support Vice President Kamala Harris. According to a source, she will say that it's time for Americans to come together with faith in each other, hope for a brighter future and love for our country and back the vice president.

But, not surprisingly, there's going to be an element here where she is paying tribute to her husband, talking about his character, talking about his accomplishments over the last 3.5 years. And there's going to be an element here that is also a tribute to the first lady.

There's going to be a video, we are told, that introduces the first lady, sort of marking the key moments from her time as first lady as well. So, just remember that this is, yes, an important political speech for the first lady, but I think in so many ways we will likely see how personal of a moment this is for her as well.

KEILAR: It's just a historic moment, unlike one we have ever seen.

What are we expecting from President Biden?

LEE: Yes, obviously, it goes without saying that, for the president, this is a very different speech than he was supposed to make four weeks ago as well.

Instead of speaking the last night of the convention, he is going to be speaking tonight for the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. More than anything else, similar to what we're going to hear from the first lady, he is going to stress over and over again that Democrats must win in November, that they have to defeat Donald Trump in November.

But I am told that this is not going to be a farewell speech, that the moment for that is likely going to come in January. That would very much mirror what we saw from former President Barack Obama, when he gave his sort of formal farewell speech to the nation back in January of 2017, actually here in the city of Chicago as well.

He sees the president, the endorsement that he immediately gave after he dropped out that Sunday afternoon to Vice President Harris, as being singularly important, being responsible, and helping her quick ascent to the top of the ticket.

We certainly expect that there's going to be sort of a tribute to the personal relationship that he has and has developed with the vice president as well. And he will, I think, talk about the vice president as somebody who is capable of speaking about her accomplishments, her attributes, her strengths in a way that nobody else can, because he has now been through so much with her in the last 3.5 years.

KEILAR: Yes, it's going to be a fascinating evening.

M.J., thank you so much for your reporting on that. We do appreciate it.

I want to bring in now CNN's senior political analyst Mark Preston. Mark, it really is going to be a remarkable moment. It's going to be a

historic one as well, bittersweet for President Biden, I think so many people imagine.

[13:05:04]

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, Brianna, it was just four years ago that Joe Biden had his convention, but there was no balloon drop.

There was not thousands of people sharing him on. They did an excellent job electronically to do a convention four years ago, but we're back to the ways of old right now, and we're going to see Joe Biden on the stage behind us, really, as you noted, passing the torch, the idea of talking about all the accomplishments that he has done with his wing person, that being Kamala Harris, and him putting her -- giving her the opportunity to be on a ticket and now stepping aside and allowing her to elevate up to be the nominee.

I will tell you, Brianna, there is a wave of excitement, certainly in the Democratic Party, certainly in this town that we're feeling right now that, 30 days ago, when Joe Biden was still the standard-bearer, still going to be the nominee, you didn't see in the Democratic Party.

KEILAR: No, no doubt, Mark.

What does Harris need to achieve throughout this week at the convention?

PRESTON: So, Brianna, there's been a lot of talk about how she has been absent, that she hasn't been around, that what has she done the last three years?

Well, in some ways, that works for her because it allows her to define herself. Now, she's going to be building off of, obviously, the record of President Biden and herself over the past three years, but she has to sell herself. She has to not only go on that stage and get the American people to like her, but over the next three, four days, all of these folks who are on stage giving testaments to her have got to sell her to the American people.

In many ways, she does have a honeymoon right now. There have been no mistakes so far in this campaign, but it's still early, and you and I both know that a campaign can turn on a dime. So expect a very hard sell on Kamala Harris in talking about the future.

KEILAR: We should note, former Secretary of State, former first lady, former nominee Hillary Clinton is also going to be speaking tonight. What is her role, Mark?

PRESTON: Well, in many ways, she's bridging the gap, right? She's bridging the Democratic Party of her generation to the Democratic Party where we are right now.

She didn't break through the glass ceiling when she ran in 2016, but she put a lot of cracks in it. She certainly blazed a path for other women, not only just in Democratic politics, but in all political parties to take a jump, to get involved, to run for office.

And I think what you're going to see from her tonight is, she's going to talk about not only that, but talk about the empowerment of women and how Kamala Harris is going to be looking out for women certainly in this election. And let's not forget, one of the biggest issues that we will hear from the Democrats over the next three months will be about abortion and about how Donald Trump is trying to take away the right to choose.

KEILAR: Yes, we will be hearing some of that tonight, as some women affected by Roe being overturned also will speak.

We have seen some protesters nearby, Mark. There have been a lot of them. There's a huge police presence to deal with that potentially. I think it's still very much to be determined on what this is going to look like over the course of the week. How could this impact things?

PRESTON: Well, it certainly could impact things terribly for Democrats if we do see any kind of violence out on the streets.

I mean, they're expecting tens of thousands of protesters here. Now, most of these folks are probably Democrats, right? In many ways, they are Democrats, but they're very upset about how the United States is backing Israel in this battle with Hamas and all the folks that are dying over in the Gaza Strip right now.

Not only will we see them on the outside, Brianna, but we're going to see them on the inside, because there are about 30 uncommitted delegates, folks who want to be able to voice their opposition to the Hamas war right now. And you could see something happening -- happen on the floor behind us.

I do expect that, if that does happen, they will be shouted down. And really the protests that happen on the outside, Democrats can only hope that they stay peaceful. If they stay peaceful, then this will just be forgotten about. If they do get violent, then, of course, the attention will turn to that.

KEILAR: Yes, we will be speaking with an uncommitted delegate a little later in the program.

Mark Preston, thank you so much at the beginning of this big week.

And while tonight is about honoring President Biden, the rest of the week is all about promoting Vice President Kamala Harris. A new poll finds less than two-thirds of voters say they know what the new Democratic nominee for president stands for.

Compare that with eight in 10 who say the same about former President Trump.

And with us now is Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois.

Great to have you.

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Welcome.

KEILAR: Thank you so much for being with us.

What do you want to hear from President Biden tonight?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I think that it's going to be a celebration of Joe Biden. He's going to be talking about his accomplishments.

And he has a lot to talk about, whether it's the Inflation Reduction Act, in which we have $35-a-month insulin for seniors. And now 10 prescription drugs have been negotiated downward in price, or it's the bipartisan infrastructure deal, or the CHIPS and Science deal, which is bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

[13:10:18]

He has a lot to talk about. Now he's passing the torch to Kamala Harris to continue the progress and build upon what he's done already.

KEILAR: You -- that word continue, it's so interesting, because, of course, that's part of it, this continuity from the Biden term. Obviously, she's his vice president.

But whatever you think of his record when it comes to the economy, inflation, immigration, polls show that perception of his performance on those issues are not so good. So how does she navigate that, sort of that continuity, but also seeking some distance from Biden?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I think that she gets to, as your previous commentator said, define herself, define where she stands on these issues. She gets to make a -- she gets a second chance at making a first impression, in terms of, you know, talking about the parts that she wants to keep and then the parts that she wants to change as she goes forward.

And that's based on her experience as being vice president. And so I think this is a real key moment for the country to learn how she's thinking about these issues as well.

KEILAR: The Biden economy, as it is perceived by voters, by all voters, does she own that?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think that she owns certain parts, but she also gets to decide what she would change going forward, so, for instance, talking about making sure that our markets perform better in terms of competition, making sure that we get rid of barriers to entry by small businesses so that we can bring down prices and increase the supply of everything from goods and services to housing.

I think those are all things that she's going to be talking about.

KEILAR: I'm curious how you, as a proud Indian American, are experiencing this week so far, what this means to you as you are going to be watching the first candidate of Indian heritage accepting the nomination of your party.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Oh, it's huge, huge, huge moment of pride.

We have somebody who she actually hails from the exact same part of the -- of India that my parents and my family do.

KEILAR: Her family does?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yes.

And so, because of that, there's just a lot of anticipation about this moment. And we're going to have someone who was a member of the Samosa Caucus in Congress go to the White House and bring some curry power to the new ticket.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I do wonder, as you go through the DNC platform, which I'm sure that you have read in every word of it, it actually -- it mentions President -- former President Trump 150 times. It mentions Vice President Harris 32 times.

What signal does that send to you?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Well, I think that what it sends is we need -- we need to make sure we don't go back to the Trump days, right?

I think that what really galvanizes everybody who's going to be here tonight is a resolve that we move forward, and that Kamala Harris is at the lead to kind of bringing us together, bringing the country together, making sure that everyone, regardless of the color of their skin or where they come from, has a place in America, and, secondly, that everyone is on the up escalator of the economy, regardless of whether they're poor, middle class, or growing a business.

And so I think we can't go back to a time and age of Trump, where the country's divided. And when you're divided, you can't unite against our common challenges.

KEILAR: You wish she had more mentions in that platform?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Oh, I think that she has...

KEILAR: One-fifty to 32?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think she has plenty, and she's going to have a lot to say this week.

KEILAR: Yes, it's going to be, obviously, a very big week.

Congressman, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time at the beginning of this week.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: And stay with CNN's special coverage here in Chicago, where protesters have begun gathering nearby. Security is preparing for the possibility of mass demonstrations. And we are tracking all of that. We're also live from Pennsylvania, where former President Trump is

campaigning in the battleground state and hammering the number one issue for voters, the economy.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:55]

KEILAR: And we're live at the United Center in Chicago, as the Democratic National Convention gets set to kick off.

But former President Trump has mapped out a plan to try to capture some of the attention this week. The Trump/Vance campaign has scheduled events in swing states every day. And, today, he is in Pennsylvania, then Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona as the week goes on.

Brand-new polling from some of those battleground states show Vice President Harris now ahead in Arizona and North Carolina, still within the margin of error, though. Trump, however, is slightly ahead in Nevada and has a clear lead in Georgia.

We have CNN's Phil Mattingly in Pennsylvania for us.

Phil, tell us what's going on with former President Trump's plan there.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brianna, what's fascinating is, if you think about what we have heard from Republicans publicly, more often than not privately, over the course of the last week-and-a-half, it has been essentially begging the former president to focus on policy, to focus on swing states, to get out back on the road again, something he did at a level really unseen before for a candidate back in 2016, on some level in 2020 as well.

[13:20:05]

And that's exactly what's happening now. Despite the former president making clear he didn't believe there needed to be a strategic shift, his advisers have made clear that throughout the course of this week in swing state after swing state after swing state, they are going to be focusing on issues, on policy issues in each stop that he makes.

J.D. Vance, the vice presidential nominee on the Republican side, the senator from Ohio, he will be doing the same exact thing, both of them in the critical battleground state the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Today, J.D. Vance is down in Philadelphia. The former president is here.

They will be talking about the economy. And throughout the course of this week, what they will be doing essentially is trying to bracket everything that the Democrats do in Chicago. They will be going to Michigan. They will be going to North Carolina. They will be going to Arizona, crisscrossing these critical battleground states that are an absolute necessity in that pathway to 270.

And in each step of the way, Brianna, it's the economy, it's national security, it's the border. It's issues that the campaign and Trump's top advisers have made clear they want to talk about, they believe they have an advantage in with voters when they talk about them.

The biggest question has been, will the former president actually talk about them? Smaller venues than we're used to, probably about 150 people expected to be here at a family-owned business. The primary purpose of this, not just the economy, but to talk about the 2017 tax law the former president signed back during his first term.

So we will have to wait and see. They understand, Brianna, when you talk to advisers, that this is going to be a week that is heavily focused on the Democrats, almost entirely focused on the Democrats. What they want to do, though, is make sure they're on the ground in these states and make sure they're trying to drive a message that, at least up to this point, it's been difficult for the former president to do so.

KEILAR: All right, Phil Mattingly, thank you so much for that report from Pennsylvania.

And here with me now, we have two CNN senior political commentators, Van Jones and David Urban.

Fantastic report there from Phil. Full disclosure, I heard not a word of it, because I'm having a technical issue.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We will fill you in. We will fill you in.

KEILAR: So I hope that I'm not -- I hope I'm not redundant in what I'm asking you here.

But, first, just the state of the race. I mean, he's there in Pennsylvania. You have Vance and Trump bracketing this ticket all week long. And new polling is suggesting pretty tight in these battleground states. David Urban, how are you seeing things?

URBAN: Look, it's going to be tight. The entire race is going to be tight, back and forth, back and forth. We -- nobody expected this race perhaps maybe a few weeks ago, right, when the featured speaker tonight was still on the ballot.

But even then, everybody knew it was going to close. Democrats would come home. Republicans would come home. This is a race that's going to be about a few hundred thousand votes in a few key counties in a few key states.

And so I was with the former president this weekend in Scranton and -- excuse me -- the Wilkes-Barre area, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre area. He's now in York. Vance is in Philadelphia. The current vice president was in my home county of Beaver County yesterday in Western Pennsylvania. They're going to spend a lot of time in the commonwealth because I don't think anyone could be president without that.

But each one of these races is within the margin of error. And it's important that people show up to vote and vote early if you're Republican.

VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The best thing that I have heard right now is that David Urban is here with us.

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: Because the last time David Urban was with Trump in Pennsylvania, he won Pennsylvania. So we're going to keep you here. We're going to lock the door. Don't want you out there.

KEILAR: You think he's like the good luck charm?

JONES: No, he's the Pennsylvania whisperer and we're not letting you go back.

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: But, look, obviously it makes sense for Trump to be out there. He's not going to get the dominant position in national media. And it may not matter if he can go and scratch another five votes, another 10 votes, another 20 votes back in his column in the swing states where it matters. That's his business.

But for us, this is the big opportunity to go from a tight race to push our numbers up one points, two points, maybe three points. We come out of this convention with a major bounce, that puts us in their best possible position after Labor Day.

We don't want to be tied. I don't like being tied with Donald Trump because we have had now 20-plus days of positive press. He's been falling down the stairs, flipping on banana peels and poking himself in the eyeball. We should not be tied. We want to pull ahead.

That's our opportunity this week.

URBAN: And that's the key point, Brianna. This campaign, the Harris campaign, has been flawless for the past 28, 30 days.

JONES: Flawless.

URBAN: And it's a tied race.

JONES: That's scary. That's scary.

URBAN: It's a tied race.

JONES: We got to go.

URBAN: They're doing the best they can and it's tied. That's really important.

JONES: Yes. And, tonight, Biden comes out and he's going to do one of the most beautiful acts of political leadership to step back, so somebody else can step forward. It very rarely happens.

That's going to -- you're going to have Kleenex boxes from up there to over there of people watching someone do something honorable and it's going to make people want to fight that much harder that this sacrifice is not in vain.

URBAN: I will be crying. I will be crying.

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: Because you wanted him.

URBAN: Listen, I'd rather see -- I'd rather be running against Joe Biden.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Well, to that point, it is -- this is going to be a historic moment as this begins...

JONES: Yes. Yes.

KEILAR: .. this celebration of the nomination of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be a nominee for a major party.

[13:25:02]

What does she need to achieve at this convention? How can she harness that story? How can she broaden her appeal?

JONES: You know, what I like about what Kamala Harris is doing right now is that she's not leaning on that horn too hard.

She's not saying, look, I'm the first this. I'm the first that. We're saying it, but she's not talking about herself. She's talking about the voters. She's talking about America. She's talking about other people. I think that that's really good.

She also -- we're all friends here. We can talk. She's got some business she's got to handle here. Everybody is not full -- all the bunnies are not fully in this barn yet, OK? You have a lot of men of color who are still on the outside looking in. How does she reach them? How does she get young men of color, young black men to think that she is their person?

They're willing to listen to her, but they're not certain yet because of the prosecutorial background. How does she balance that? Also, we got some donors that are not yet in this barn. Silicon Valley walked away from this party and now you have got somebody from the Bay Area, from Silicon Valley area who's on the ticket.

Can she signal to them that she's not going to be as aggressive on the technology companies as Biden was? There's a lot of stuff happening under the hood here. You got to figure it out.

URBAN: I was just going to say, it's going to be interesting to see who really -- who Kamala Harris really is.

JONES: Yes.

URBAN: Right? Is she the progressive Kamala Harris that ran in 2019 that wanted -- not wanted commonsense gun reform, but wanted mandatory gun buybacks, take your guns away, that wanted to ban fracking on day one, that wanted to get rid of private health care?

Those things scare Pennsylvanians, right, big time. Pennsylvania is a big gun owner state, big hunter state, huge fracking state. Those are losers. Right? She's also tied to the guy who's given the keynote here tonight. It is the Biden/Harris administration. So, she's trying to run as an outsider, redefine herself, is not part of this team. I'm going to change things.

Donald Trump got something right at that press conference at Bedminster. She said -- he said her day one was 3.5 years ago, because she said I'm going to be ready on day one. He said, yes, that was 3.5 years ago, Madam Vice President. It's the Biden/Harris ticket. It's hard to distance yourself when your name's on the door.

KEILAR: It's hard to do. You can't actually -- we just had the Olympics. When someone's handing you the baton, you better be there to grab it.

JONES: Yes, yes.

KEILAR: Right?

And yet there's still this degree of needing to distance herself a little bit on some things. How does she navigate that?

JONES: Well, the same way -- look, some of this stuff is just common sense now. In politics, we make stuff too complicated.

Have you ever had a boss that you sometimes disagreed with? Have you ever had a boss that did some stuff that you might have said...

KEILAR: Complete no, absolutely not, Van, absolutely not.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Not here. Not here.

(LAUGHTER)

JONES: But some people, somebody...

KEILAR: At some other place.

JONES: ... at some other place may have had a boss that they might have done something different for.

It doesn't mean you're disloyal. It means, here's who I am. And I'm going to tell you what? That Kamala Harris that you're criticizing, picking on, she wasn't comfortable in her skin. That wasn't really Kamala Harris. She was trying to figure out a way to navigate a primary.

This person you see now has something you can't buy, authenticity. She is speaking for herself. There was just an article written about how she didn't even really have time to pull together a fake stump speech with her first speech. That was more from her heart.

So I think that, when she says to people, this is who I am now, I have learned a lot in the last 3.5 years, this is where I want to go, I think she can be believed because she's believable.

URBAN: But she's going to have to do that. She's going to have to get off that bus in Pennsylvania, answer questions, and sell that brand to Pennsylvania voters.

You can't do it -- you can't send out some faceless spokesperson and say, I'm for fracking now all of a sudden, right? I'm not going to take your guns. It's hard to believe, right, when you're on camera hundreds of times saying, I'm -- ban fracking on day one. I want to take your guns.

Pennsylvanians, this isn't the Show Me State, but it's the show me state.

KEILAR: She has to sell it, for sure.

David, Van, thank you so much for the conversation.

URBAN: Thanks for having us.

KEILAR: Really appreciate it.

URBAN: No energy here.

KEILAR: So much, and I love it.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: more of our special coverage from the Democratic Convention here in Chicago and this, the U.S. pushing Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire and hostage deal, calling this a -- quote -- "decisive moment," saying this may be the best, last chance to bring hostages home. But that may not be enough.

Stay with us.

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