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Soon: Trump Speaks In Las Vegas As RFK Jr. Discusses Political Future; RFK Jr. Speaks On Feature Of His Campaign; RFK Jr.: "I Am Suspending" Campaign For Presidency. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 23, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Even before the Republican National Convention in July, there were talks taking place between Donald Trump's orbit and RFK Jr.'s campaign. And part of that was really led by Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. He was really the leader, I'm told, behind a lot of that back-channeling, trying to see if they could find a way to get RFK Jr. to end his campaign and endorse the former president.

Two other big names who have been involved in that are also Tucker Carlson, someone who, I'm told, has a close relationship with RFK Jr., but also this man named Omeed Malik. He's a businessman. He was a former RFK Jr. donor. He's also donated to Donald Trump's campaign and is close to both Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson.

But all of that aside, look, the thinking within Trump's world was, there's a lot of questions for months over whose candidacy would RFK Jr. hurt more. Would it hurt then - President Joe Biden and Donald Trump's campaign more? And now a question between whether it hurts Trump or Harris.

I'm told that when Biden ended his campaign and Harris became really the successor, it was clear that she was going to top the Democratic ticket. That is when the majority of people on Trump's team decided, yes, we want to seek that endorsement. So again, this was a long time coming.

Now, part of this as well is, keep in mind, RFK Jr., obviously, running - had been running as an independent, ending his campaign right now in this major speech, but he's been polling pretty well, nowhere near the way that both Donald Trump and now Harris are polling.

But like, for - in - for example, in Arizona, he's polling at 6 percent. In many of these battlegrounds, he is sustaining a good number of voters who want to - wanted to support him. And so the Trump team's thinking here is that if they can siphon enough of those voters away from Harris and that somehow this endorsement (INAUDIBLE) ...

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Alayna ...

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Alayna, hold on for just a moment. Let's go to RFK Jr.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats with whom I disagree on the most existential issues: censorship, war and chronic disease.

Oh, I want everyone to know that I am not terminating my campaign. I am simply suspending it and not ending it.

My name will remain on the ballot in most states. If you live in a blue state, you can vote for me without harming or helping President Trump or Vice President Harris. In red states, the same will apply. I encourage you to vote for me.

And if enough of you do vote for me, and neither of the major party candidates win 270 votes, which is quite possible - in fact today our polling shows them tying at 269 to 269 - and I could conceivably still end up in the White House in a contingent election.

But in about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I'm going to remove my name, and I've already started that process and urged voters not to vote for me.

It's with a sense of victory and not defeat that I'm suspending my campaign activities. Not only did we do the impossible by collecting a million signatures, but we changed the national political conversation forever. Chronic disease, free speech, government corruption, breaking our addiction to war have moved to the center of politics.

I can say to all who've worked so hard the last year and a half, thank you for a job well done. Three great causes drove me to enter this race in the 1st place primarily, and these are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump.

The causes were free speech, a war in Ukraine and the war on our children. I've already described some of my personal experiences and struggles with a government censorship industrial complex. I want to say a word about the Ukraine war.

The military-industrial complex has provided us with a familiar comic book justification like they do on every war ...

KEILAR: (INAUDIBLE) this from RFK Jr., but that was so much ...

KENNEDY JR.: ... that this one is a noble effort to stop a supervillain, Vladimir Putin, from invading Ukraine, and then to thwart his Hitler-like march across Europe.

In fact, tiny Ukraine is a proxy in a geopolitical struggle ...

KEILAR: ... Doug Heye with us as well as Johanna Maska. She's the host of the Press Advance podcast. She's a former Obama White House director of Press Advance.

He's talking about wanting - he's - he - and we've seen a pressing filing or a court filing in Pennsylvania.

SANCHEZ: Yes. [15:05:00]

KEILAR: So he's saying that he's taking himself off of these ballot access challenges in states where he would be a spoiler, right? These battleground states, like - tell me if I've got this right, Doug ...

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Mm-hmm.

KEILAR: ... but when it comes to a red state or a blue state, you can sort of - if you want to vote for him, you can then register how you feel about him. And then in the crazy possible chance of a 269-269 tie between Trump and Harris, then maybe he can just ride that all the way to the White House?

HEYE: Yes, I was watching that. And Donald Trump last week stood and said - in front of a bunch of groceries and said, I haven't seen any Cheerios in a long time. I had Cheerios for breakfast. This was Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. And trying to get any logic out of that is - good luck with that, because it's - one, you can't understand what he says. Two, if you can, you can't understand what he says.

And I'm reminded of a line of - in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" when somebody gets up and gives an indecipherable speech, he says, who can argue with that? That's authentic frontier gibberish, and that's exactly what that is.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Go ahead, Priscilla.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, I was going to say, to your point, though, Brianna, the big overarching issue here for both campaigns, for the Harris campaign and the Trump campaign, is the third-party is sort of X factor and what that means for turnout in November.

So even if what he was saying wasn't easy to follow, it is still the concern of either campaign, which is partially why Trump is looking for that endorsement, that these voters are sort of the X factor in what they decide to do with RFK Jr. going into November when it's going to be such a tight race. And we've seen that before back in 2016.

SANCHEZ: And yet, his supporters may be confused, because we're even confused based on his own statements. Now we've gotten a fresh statement from his campaign clarifying previous remarks in which, initially in this court filing in Pennsylvania, it said that he would be endorsing Donald Trump. His campaign came out and said, that's not what's happening.

Then he, in his remarks, said that he was throwing his support behind Trump over the war in Ukraine, what he described as the war on our children, and chronic disease was another one. It's hard to make sense of.

Johanna Maska, what do you see in all of this as this rambling speech goes on and he launches attacks against Democrats? JOHANNA MASKA, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF PRESS ADVANCE: Well, look, he's reminding us who he is. I mean, he's the troubled son of a famous politician who has had drug problems, problems with women, nefarious business dealings with Venezuela. I mean, there were a lot of questions about his intentions in this campaign from the get-go.

He is not ready for primetime and certainly not ready for the presidency. I mean, he's never held elected office, but he got some momentum because a lot of Americans didn't want Trump and they didn't want Biden. And I think we have to be careful as Democrats not to demonize the views of his supporters. There are a lot of people who are skeptical of modern medicine right now. We don't need to demonize them. We need to seek to understand, we need to go after those followers.

I don't know if there's people in, you know, Pennsylvania who are following exactly what he's saying, but I think, you know, he's reminded us who he is. So now it's time for the Democrats to really go after his supporters who have questions about Trump, too.

KEILAR: Okay, Johanna, seek to understand people who believe that kids should not get childhood vaccines that keep them safe. I mean, I understand there's a lot of debate and you can say what it of you will of the COVID vaccine. But what he's talked about and the folks who've gravitated towards him, they have a particular set of views on something broader than that.

MASKA: Well, and you're right. You know, to be - the truth is I'm from the Respect, Empower, Include original Obama team. And people are going to have some different views, ones that are very hard to follow for other people who have more information. But that is not a reason that we should demonize them and say that they're idiots or that they're ignorant or that, you know, they're part of the problem, we need to seek to understand what their perspective is based on, a lot of misinformation, some of it coming from RFK Jr. and try to give the right information so that they can make up their mind.

KEILAR: So, okay, we just need to be clear here, and Johanna, if you can stay with us. Now you have Trump encouraging - or sorry, RFK Jr. encouraging his supporters to now support Trump while also encouraging them in blue states or red states to just vote for whoever they want to, so cohesive.

SANCHEZ: And saying that he's not actually ending his campaign, he's simply suspending it and saying to a single woohoo in the room that he has a path toward the White House.

Doug, I should point out we're watching live images of Donald Trump in Las Vegas. He's got an event there before he heads to Arizona later.

[15:10:00]

Doug, when Donald Trump, as we've seen in recent days, makes statements saying that his heart's in the right place, that they believe some of the same things, he's aligning himself with someone who has said some really weird stuff. And Democrats are now attacking Trump and JD Vance, calling them weird.

HEYE: Mm-hmm.

SANCHEZ: How much does the label now sink in with voters, given that he's seemingly aligned with RFK Jr.?

HEYE: You know, Trump likes to run three-ring circuses. And he feels that he's the ringmaster and knows what he's doing.

This has moved from bizarre to carnival with RFK Jr. The summer of RFK Jr. was - started with the brain worm, ended with the bear claw, right? And so I think voters are going to make - most voters overwhelmingly are going to just see that for what it is.

And sure, maybe they do believe some of the same things. Maybe they both believe in gravity. Maybe they both believe the Earth revolves around the sun, some of those things. But ultimately, he's the most marginal candidate that we've seen in a long time. But the reality is, all of these races that we've - all these states we're talking about, could be won or lost on the margins. So you still have to take it seriously.

KEILAR: Yes. And to your point, and also to Johanna's, where she's talking about sort of this trying to appeal very generously to people who are quite different from, I think, what your - you heard over the course of the DNC the last four nights. Democrats do worry.

It's interesting. You listen, Doug, publicly they're going to say they don't worry. That's sort of the refrain. But when you get them to talk privately, they do worry because the margins may be so slim it can come down to just a few votes here or there. They do worry that this could make a difference, even if they think that it shouldn't.

HEYE: Yes. One of the smartest Democratic operatives is a young lady named Liz Smith (ph), and she is an assassin. When she goes after you, you get mortally wounded. And she spent the past several months focused on one person, and that was RFK Jr. And every day she was out there putting information on, you know, why he was unacceptable and so forth. She has done her job. He's now out of it.

And that's where mostly he could hurt Biden. But also, let's be clear, none of us are smart enough to know, of the RFK voter, even if they're 3 percent here or 2 percent there, how they break down, do they all show up, and in what direction they go. We know this is going to be a close election, and a lot of things can be won or lost on margins. No one is smart enough to know where the RFK Jr. vote goes.

ALVAREZ: And I think the question for the Harris campaign is trying to decipher which of those voters were going to Trump because they were disillusioned by Biden. If they have now a Harris option, which is one they only had as of four weeks ago, will they gravitate toward Harris if they are disillusioned by Trump?

And I think that's the big question that the Harris campaign hasn't answered yet. Polling hasn't quite answered yet because it's still early on in the Harris campaign phase of this. But that is certainly something that the battleground state director for the campaign has already said. They welcome those, and they need to sort of decipher who of those was only going to RFK because they didn't want Trump or Biden.

SANCHEZ: A lot of dynamics at play, not the least of which is this speech from RFK Jr. that is all over the place. We're going to keep an eye on it. Panel, please stand by. We're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:39]

SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news coming into CNN this afternoon. We're still monitoring the RFK Jr. speech and he's throwing his support behind former President Donald Trump. But Trump has just arrived at a venue in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is holding an event this afternoon, and he is expected to speak shortly. You see these live images of the podium set up there.

Let's actually take you there with CNN's Alayna Treene, who is standing by.

Alayna, what are you hearing about what Trump is going to say, especially given the news that RFK Jr. is now endorsing him?

TREENE: Yes, sorry about that. It's very loud in here and I think I'm losing a little bit of audio, so I'll pull it out if you can't hear me. But look, he is about to take the podium here. We're actually in a very small restaurant unlike - it's not a big rally. There's not a lot of supporters. There are some supporters here.

But look, I think you're going to hear him address RFK Jr. and that endorsement of him in these remarks. We know that this had been a long time coming, that many people within Donald Trump's orbit, including his own son, Donald Trump Jr., had been working on this behind the scenes. And then later today, we know you're going to see Donald Trump back in Arizona holding a rally just a couple minutes outside of Phoenix.

And they have touted having a special guest there. I think you can anticipate that you will see RFK Jr. there later with him there. Now, Donald Trump is going to be here shortly to talk about his policy pitch on tax, no taxes on tips, something that is very important to workers here in Nevada. There's a reason that he announced that pitch first in Las Vegas back in June and then he's back here today to talk about that.

One thing as well that you'll hear him do is criticize Kamala Harris for what he says is stealing that proposal. Of course, she announced that she also supports this idea of no taxes on tips in August as well. So you'll hear a lot of that today. I also think you can expect a little bit of a reaction to Harris' speech last night. Boris? Brianna?

SANCHEZ: It will be the first time that we will hear Donald Trump speak publicly in a venue like this since the DNC wrapped up and we heard Harris' speech last night. Alayna, thank you so much for that reporting.

Let's bring our panel back in because something that we just heard from RFK Jr., Doug, is that former President Trump - this is from RFK - asked him to enlist him in his administration.

[15:20:02]

Apparently there were two meetings between Trump and RFK Jr., and he suggested - this is RFK talking about Trump - he suggested that we join forces as a unity party. There's reporting out there that indicates that RFK Jr. also approached the Harris campaign and talked about a potential cabinet position there. Perhaps not surprising that someone who's considering dropping out of the race would seek future employment, perhaps, before throwing an endorsement behind someone.

HEYE: In campaigns we call that endorsement shopping, and you're going to go to the one who offers you the best deal if either one of them does. But I'd give some - it certainly begs the question of where would he fit in either administration? You're not going to put an anti-vax leader at CDC or the FDA or HHS or something like that, so where would he fit in either administration, not clear.

But I want to give some political advice to the Trump campaign right now. If you look at the backdrop of where Alayna is, we hear these struggles of keeping Trump on message. This is an event designed to keep Donald Trump very much on message on what he wants to be talking about. It's in Las Vegas, talking about no tips. The hotel and restaurant employees union is massive ...

KEILAR: No taxes on tips.

HEYE: No - excuse me ...

KEILAR: Yes.

HEYE: ... no taxes on tips. It'd be different the other way around.

KEILAR: Right, that would be a bummer.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

HEYE: But the hotel and restaurant employees union is a massive union, not just there but throughout the country. You see the signage that they have. One's in Spanish. We don't talk enough in this campaign about Hispanic voters and the opportunities that Republicans have for outreach there, especially if they spend money on those resources.

This is designed to keep Donald Trump in - on message. And along from - way, way far out in left field comes RFK Jr. And if you're the leadership on the Trump campaign right now, you're really sweating it because you have a perfect venue to do a perfect event. And RFK Jr. could really spoil it because Trump likes to go on tangents.

KEILAR: Yes. And, you know, from the Harris campaign perspective, as Doug said, it's sort of interesting to - how would you fit him into - to an administration? I don't see how you really would in that perspective. So perhaps not surprising that he went with the better deal for himself, which would be Trump.

ALVAREZ: Well, and I've been reaching out to campaign sources to learn more about this approach that he says that he did to the campaign to see if he had a position in a future administration should the Vice President win. I will note, though, it's worth remembering that when it was President Biden as the Democratic candidate, he actually coalesced the Kennedy family together for a formal endorsement earlier this year. Because even at that point, the campaign was well aware that this third-party run could influence the outcome of the election.

And so they, knowing this legacy name, brought together this family to formally endorse President Joe Biden at the time. And essentially another sort of implied this near universal rejection of one of their own relatives that was running for president. So that just shows you how the campaign has been watching this unfold and how early on they were already getting the other members of the Kennedy family to stand behind the candidate at the time.

SANCHEZ: And the Kennedy family actually just put out a statement. But before I get to that, I just want to point out former President Donald Trump has taken to the podium there. It appears that he is set to speak at any moment, but the music in the room is still on. We'll see how that gets sorted out.

To the family statement being issued by the Kennedys - Kerry Kennedy just put this out on X, formerly Twitter, saying that essentially their brother - Bobby's decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story. And it is signed by five members of the Kennedy family who, as you noted, Priscilla, had joined President Biden a few months ago in putting out a - an endorsement of Biden as president and essentially stepping away from RFK Jr.

Here comes Donald Trump now in Las Vegas. Let's go ahead and listen to the former president.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is a nice place. And I'm just talking to Javier. You've got thousands of people outside on the street. They want to get into your restaurant, Javier (ph). We're going to have to expand it.

JAVIER: I will have to make a lot of tacos now.

TRUMP: You're right. You're right. And thank you very much. I want to thank everybody for being here.

We just had a very nice endorsement from RFK Jr., Bobby, and I'll be talking about that. We're heading out. Right after this, we're going to be going to Arizona. We'll be talking about that and a lot of other things, too. But I just want to thank everybody. And I want to thank Bobby. That was very nice. That was really very nice. That's big. He's a great guy, respected by everybody. So thank you all for this incredible welcome we're getting. And I'm going to tell Javier (ph) the next time we do this together, he's going to give me a little light up here, you know, got to give me a little light so you can read this little speech.

[15:25:08]

But you know what it does? It makes you speak a little bit less, so that's okay, too.

But I do want to thank you all and I want to thank Javier (ph). This is a fantastic restaurant. And the reputation is as good as it gets - as good as it gets. And I'm going to come here next time to eat. Is that okay? Huh? I will be doing that, too.

We have with us Lieutenant Governor Stavros Anthony, wherever Stavros is. Thank you very much, Stavros. That's an honor. We'll see you soon, okay? Thank you. That's really an honor. Great guy, too.

And Nevada GOP Chairman Michael Mcdonald. Michael? And he's very happy about the no tax on tips because he was the one - he was the first one that presented a - after the young, beautiful waitress that suggested, I said, what do you think of it, Michael? He said, I think it's a great idea.

But we've come here today to talk about the biggest promise, I think, that the restaurant workers have had in a long time, and that's no tax on tips. And in our case, we mean it. Somebody that I know just copied it - just copied it, but you know that's not going to happen.

If you're a restaurant worker, a bartender, hospitality worker, a caddy, a barber, a mover, driver of any kind or anyone else, you rely on a lot of tip income, hopefully a lot. But when I win in November, hopefully we're going to win. We're going to turn our country around. We're going to make America great again. We're going to let you keep 100 percent of your tip income and not be harassed.

And just so you understand, the other side, Kamala - have you ever heard of her, Kamala? Nobody ever heard of her before. She lost in the first round. She was the first one out in the - it's a weird thing. He got 14 million votes, and he's sitting on a beach, angry as hell. And she got no votes, and she's running, so you explain that to me.

But the United States is home to an estimated 5.5 million workers whose livelihoods depend on tip income, and they work with their hands and their talent, their sweat and their skill, and they are really skilled people, and they're great people. They're people that have been with me always, and I'm with them. I'm doing them a big favor. Nobody ever heard of this concept before, and it's something that makes a lot of sense. As soon as I heard it, I said, let's do it.

And then they copied us a couple of months later. But I don't think anybody is buying it. I don't think anybody is buying it. Just like last night, the speech. She made 26 different things that were lies - she lied. But that's okay, because a lot of people lie. They'll do anything to get elected. But she lied about - you know, she's increasing taxes, I'm decreasing taxes. And she put it the other way around. Perhaps she misspoke. Perhaps.

Nearly two-thirds of the workers are women, and an estimated 700,000 single mothers nationwide rely on tip income to support their children. These are some of the best and hardest-working people in America. And when I'm president, you are the ones I will be fighting for, and I'll be fighting for you very hard every single day.

Kamala Harris is now pretending to endorse my policy. She's got a lot of other policies. She should just - she's a copycat. She's a flip- flopper. You know what a flip - she's the greatest flip-flopper in history. She went from communism to capitalism in about two weeks. But in fact, Kamala cast the tie-breaking vote to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go after your tip income. They're going after it in a lot of ways, so I don't know what they're doing now.

This has happened with a lot of industries. When we come out with something, they immediately follow. But you know that after the election, if something horrible, horrible happened - which is always a possibility, especially the way they cheat - but if something horrible happened, you know that she'd go right back and you'd never see anything about no tax on tips. You know that.

Under Kamala and crooked Joe Biden - where is he? Where's Joe? What happened to Joe? He's on a beach someplace. He's angry. The IRS has imposed costly and burdensome new reporting requirements on restaurants and other employers, and these employers are great people. They're great people. They really work hard, like Javier. They work very hard and they do an incredible job.

And this is going to make their life a little bit easier because, frankly, for them, it's a lot better, too, when they have happy employees that are making a little more money and just do a better job.

[15:30:08]

People like Javier are very happy, he was happy to hear about this.