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Biden Addresses Age Concerns During Forceful Speech; Trump Posts $92M Bond As He Appeals E. Jean Carroll Case; Malaysian Government May Renew Search For Flight MH370. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 08, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: During a State of the Union address last night, a fiery President Biden did not shy away from what some say is his greatest potential weakness right now, namely his age. If he wins in November, Joe Biden would become the oldest person elected president at the age of 81. He's already the oldest person to hold the office in U.S. history. President Biden tried to put skepticism over his fitness for a second term to rest. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I Know it may not look like it, but I've been around a while. When you get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever. The issue facing our nation isn't how old we are. It's how old are our ideas.

Hate, anger and revenge retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can't lead America with ancient ideas. It'll only take us back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURPHY: Joining us now to discuss. CNN's Dana Bash. She's our chief political correspondent and the anchor of "INSIDE POLITICS," which follows this show right at the top of the hour. And CNN political director David Chalian. He's also the host of "CNN POLITICAL BRIEFING." That's a podcast.

Dana, the president actually used his age to emphasize his qualifications to be reelected president. What did you make of that?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT & ANCHOR: Yes. This -- there have been jokes about it. He's tried to sort of cut the vulnerability with humor. This is the first time that he has done frankly, what a lot of people who we talked to a lot.

[11:35:01]

And I guarantee you people who have -- who are strategists, who are -- those who feel that they have a lot of knowledge about how the president should run his campaign has -- had been reaching out to the White House begging them to do something like this. To make it not about -- well, to own the age. Because what are you going to do about it? And to make it about maturity, and more importantly, experience.

And it wasn't -- it wasn't just that, Wolf. He started his speech by talking about Pearl Harbor and talking about World War Two and talking about the fact that he was alive when that happened, and quoting FDR when he came before Congress during World War Two. So, that bookend really helped make that point that he's going to own it because again, he doesn't have any choice.

BLITZER: Yes. And --

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: And then, there was just a huge sigh of relief from Democratic sources across the board last night that he showed up in the manner in which he showed up. Not that they think this puts it to rest for the entirety of the cycle, but it will remain a question. There's no doubt.

But that it quieted down this nervousness that we were all hearing from sources about whether or not he's really up for this campaign season. And last night, he answered that, at least for his home team of Democrats to feel pretty much better about it, Wolf.

BLITZER: It's also about those flash polls that you have showing views from viewers before the speech and after the speech.

CHALIAN: That's right. And we should know that this is a poll of speech viewers. And so, when it's a Democratic president, it tends to be a bigger democratic sample. That's who's watching the speech.

BLITZER: The audience.

CHALIAN: The audience. But if you look, we asked confidence in President Biden's ability to carry out his duties. So, pre-speech, this group of speech watchers, which again, eight percent more democratic than the general public, 25 percent said a lot of competence in his ability to carry out his duties. 27 percent said some. Roughly half, 48 percent said none.

Look what happened over the course of the speech. It goes from 25 to 31 percent who say a lot. Roughly and some stays about the same. And those that said no confidence in his ability to carry out his duties actually went down over the course of the speech.

BASH: And you know, I know -- and we, of course, have to make clear that that flash poll was -- that the vast -- I mean the vast majority, but it was a lot of Democrats. More Democrats.

CHALIAN: The plurality. Yes.

BASH: The polarity. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you.

CHALIAN: It was about 37 percent Democrat --

BASH: Yes.

CHALIAN: 30 percent independent. Fewer Republicans. BASH: In this particular case, I would argue that that is still telling because one of the major challenges that the Biden campaign has is to shore up his party, is to shore up his base, and shore a lot of the sort of consternation is about specific policies in his base. But it's not just that. It's about the sort of overall feeling of is this the guy who can do it?

BLITZER: And later today, we're going to get the ratings from the cable news networks, the broadcast networks, how many millions and millions of people were actually watching. Tens of millions, I'm sure will be that number. There's a lot of people who are watching. Based on previous State of the Union addresses, does that necessarily turn into potential support for the incumbent?

CHALIAN: We've seen some State of the Union Addresses give a little bump to a president. But I actually am not convinced that will happen here, even though it's been well-received. Dana's point is the critical one of understanding the support, though.

We have been talking for the entirety of this campaign season thus far about Joe Biden's fraying coalition from support in his own quarter, Democratic supporters, from his 2020 coalition. Last night, I think, he did a ton to bring them back home. And now, he's got to start building on top of that if he's going to be in a competitive position for reelection.

He is in a competitive position, but he's going to try and really pull ahead because he is running behind. Right now, we'll see if this gives him a little bit of a bump that he can then build on.

BLITZER: Dana, as we're speaking, we just learned that Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee has now officially stepped down. So, tell us what that means.

BASH: She's the longest-serving, the fact that she's a woman -- the second woman, I believe, to have that role. The now presumptive nominee put her in that spot the last time.

BLITZER: Trump --

BASH: Trump did when he took her out of her home state of Michigan where she was the state chair there and said you should run the party. And she's run it for a long time. He lost confidence in her.

He lost confidence in her because she endorsed the notion of debates. He thought that he should be treated as an incumbent and that there shouldn't be debates. And she didn't want to pay his legal bills anymore.

In fact, the -- look, the way the rules were set, she really couldn't pay his legal bills anymore. And when you look at what the consequences are of what we're going to see now, it's not unusual for a candidate to try to get their people inside the party apparatus. That is going to happen now.

[11:40:04] What is unusual is that because this particular candidate has so much liability when it comes to his legal bills, they're very likely going to pay them again. And that was a bit of a debate inside the party. He's going to put his daughter-in-law in there and she's made clear publicly, she thinks it's just fine for them to -- for the party to use donor money to pay his legal bills.

BLITZER: Right. Trump is clearly taking charge of the Republican Party, right, David?

CHALIAN: Yes. And on unprecedented nature.

BLITZER: Yes.

CHALIAN: I mean, what candidate before had to get the party to pay their legal bills?

BASH: Yes.

BLITZER: Yes. But he got a lot of legal bills --

CHALIAN: Yes, exactly.

BLITZER: All right guys, thank you very much, David Chalian and Dana Bash. Important note, be sure to watch Dana in about 20 minutes right at the top of the hour on "INSIDE POLITICS." She's got an excellent Show coming up. We'll all be watching.

And there's more news we're following. We've just learned that Donald Trump has actually now paid out $92 million in bond as he appeals the E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York. We have details straight ahead.

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[11:45:41]

BLITZER: New this morning. Donald Trump posts a $92 million bond as he appeals the E. Jean Carroll defamation case against him. CNN Correspondent Kara Scannell is joining us right now. Kara, what are you learning? Up -- explain what's going on.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. So, Trump has met the deadline in this case. It was -- it's technically tomorrow, and he would generally have until Monday to meet it. But he posted the bond today of $91.6 million, and he said he's going to appeal that $83.3 million judgment that the jury awarded E. Jean Carroll in the defamation case.

Now, he posts a bond that is larger than the award because that is the common practice in the District Court. It's to cover some of the interests that he would have to you know pay on this bond. So, what this means is that Donald Trump got someone to help him write this bond, this large insurance company called Chubb. They're underwriting the bond. And this will cover the appeal of this case and these damages only. It's not for future appeals. And Trump as we know, we've seen the bond, you can -- you can see the signature on it. He signed it on Tuesday. So, he was able to get this bond locked up and signed even as he was asking the judge to give him more time to come up with the money and to post the bond. So, he's had it in hand.

Of course, this comes Trump has about two weeks to come up with $454 million to satisfy the judgment in the New York Attorney General's civil fraud case. That is a much bigger amount of money that he'll need to front. And he is asking the appeals court in that case to give him time to not force him to post the bond until he appeals the verdict in that case where the judge found him liable.

The appeals court is expected to make a decision on that later this month. That is just when that deadline is for him. So, these two things will be coming down to the wire yet again, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's see if we can come up with nearly half a billion dollars. Let's see how liquid all that money has -- really is. Kara Scannell, thank you very, very much.

Still to come here in the CNN NEWSROOM. 10 years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, families of those onboard the doomed plane hope a new search may finally solve the mystery.

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[11:52:16]

BLITZER: 10 years ago today, one of the biggest mysteries of our time began to unfold. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur never to be seen again. Families of the 239 people onboard have urged officials to relaunch the search. And this week, the Malaysian government says it might do so.

I want to bring in someone who has covered this story for a long time, CNN Business Editor-At-Large Richard Quest. Richard, you also wrote a very important book about the search for this plane. And now 10 years later, do you think we're any closer at all to solving this huge mystery?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Oh, the answer's no. We're not. Because until we find the plane, we just won't be able to find out what happened. All the same theories.

The raw unvarnished truth is we know very little more now about how that plane crashed, why it crashed, or indeed where it crashed. And that's why the ocean infinity search is going to be so important because they're going to go down. They say they have new technologies.

And, Wolf, this is what they are hoping that they're going to find when they get down that. The version of this. The black box. I don't know why they -- I'm not sure to know, Wolf, how that read.

This will have stopped transmitting 10 years ago. But it is designed to withstand tremendous forces being underwater. Now, if they are able to find the wreckage, that's a big if, and locate the box, a very big if, then we stand a chance.

But even if they just find the wreck -- I say just, they will still be able to tell a lot more. The more wreckage they can find, the better. The experts -- the forensics will be able to say well it looks like this happened. It looked like that happened. So far, we've just got one or two pieces.

BLITZER: You know it's interesting, Richard, 10 years ago, I spent a lot of time on my show, "THE SITUATION ROOM" covering this story.

QUEST: Yes.

BLITZER: We reported it extensively. How extraordinary is it that a plane like this simply disappears?

QUEST: Wolf, if 10 years ago, you'd said to me they'll never find the plane, and 10 years later, would I have taken out of value talking nonsense? And then, of course, they'll find the plane. And I still hold to the view that they must find the plane. Now that we've got various new regulations about how often planes are up to report, the sorts of technology they have, the sort of black boxes that get thrown off the plane now as it's crashing, so that we would know where they are.

But the reality is we don't know where it is. The reality we don't know what happened. And in the great scheme of aviation, that cannot be allowed to be the final word, whether or not it takes another five, 10, or 15 years to get to the absolute answer. That would help find it.

[11:55:03]

BLITZER: Yes. I hope they solve -- I hope they solve MH370 mystery --

QUEST: Yes.

BLITZER: Once and for all.

QUEST: Yes.

BLITZER: It is so important. Richard Quest, thanks for all your excellent, excellent reporting.

QUEST: Thank you so much. And to you.

BLITZER: We are grateful to you.

QUEST: Thank you so much.

BLITZER: We'll stay in close touch on this story. And to our viewers, thanks very much for watching me. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. I'll be back later tonight at 6:00 p.m. Eastern in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Right here back Monday morning, 11:00 a.m. on CNN NEWSROOM.

Stay with CNN right now. "INSIDE POLITICS" with Dana Bash starts right after a short break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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