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House Dem Leader Jeffries Meets With Biden To Discuss "Path Forward"; Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), Is Interviewed About Biden's NATO News Conference Gets Mixed Response; New RNC Rules Could Let Trump Delay VP Pick. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 12, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:01:08]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. President Biden speaks more Democrats defect. There are now 18 lawmakers here in Washington calling for President Biden to abandon his reelection bid. The latest from Colorado Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen just minutes ago. Three House Democrats made the call last night right after President Biden stumbled in his NATO news conference. Here, he confuses his own Vice President with his greatest political foe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president because I think she's not qualified to be president. So I'll start there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: For weary Democrats, President Biden also had some reassuring moments showing strength, clarity and command. Here are his forceful comments condemning gun violence here in the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: More children are killed by a bullet than any other cause of death in the United States of America, what are we doing? What are we doing?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We begin this hour over at the White House. CNN's Kayla Tausche is standing. Kayla we've learned that the House Democratic Leader actually met with President Biden last night. What can you tell us?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, that meeting happened at the White House after the President's conference yesterday evening, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries releasing a statement to all the Democratic members of the House saying in part this, in my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together. But Jeffries has been getting an earful from his colleagues in the House throughout the week. There was a formalized meeting of all Democratic members on Tuesday, where the lawmakers emerged with no consensus.

But after that, members continued to raise concerns with him despite the fact that Jeffries publicly reiterated the support that he had publicized the day after President Biden's debate debacle that inspired this crisis of confidence within the Democratic Party. Now, the question is what the President does with that advice. Just last night, when he was delivering that press conference, he was asked multiple times about why he believes he is still the candidate who can beat Donald Trump, whether his vice president Kamala Harris, could also beat Trump. He said, there are many Democrats who could do it, but that he's the right person for this job at this moment in history.

And he even suggested that his team had showed him polling that said that he still had a path forward in the race and that he would only exit the race if two conditions were met, not only that his vice president could effectively beat Trump, but that he couldn't. And he said into the microphone in a hushed tone, the polls don't say that. No poll says that. That's where the President was, as of last night going into that meeting. And we are still trying to report out exactly how the President is feeling at this hour with that information in tow, Wolf.

BLITZER: The President, as you know, Kayla, travels later today to campaign in a key battleground state. Tell us about that.

TAUSCHE: Well, Wolf, the President has a very narrow path to victory in 2024. And his campaign noted yesterday that it must include Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the so called blue wall. So today he's traveling to Michigan. He'll be holding a happy hour timing like roughly happy hour-esque event in Detroit later today, where he'll have some elected officials on hand and talk about what he's doing in the race in his policies and try to draw that contrast with his predecessor and current opponent. The question now is how much steam the President and his candidacy will have lost going into that event given what we expect to take place throughout the day today.

[11:05:03]

Certainly when I speak to officials within the White House and the campaign, they're expecting more defections to come today throughout the weekend, even though they say that, in their view, the President's press conference last night hit the marks. Wolf?

BLITZER: Kayla Tausche over at the White House for us, Kayla, thank you. I want to bring in Democratic Congressman John Garamendi of California right now. Congressman, thanks so much for joining us. I know you strongly support President Biden. But as you know, the House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he shared the full breadth of your caucus, the perspectives that are ongoing with the President during their conversation last night. It could include some serious concerns, though, about the path forward. Do you think the President was receptive to what he heard?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): I have no idea. But I do know this President was on his game yesterday. Anybody that watched that press conference had to be impressed with his breadth of knowledge, detail, and willingness to go into the extraordinarily important international issues, as well as the domestic issues, 50 minutes standing up there, as well as the eight minute presentation. It was a tour de force. So what's wrong here? What's wrong is that we have a feeding frenzy underway as a result of the very poor performance in the debate.

But being President is not debating every day, it is governing, it is understanding that the breadth and the depth of the national and international issues, and Biden knows that. He's on top of it. He's clearly showed yesterday that he is on the game, and he's ready to be on the field.

BLITZER: Even if all that's true, Congressman, did you think President Biden did enough last night, in your view, to quell the concerns? Clearly, there were a lot of concerns among your fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives about him.

GARAMENDI: Well, my fellow Democrats ought to be very, very aware that this continuing debate within our caucus within our party is extraordinarily damaging. It just gives you and the other media an opportunity to continue the feeding frenzy. We need to recognize that Biden is capable, he's understands the issues. He is on the game. Is he going to be a great debater? Probably not. They've got one more debate coming up. But the reality is he can and has governed and he will be able to govern in the future.

In addition to that, it's like going into the Super Bowl. In a 120 days or so we're going to have the Super Bowl of politics, the presidential election. We have a very capable, competent and experienced quarterback that is on the field today and will be on the field after the election and into the next four years. We also have a terrific backup quarterback should that become necessary.

Wolf, none of us know the day that our life ends. None of us do. But should that happen to Biden? We have a quarterback, a backup quarterback. And that is Kamala Harris, who has the experience of three and a half, almost four years now as vice president, dealing internationally, dealing with the domestic issues, and all over and on top of the women's issues, which is a profoundly important part of this upcoming election. So we've got a great team. And as Democrats we ought to get behind that team stop this internecine warfare that we are now engaged in.

BLITZER: Having said all that, you -- and you well know this, the number of Democratic lawmakers, especially in the House, calling on the President to step aside, at least for now is only growing in an include some very high ranking leaders like the top Democrat, for example, on your Armed Services Committee, Congressman Adam Smith and the top Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Himes. How does the Democratic Party move forward when it remains apparently, this deeply divided? GARAMENDI: We will not be divided in the days ahead. Biden has made it very clear. And yesterday in his press conference, more than 50 minutes, answering questions from reporters from around the world, answering those questions in depth with knowledge with an understanding of the complexities and explaining that complexity to the world.

Also, he came up three days of work with the NATO leaders in Washington. And every one of them have said that he did his job as a leader. Now let's just take a look at the opposite side of this. The opposite side is Trump. Trump has spent four years in his presidency essentially destroying NATO, weakening NATO. It had to be put back together as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And who did that? That was done by Biden. He put NATO back together and added two additional company countries at a time in which Trump even to this moment, in this week, in his going out on the campaign trail, Trump once again denigrated NATO, and made it clear that he may not ask President support Article 5, that is all for one, one for all.

[11:10:42]

It is a very serious international security issue that Trump has raised. There is a stark difference between these two. One is a builder. One has an understanding of what it takes to be secure in this world, and that is to have alliances. That is President Biden. On the other hand, you have Trump, who understands none of this, who wants to destroy our alliances, whether they are in the Pacific, or whether they are the NATO countries. There's a stark difference here. On economic policy, take a look. Take a look at what we need to do to address climate change.

Wolf, we're in the eighth day of temperatures over 100 degrees here in California. I've never seen that before. We have 100 degree temperatures, but a day's event and probably another eight to go. We have a climate crisis. What does Trump do? He meets with the executives of the oil companies and said you give me a billion dollars. And I'll see to it, that this climate this green technology is over. So what do we have here? We have a stark differences. For my colleagues, get on board. Stop this warfare amongst ourselves. It's going to go nowhere. And by the way, count the numbers. It's now 14 of 212. Big deal.

BLITZER: CNN, Congressman, is also now learning that former President Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi have spoken privately about their concerns about President Biden's ability to beat Trump in November and aren't sure what to do about all of that. What does it say to you that these two major Democratic Party heavyweights feel that way?

GARAMENDI: I suspect that discussion was what do we need to do to beat Trump not replacing the President but rather what does the President need to do. And that's an a conversation that is ongoing and should continue to ongoing. Let's get real here. Biden is not going to bow out. Now, what are we going to do? Continue to fight amongst ourselves? That would be a major problem. We need to rally, we need to understand that we have a individual, the current president that knows the issues inside and out, the domestic issues. Take a look. Inflation is down, inflation is down and we're probably going to see that from the Fed in the next couple of weeks as they reduce interest rates.

Employment is up. We've had the longest stream of significant job growth, perhaps in the last two decades. How did that happen? Consider the legislation that Biden put together because of his skill set as a senator, as a vice president and as President. The American Rescue Plan keeping businesses and people able to survive the shutdown of the pandemic. Think about what we've done with the infrastructure bill, building the foundation for America's economic growth, look at the climate issues, the Inflation Reduction Act, the most extensive effort to deal with climate change by any country ever.

And it's there. And what is Trump wants to do, take every piece of that apart, including giving the corporate America and additional tax cut, not that they're already not already fact happy with what he gave them in 2017. He wants to extend that and increase the tax cuts for corporate America. More than 50 of whom the biggest don't pay any tax at all. It's outrageous.

BLITZER: And Congressman --

GARAMENDI: -- outrageous policy on dealing with the deficit.

BLITZER: One final issue, Congressman, before I let you go, very personal issue. You announced publicly a few days ago that you have now been diagnosed with cancer, but fortunately, in the video that you posted, you say it was caught early and will hopefully you will be in remission very soon. First of all, how are you feeling? How are you doing?

[11:14:59]

GARAMENDI: Well, if you haven't figured it out from this conversation, I'm energized. I'm ready to go. And I've always been ready to go. I'm a fighter. And we've got this thing. I'm attacking it. And I would expect it three to five months to be in remission. The extraordinary thing here, think about the Biden moonshot. The cancer research that he was able to put in, when he was vice president. Think about where we are for this particular illness, the multiple myeloma illness.

There are extraordinary new technologies. And I'm benefiting from that as a direct result of the work that Biden and others have done over the last decade or two to advanced cancer research. Yes, I'm going to beat this thing. I'm going to be back. I'd love to be in Washington right now. But the doctors are, oh, no, don't do that because your autoimmune system has been is being seriously compromised as a result of the treatments. That's good to go. If you haven't figured it out, the strength that I've had over the many years, I still have it and I'm not about to lose it.

BLITZER: Well, we are wishing you only, only the very best the speedy recovery, Congressman. Thank you very much Congressman John Garamendi. Appreciate it very, very much.

GARAMENDI: Thank you Wolf. BLITZER: And a major development right now in President Biden's reelection bid. "The New York Times" is reporting this hour that some major Democratic donors have told -- have told the largest pro-Biden Super PAC that roughly $90 million in pledged donations are now being put on hold if President Biden remains in the race. The report cites two people briefed on the conversation and appears to tamp down President Biden's hope that he could move on from his disastrous performance in that CNN debate a couple of weeks ago.

Still ahead this hour, the Republican National Convention, changing the rules for Donald Trump, allowing him to wait until the very last minute to name his vice presidential pick. But what's the hold up?

And later, the Rust armor already convicted of the fatal shooting on the movie set has just been called to testify in the Alec Baldwin trial. But will she? Stay with us. You're live right here in the CNN Newsroom.

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[11:21:45]

BLITZER: The Republican National Convention kicks off on Monday in Milwaukee. And just days from accepting his party's nomination, Donald Trump still hasn't announced his running mate. Now the RNC is proposing new rules that potentially could let former President Trump delay his pick until the very last minute. CNN reporter, Alayna Treene, is joining us live now with the latest. Alayna, what can we expect from next week's convention? I know you're working your sources.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: I am and just to touch first on the VP announcement. You know, it's been really tough, Wolf, as a reporter covering Donald Trump because even when I talked with advisors just as late as this morning, they still do not know when this vice president -- presidential announcement is coming. I am told it could be anytime between right now and Monday when he is officially nominated at the convention. And so we're all kind of holding our breath on that.

But look, next week's convention is going to be really a Trump coronation. And it's been interesting because if you look at the past two times, Donald Trump went through this process. This is the third time he's going to be accepting the Republican nomination for president. But he never got the show that he wanted. Donald Trump is a reality television producer at heart. But in 2016, remember, there was a lot of internal fighting and hand wringing over him becoming the nominee and kind of punctuated by Senator Ted Cruz getting up on stage and telling people to vote your conscience.

And then 2020, he couldn't put on the show he wanted because it was in the middle of the pandemic. But this year, it is really going to be the Trump show. They are rolling out the red carpet. They're going to have all of Donald Trump's fiercest defenders with him. They have very much themes on brand relating to his MAGA agenda for each of the four nights next week. And of course, Wednesday, we're going to see whoever his VP nominee is have their night they will give a speech on stage. And Thursday is when we'll see Donald Trump himself, get up on stage and deliver his own remarks.

BLITZER: Yes, I'm looking forward to reporting from Milwaukee next week. What more have you learned, Alayna, about the expected speakers at the convention?

TREENE: Well, it'll be a range of celebrities and high profile Republican leaders as well as several members of Donald Trump's family. And of course, as I said, the Vice President and Donald Trump themselves will be speaking some of the celebrities we're told that will speak include the UFC champion, Dana White, someone who's very close to Donald Trump. We know Donald Trump often loves to go to UFC games, whether they'd be in New York or Las Vegas. You also hear from Amber Rose. She is a reality television star. Her endorsement of Donald Trump earlier this year, kind of took a lot of people by surprise. But we're told she's going to be speaking next week.

But you also have people like Donald Trump's own son, Donald Trump, Jr. He is going to be having his own speaking slot at the convention. He'll actually speak just before the Vice President, which I find to be very interesting. And then you also have a lot of Donald Trump's fiercest allies in Congress. You have people like Elise Stefanik, the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, Rick Scott, Senator of Florida. Many of these people really showing up and really the goal here, Wolf, I'm told, that Trump -- Donald Trump's team is trying to portray next week is to show that at a time when so much chaos is happening in the Democratic Party where questions continue to percolate over whether people within the Democratic Party believe Joe Biden is fit to serve for another four years. They really want to make this a show of unity around Donald Trump and have all of these high profile people lining up behind him and create that contrast.

[11:25:18]

BLITZER: Alayna Treene, reporting for us, Alayna, thank you very much. Let's discuss this and more with CNN political commentators, Maria Cardona and Adam Kinzinger and former Trump administration official, Matt Mowers. Maria, let's talk a little bit about the Republican convention. First of all, this latest report from "The New York Times" that some major Democratic donors are now planning to hold back some of the $90 million in pledged money, its pledged, not delivered yet that's going on right there, concerned about Biden right now. What do you make of this?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that's too bad. Because every time we hear of something like that, and every time we hear of a Democratic lawmaker who at this moment in time, is telling President Biden that he needs to step aside. That helps one person. And that person's name is Donald Trump. We're having these conversations and that's fine. Let's have them in private. I know that there are still concerns. But President Biden proved last night what so many people put as the threshold of what -- so let's move on. You're talking about the RNC with Alayna Treene. That is exactly what we need to be talking about.

Next week, they're going to have the whole Republican Party with Donald Trump focused on a MAGA agenda. We know that the vast majority of the American people reject the MAGA agenda. But if we're not talking about it as Democrats in terms of what we are offering, instead, the hopeful vision, the accomplishments of the last four years, what additionally, Joe Biden wants to do in terms of protecting our democracy, protecting women's bodily autonomy, protecting immigrants who have been here for years and have contributed to our economy, protecting our kids, protecting our seniors in terms of health care, then we are giving it all over to Donald Trump right now. And that will be our fault.

BLITZER: Stand by. I want to go to Matt. Matt, we're learning that Donald Trump Jr. will introduce his father's running mate once that running mate is actually selected. Donald Trump Jr. as you know, is advocated for picking Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio. Should we read anything into that? What do you make of that?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Well, look, it is Donald Trump. So he's going to have the opportunity to surprise everyone, open and have us all with bated breath into the last moment. I mean, look, it's no secret. Donald Trump Jr. has been advocating for Senator J.D. Vance to be the vice presidential nominee. They're good friends. They're ideologically aligned. He feels like he's the type of, you know, MAGA fighter that could align with his father's agenda.

And so, you know, look, we certainly are all going to read into it, Wolf, because that's what we do. But, you know, knowing what I know about Donald Trump, he is going to wait for the last possible moment to draw out this suspense on who he's going to choose as the vice presidential nominee, not to mention the fact that it also allows for this continued conversation and division to happen on the Democratic side of the aisle.

You know, if you are Donald Trump, you got 72 hours until the show, shifts to you and it has to shift to you, let every single last moment focus on the Democratic division, when you have donors are saying that they're going to hold up money if Joe Biden is the nominee. At the same time, you got Joe Biden saying he ain't going anywhere. And so Donald Trump's going to try to draw that conflict out, let them have fun with that. And then you're going to see amazingly, I mean, if you go back a year ago, I think if you told us all we'd be 72 hours out the Republican National Convention, and the party that has more unity going into November is the Republican Party and Donald Trump's party than it would be on the Democratic side with a sitting incumbent president. I think a lot of folks would have been surprised but that's where we sit today.

[11:28:44]

BLITZER: All right, Matt standby. Maria and Adam standby as well. We have a lot more to assess to report on. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

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