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Today, Biden and Harris to Address Lowering Cost of Living; Trump Claims He Has No Connection to Project 2025; Trump Derails Economic Speech With More Personal Insults. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 15, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You're live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

We are following several developing stories this morning. Caught on hidden camera, one of the co-authors of Project 2025 says despite Trump's insistence, he has nothing to do with the conservative blueprint, and the former president actually supports them.

Plus wide ranging hacking, Google is now revealing the alleged Iranian hacking operation in the presidential campaigns is ongoing and bigger than previously known.

And soldiers captured, shocking video shows Russian prisoners of war lined up along the road, as Ukraine says this is the largest capture of Russian troops at one time.

But we begin with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and the administration's plan to lower costs for you. The president and vice president will put the focus on the economy when they share the stage in Maryland later today.

Polls show inflation and the economy are still number one with voters. From 2019 to 2023, food prices rose by a whopping 25 percent. They grew faster than both housing and health care costs. Biden and Harris are also expected to tout Medicare's new power to negotiate prices and the billions that could be saved on popular prescription drugs. Take a look at this, from 2022 to 2023, the average drug price increase was more than 15 percent. That's about $590 per drug over the course of that year.

Let's bring in CNN Correspondents Arlette Saenz and Meg Tirrell. Arlette, we do know that inflation has been coming down, but yet Americans are still concerned about prices on all kinds of products out there. And this is the first joint event, we should note, for Biden and Harris since she became the nominee. This is a big rollout, seeing both the president and the vice president together on stage today.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it really is, Jim. And President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are teaming up to promote one of the economic policies that they believe is helping Americans, and that specifically relates to efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs. The Harris campaign is well aware that the economy remains a top concern for American voters heading into November. And so what they're trying to do at this moment is highlight not just existing policies but also policies of Harris' that she is set to roll out in the coming days.

It all will really highlight one of the key challenges for Harris going forward, as she's seeking to run on parts of the Biden agenda, but also chart a course of her own. President Biden and his overall Bidenomics plan did not fare well in polling with voters, but there are elements of Biden's economic policy that do sit well with voters. That includes efforts to lower the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs.

Now, for Harris' part tomorrow, she's also set to deliver a major economy speech in the battleground state of North Carolina. Her campaign says that she will roll out plans to call for a federal ban on price gouging when it relates to food and grocery industries. It comes at a time when the high price of groceries has been a key concern for voters as they have battled the inflation in this country for several years now.

Now, Harris also at this time is enjoying some polling that shows overall enthusiasm about her candidacy. If you take a look to how the enthusiasm around the Democratic nominee compares to when Biden was in the race, there's a significant jump in that enthusiasm support between February and this time now. A key challenge for Harris going forward is continuing to try to capitalize on that enthusiasm and that momentum. She's hoping to carry that through the Democratic National Convention next week and in the weeks to follow.

But for this week, the campaign really drilling in on the economic policy and the way that they can tell Americans that they are working to address some of their individual concerns as the economy remains a chief issue for them heading into November's election.

ACOSTA: All right. Arlette over at the White House, thank you.

Let me go to Meg Tirrell and Medicare's drug price negotiations. The White House says it will save seniors about $1.5 billion in out-of- pocket costs.

[10:05:03]

I know that the administration has been eager to get this rolled out and get this going. What can you tell us?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, this is a pretty big deal. I mean, I've covered the drug industry for 15 years, and they have been fighting the ability for Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and they continue to fight these provisions, even as the first ones are getting announced.

So, in this first round, there's ten drugs included. These will go into effect in 2026. The White House this morning saying that this should lead to at least $6 billion in savings in the first year based on 2023 numbers. That's about 22 percent to seniors directly out of pocket. They say it will be $1.5 billion. These first ten drugs include blood thinners, drugs for diabetes, heart failure, arthritis, cancer, chronic kidney disease and psoriasis. And we're going to see more drugs added to this.

Now, in terms of the impact to seniors themselves, the administration is giving a hypothetical example, because everybody kind of does have different plans and there are already some discounts on these medicines in Medicare. But they give the example of one of the drugs called Stelara. This is for psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders. They say, hypothetically, right now, based on the price of this drug, if seniors are paying a 25 percent co-insurance on the drug out of pocket, they'd be paying $3,400 a month for that. Under the new negotiated price, they say that would come down to $1,100 per month until they hit a cap on out-of-pocket spending, after which they wouldn't pay anything more. So you can see that's a 66 percent discount that they've negotiated.

Now critics of this, I've heard from folks on the right this morning point out there are already discounts baked into some of these Medicare drug prices, so the overall amount isn't quite as large as the discounts off the list prices. But, overall, the administration says 22 percent in terms of what's coming down in savings, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, some of those prices out there are just astronomical. You can see why the pharmaceutical industry has been reluctant to see, you know, the Medicare to be able to go in there and do these kinds of negotiated deals.

All right, Meg Tirrell, thank you very much.

Now to the campaign, Kamala Harris has been making sure to tie Donald Trump to Project 2025 while out there on the campaign trail, even though the former president still maintains he has no connection to the controversial conservative playbook.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Like some on the right, severe right, I came up with this Project 25, and I don't even know. I mean, some of them, I know who they are, but they're very conservative. Just like you have -- they're sort of the opposite of the radical left, okay? You have the radical left and you have the radical right.

They are seriously extreme, but I don't know anything about it, I don't want to know anything about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: But a former Trump cabinet member says he is drafting hundreds of private documents to lay the groundwork for a potential second Trump term. He was secretly videotaped by a non-profit group and CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Kyung Laj has been reviewing that tape.

Kyung, it sounds very interesting. Trump has been trying to distance himself from Project 2025. What does this video show?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, you know, you've certainly heard of Project 2025. Many of our viewers have as well, and how Trump continues to say he doesn't know anything about it. But one of the co-authors of Project 2025 is a man named Russell Vought. He was not only on Trump's cabinet but was also in charge of the GOP policy platform passed at last month's Republican National Convention.

He says Trump's rejection of Project 2025 is just politics. And Vought explained he's creating a so called shadow agencies, getting regulations, memos and executive orders ready for action on the first day of a Trump presidency. He also believes in expanding presidential powers and that the president has the authority to use the military to maintain law and order.

I want you to listen to how he talks about immigration. Take a listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In an ideal world, I mean, I think we could save the country in a sense of, you know, the largest deportation in history. And once you, once that starts, there's going to be -- you're going to be winning a debate along the way about what that looks like, right?

And so that's going to cause us to get us off of multiculturalism just to be able to sustain and defend the deportation, right? If we're going to have legal immigration, can we get people that actually believe in Christianity? Is that something? Or do we have to have, you know -- are we not allowed to have, ask questions about Sharia law?

So, I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation. And my viewpoint is mostly that I would probably be Christian nation-ism. That's pretty close to Christian nationalism, because I also believe in nationalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: Okay. So, how did this video come into being? Well, Vought thought he was talking to the relatives of a wealthy investor, but it actually turns out that this meeting was set up and recorded by an undercover journalist and an actor for the Center for Climate Reporting, a British organization.

[10:10:11]

Vought said on that video that he has some 350 documents he's preparing, but not publicly releasing.

Now, we are just getting a statement from Vought's spokesperson of the group, and that statement reads it would have been easier to just do a Google search to undercover what is already on our website and said in countless national media interviews. And the statement continues to say, thank you for airing our perfect conversation, emphasizing our policy work. It is separate from the Trump campaign, as they have been saying. Jim?

ACOSTA: Yes. Kyung, I mean, this video is remarkable. Russ Vought has been talked about as potential chief of staff in a future Donald Trump presidency. And what is Trump saying about all of this? He has said he didn't know about Project 2025. Do we know if he approves of this?

LAH: Well, here's what we do know, Jim, specifically about the relationship. We know that Trump and Vought have spoken at various times, and the former president has adopted some of Vought's policy ideas, according to two sources familiar with that relationship, telling that to CNN.

Now, Vought says that everything he is currently working on does come from Trump's speeches and his promises for a second term. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Very interesting, indeed. Kyung Lah, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

In the meantime, former President Trump is maintaining his attacks on his political opponents despite pleas from inside of his inner circle to just stop. How the insults could be hurting his potential camp campaign messaging, we'll talk about that next.

You're live in the CNN Newsroom.

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[10:15:00]

ACOSTA: Former President Donald Trump's campaign promised a speech about the economy. But yesterday, voters heard more personal attacks. That's despite his allies' many warnings to rebuild his campaign and focus on issues over insults.

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TRUMP: We have stupid people, like Kamala and Joe, running our country.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): We've got to make this race, not on personalities.

TRUMP: That's the laugh of a crazy person. I will tell you, if you haven't heard, it's crazy.

NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes.

TRUMP: We have the biggest crowds ever in the history of politics.

HALEY: It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb.

TRUMP: She's not smart. She's not intelligent. KELLYANNE CONWAY, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: Fewer insults.

TRUMP: The clown that she picked as a vice president, this guy's a clown. He was so bad. Kamala, you're fired. Get out of here. Go.

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ACOSTA: Trump did eventually address some economic issues during his self-described intellectual speech, but as usual, he made false claims, fanciful promises, and this time tried out an unusual, incoherent analogy.

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TRUMP: We're doing this as an intellectual speech, we're all intellectuals today. So, this is Tic Tacs, right? This is inflation. This is Tic Tac. This is Tic Tac. This is inflation. This is what's happened.

We intend to slash prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.

Many people say that the only reason the stock market is up is because people think I am going to win.

But there was one day, a couple of weeks ago, when they weren't thinking that, and you saw what happened.

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ACOSTA: Let's discuss with CNN Political Commentator Bakari Sellers and Republican Strategist Matt Mowers.

Bakari, to you first. I do want to talk about Trump's remarks, but we're learning in just the last several minutes that J.D. Vance has agreed to debate Tim Walz on CNN in September and CBS in October. What do you think? Walz has agreed to the CBS debate. Should there be two vice presidential debates? Should we see three presidential debates? What are your thoughts on all that?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Of course, I think the American public deserved to hear from their candidates. The more that Tim Walz and Donald -- excuse me, Tim Walz and J.D. Vance get an opportunity to go head to head, I think the American public will truly benefit from it. But I think we all know, and what's about to happen is we're going to come on this show in about a week or two weeks. And the Republican, whomever that may be, that is sitting across from me will begin to talk about how smart Kamala Harris is and how she's actually been in a courtroom, and she's been D. A.

And they're going to try to shift the goalposts for the debate that's coming up with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They're going to make her out to be the best debater of all time and minimize the level of expectation for Donald Trump. Just as he calls her stupid, dumb, not smart enough to do X, Y, Z, you're going to watch that paradigm shift in real time with Republicans as they try to shift the goalposts for the debate that's coming up with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. I think they should have as many as possible. We take that any day of the week.

ACOSTA: And, Matt, getting back to this what was described as an intellectual speech by the former president on the economy he took time out during that speech to go after Kamala Harris' laugh, saying it was the laugh of a crazy person. Is that an intellectual speech?

MATT MOWERS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, anytime it involves Donald Trump, you're going to still have Donald Trump, which is going to be very, you know, dramatic and personal, and he's also going to bring the political attacks that he wields very effectively often.

And so I think the important thing, though, is what you saw yesterday for really the first time in a few weeks was Donald going out there articulating another vision for what four more years of Donald Trump would be versus four more years of Kamala Harris. Then when you stack up those two metrics, most Americans, according to polling, they're going to choose a Trump economy over a Harris economy, which we've seen under Joe Biden as well.

[10:20:07]

You know, he's gone out there and he's actually articulated some policies when he's saying he's going to eliminate taxes on tips, and obviously Social security, when he goes and talks about energy costs, which are hitting families harder than just about any other stubborn price in affordability issue. It's really the cost of energy heating homes filling up gas tanks that have impacted middle class families. He's right to talk about those issues, and it's going to really resonate with voters.

And he can go out there and talk about the fact that even though, yes, inflation by numbers is beginning to level out a little bit, energy prices are still 50 percent higher today than they were four years ago. And that's something that, you know, everyday Americans feel every single day.

ACOSTA: Yes. Bakari, I did want to ask you what do you think about the vice president and the president being out on the campaign trail together later today. They're going to be talking about lowering prescription drug prices. Do you want to see the president, the vice president out there together? We haven't seen that up until today. What do you think?

SELLERS: Yes. I mean, the answer is hell yes. I take Joe Biden all the time on the campaign trail, particularly talking about the successes of this administration. The fact is, my good friend, Matt, he just acknowledged the soft landing. He acknowledged himself that, you know, that inflation is actually going down and you're seeing that.

But there is a real problem out there and voters are not stupid. And like I talk about often, my dad talks about the price of whiting at Piggly Wiggly, people talk about the cost of school supplies. There is an issue with costs that we have to tackle. But this administration has a great deal of success and there is a certain demographic that still likes Joe Biden way more than they like Donald Trump. Those are individuals, particularly over the age of 65. Those are white, non-college educated individuals in the Rust Belt. He can go out and talk to these people and message because this is Joe from Scranton and he doesn't have anything to lose and he's not running. So, yes, I think it's a great idea.

And tomorrow, the funny part about this is this man got up there and gave an incoherent speech about Tic Tacs, right? And Republicans are saying, oh my God, is the next godsend of economic policy. But tomorrow, they're going to come on air and try to pick apart a speech that is heavy on detail, heavy on policy that Kamala Harris is giving in the Raleigh Durham area. And you're going to see the double standard as they attempt to grapple with what has just become an incoherent kind of mess as a candidate in Donald Trump.

ACOSTA: Yes. Matt. I mean, I'll let you respond to that if you want. I do wonder about the Tic Tacs. Did you like the Tic Tacs?

MOWERS: Yes. I mean, look, what I was going to respond is that you know, Bakari and I are going to agree, I hope Kamala Harris and Joe Biden campaign in every single corner of this country. I hope they're out there every single day, because it's going to remind voters of exactly the situation we're in that they don't approve of right now. You know, they overwhelmingly disapprove of Joe Biden. They disapprove of the economy -- handling of the economy. They disapprove of the handling of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on national security issues when we're seeing a regional conflict in the Mideast, potentially boil over to become a global conflict. We still don't see any progress on what can be happening in Ukraine right now. So, there's a sense of uneasiness.

I think the more that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaign together, the more it's going to remind Americans that Kamala Harris is responsible for all the things that they say they do not like in their everyday life right now, stubborn cost of goods, the lack of feeling of security and the unease about America's role in the global stage right now.

ACOSTA: All right, guys, thanks very much, Bakari Sellers, Matt Mowers, always good to talk to you both. I appreciate it.

SELLERS: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right. New polling gives former President Trump an edge over Vice President Harris when it comes to the issue of immigration. Coming up next, we're going to talk with Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, a Democrat with a district right on the border, a strong supporter of President Biden, Vice President Harris. We'll talk about that issue next.

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[10:25:00] ACOSTA: Former President Donald Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, is once again facing criticism for his comments about women. This time, he says he doesn't buy that abortion is a big issue for women, suggesting it's not, quote, normal.

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LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: All these suburban women, all they care about is abortion, and they don't understand that decision is with the states now. It's not banned nationally, even if people -- some people want it to be banned nationally. It's with the states. What do you say to suburban women out there who are marinating in this propaganda?

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well, first of all, I don't buy that, Laura. I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about, right? They care about inflation. They care about the price of groceries. They care about public safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Let's discuss more now with Democratic Congresswoman and National co-Chair of the Harris-Walz Campaign Veronica Escobar of Texas. She represents a district along the southern border that includes most of the city of El Paso. Congresswoman, great to see you back on the program.

I do want to talk about immigration and Project 2025 in just a moment. We have some exclusive reporting to ask you about, but I did want to get your response to what Senator Vance said just a few moments ago in that clip about abortion.

REP. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-TX): Well, Jim, great to be on your program again. It is incredible that J.D. Vance continues to act as though he can speak for women. He doesn't speak for women. He doesn't understand women. We are more than just a political football for the Republican Party. The fact is the vast majority of women in America want reproductive freedom.

[10:30:03]

They want the ability to make decisions about their future, to make decisions about their bodies.