Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Interview With Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA); President Biden Addresses Nation Following Election. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired November 07, 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]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Setbacks are unavoidable. But giving up is unforgivable. Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable.

We all get knocked down, but the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is how quickly we get back up. Remember, a defeat does not mean we are defeated. We lost this battle.

The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up. That's the story of America for over 240 years and counting. It's a story for all of us, not just some of us. The American experiment endures. We're going to be OK, but we need to stay engaged. We need to keep going.

And, above all, we need to keep the faith.

I'm so proud to have worked with all of you. I really mean it. I sincerely mean it.

God bless you all. God bless America. And may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(CHEERING)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: President Biden making his first speech after the resounding presidential loss for Kamala Harris there at the White House, walking away now.

There is so much to discuss, Evan Osnos with this speech, a short speech, straightforward speech, we just heard from President Biden, but there was so much with it, the heaviness of this speech for him, right?

Evan Osnos? Yes.

EVAN OSNOS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Look, he knows this the first words, in effect, of his own chance to put the brushstrokes on how history will remember him.

And, right now, it is a deeply damaged legacy. He knows that. In some ways, he will be credited as the person who drove Donald Trump from the White House the first time, but also paved the way for Donald Trump's return. I thought one of the most -- and one of the things you heard in there

was him voicing what has been his central mantra of his life and his career, of course, which is, when you get knocked down you get back up. That's his way of trying to inspire people to say get back into it, don't give up on politics, on governance, on the idea of pulling this country together.

It's a barbed idea now, because in some ways it was that image, that notion, that mantra to himself that inspired him to run in this campaign and to stay in it, despite all of the headwinds and the criticism that he got, people who wanted him to leave early.

So some will inevitably wonder whether that message of never relent, never lose faith in yourself ultimately will be part of the reason why Americans will perhaps eventually come to see the positive sides of his legacy as much as the negatives. But it's going to take a while for them to get there.

BROWN: Yes, Kayla, Kayla Tausche at the White House, he talked about what he said was the good from his administration, but now that good he discussed, in his view, could be unraveled, right, by a second Trump administration.

OK, we can't hear Kayla.

I'm going to go to David on that question and just the overarching theme here from what we heard from President Biden and just how significant it is that he's leaving the White House in this situation.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, one of the things that jumped out to me is that he repeated something he says all the time on the campaign trial when he was the candidate against Donald Trump, basically since he's been in office.

One of his key criticisms of Trump and contrast with Trump was the line, you can't love your country only when you win. He said that on -- when he gave big speeches on the anniversary of January 6. He would constantly sort of like taunt Trump as a reminder, you can't do that.

Here, he used it as a proof point, because he's on the other side of the win here. His team lost and lost badly this week to Donald Trump. And his standing in the Rose Garden was to assert again as a proof point that he wasn't just saying that when he was on the victorious side, but here he is on the losing side and reasserting, you can't just love your country only when you win.

And that, I thought was a really important thing to hear from him in this new perspective, but with the same goal of reminding that that's what he means about the struggle for the soul of the nation being ongoing work.

BROWN: Yes, sending the message, I said it then and I really mean it now, now that I'm on the other side.

To go back to you, Kayla Tausche, from the White House, he also talked about Kamala Harris, his vice president and who just is facing this resounding loss against Donald Trump. He said she ran an inspiring campaign. She has great character, he says.

[11:35:02]

Tell us more about the conversations they have had and what she's doing today.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, that echoes the conversation that they had privately yesterday, a brief phone call that was cordial and congratulatory for the campaign that she ran during a very truncated period of time, the shortest campaign being stood up in history.

Of course, it was unsuccessful. And Biden keeping it very brief, choosing instead to focus these remarks on the work of his administration, with many of his senior-most staff and nearly his entire Cabinet here in the audience, giving him a standing ovation.

The emotions here very raw, Pam. The mood is extremely emotional. Everyone here believes that his approval rating really belies the achievements of this administration. And that's part of the soul- searching that's going on behind the scenes.

And there are so many cruel ironies of this moment for President Joe Biden. He talked about the strength of the economy. But yet, as we know now, from nearly every exit poll, that is not how American voters see it.

And, as David mentioned, he said the same line about you can't love your country only when you win here from the Rose Garden, where he, when he was the Democratic candidate, did many of his own campaign events, instead using that line that he had previously delivered in Statuary Hall on the anniversary of January 6, in Independence Hall, and in front of Union Station to criticize Donald Trump, who he's now preparing to welcome back into office, the exact outcome that he and everyone sitting before him had worked so tirelessly to prevent.

Now, of course, they're preparing for what many of them saw as a binary outcome, the outcome that they did not want to see. And while he's trying to rally the troops to continue the work for 74 days, there are real questions about what the Biden legacy tour will look like and what the legacy writ large will be -- Pam.

BROWN: As we have been talking about, lots of soul-searching ahead for sure on that front.

Julie Roginsky, I want to go to you on this, because, of course, he is making the speech at the White House against this backdrop of a lot of finger-pointing right now in the Democratic Party. Some who are saying, look, had President Biden not announced to try to get reelected, and we all know how that transpired later on, perhaps this wouldn't be the situation.

And we will never be able to know, right? What do you say to that?

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Now I'm going to speak some hard truths to my friends in the Democratic Party. This is not Joe Biden's fault. It's not Kamala Harris' fault. It's not Barack Obama's fault.

It's the fault of the Democratic Party and not knowing how to communicate effectively to voters. We are not the party of common sense, which is what the message that voters sent to us. For a number of reasons, for a number of reasons we don't know how to speak to voters.

When we address Latina -- and language -- listen, language has meaning. When we address Latino voters is Latin X, for instance, because that's the politically correct thing to do, it makes them think that we don't even live on the same planet as they do.

When we are too afraid to say that, hey, college kids, if you're trashing a campus at Columbia University because you're unhappy about some sort of policy, and you're taking over a university, and you're trashing it and preventing other students from learning, that that is unacceptable.

But we're so worried about alienating one or another cohort in our coalition that we don't know what to say when normal people look at that and say, wait a second, I send my kids to college so they can learn, not so that they can burn buildings and trash lawns, right, and so on and so forth.

When we put pronouns after names, and say she/her, as opposed to saying, you know what, if I call you by the wrong pronoun, call me out, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, but stop with a virtue signaling, and just speak to people like they're normal. There's nothing I'm going to say to Shermichael that I'm not going to say to you, that I'm not going to say to somebody else.

I speak the same language to everybody. But that's not what Democrats do. We constantly try to parse out different ways of speaking to different cohorts, because our focus groups or our polling shows that so and so appeals to such and such. That's not how normal people think.It's not common sense.

And we need to start being the party of common sense again. Joe Biden is not responsible for that. Neither is Kamala Harris. It is a problem that Democrats have had for years. I have been banging the drum on this for, I don't know, probably 10 years, if not longer on this. We need to get back to being the party of common sense that people look at us and say, we understand you, we appreciate what you say because you speak our language.

And until we do that, we should stop blaming other people for our own mistakes.

BROWN: Just to follow up with you -- Shermichael, I'm going to get to you -- what would you say to those who would argue, well, Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, they were the messengers, they were the top of the ticket,they were responsible for trying to get to those voters and get through to them with the messaging you're talking about?

ROGINSKY: Listen -- and, again, I have a lot of friends who I'm going to criticize here, and I know them personally, so I apologize from a personal level.

But when you're spending your time at the White House trying to have viral moments with Steve Doocy of FOX News, which nobody in the real world in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, or in Saginaw County, Michigan, knows or cares about, when you're trying to go viral on TikTok because you're somehow taking on and trying to humiliate an anchor at a cable news station, as opposed to looking into the camera and saying, this is what we have accomplished for you today in plain terms, right?

[11:40:24]

You could look into the camera and say, thanks to our infrastructure bill, Route 212 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, we will finally have that pothole filled in Riegelsville that you have been complaining about. But that's not what they did. They try to have these weird viral moments constantly where they're trying to take on Doocy at FOX and they think it's hilarious.

Nobody knows who Doocy is. And the people who do know him are not voting for us anyway. So the point is, there's a way to talk to people on their own terms about things that they care about. That is a messaging problem the White House has had since day one. I have complained about it since day one. I'm complaining about it now.

Not to Monday morning quarterback, not to be rude, not to make anybody feel bad, but to say going forward -- because I agree with Joe Biden. That was one of the finest speeches I have ever heard anybody give just now. I agree with him. We need to pick ourselves up, look at what went wrong and change it so we can win again.

The first way to do that is to talk to people like they're normal human beings and make them think that we are the party of common sense, not people who are afraid of alienating somebody so that we don't have positions that are clear, concise and accurate as to where they are.

BROWN: I want to bring you in on this conversation, Shermichael. I want to get your reaction to what we heard from Julie, but also the overall view of what we heard from President Biden, who clearly drew a stark contrast with former President Trump, now president-elect Trump, saying, look, we have to accept the choice this country made and that there will be a peaceful transfer of power on January 20.

Of course, that is not what the situation was when -- in 2020 with Trump. So what did you think about what we heard and the importance of what we heard from President Biden?

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I mean, no one likes to lose elections. I have worked on enough campaigns to understand what that feels like as a strategist, but also for millions of people out there who voted for the vice president because they believed in her, they believed in her policies. I get it, so I certainly don't want to gloat.

It's just not a great feeling to lose, but the American people, at least of vast majority of them who voted, did give a mandate not only to the former president, now president-elect, but also to the Republican Party. President Biden stated his presidency has been historic. He said they accomplished great things, changing lives in rural communities.

Well, Donald Trump was able to improve his standing and performance overall in rural communities across the country. He talked about the economy being the strongest, although he did acknowledge that some people are still struggling.

Well, economic dislocation is still a very real thing. It's why I would argue a vast majority of people voted for Trump over the vice president. I think it's why Donald Trump was able to increase his margins with Latinos, specifically Latino men.

And so I think the Democratic Party is going to have to do what the Republican Party did after Mitt Romney lost to former President Obama. They need to do an introspection, an autopsy report to understand, to many of Julie's points that I actually do agree with, how do you actually communicate to regular people, not well-educated individuals, everyday hardworking people, and understand their values, their plight, their concerns?

I don't think the Democratic Party, at least in my opinion, and I'm a conservative, so maybe our viewers may say, well, Shermichael, you're a bit jaded or biased in your perspective here, and I certainly understand that. That's a fair point.

But I think a lot of people believe that the Democratic Party of the past is no longer the Democratic Party of today. And as you think about that dislocation as it pertains to the economy, we could go all the way back to NAFTA with President Bill Clinton at the time and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and how over the past two-and-a-half decades that's led to the economic environment that we're seeing today.

And so people are wondering, particularly men, who oftentimes work with their hands, who don't get college degrees, well, how am I supposed to survive in this continuously changing economy, one that relies more on information technology and less on skilled workers?

I mean, you have to provide solutions to those workers. And I think Donald Trump in a very unique way, and I know Democrats will criticize the depth or the nuance and specificity of some of his arguments, but to be able to provide a critique and recognition of that plight of many people is important.

BROWN: OK.

SINGLETON: And I think that's why he ultimately won and Vice President Harris did not.

BROWN: Final thoughts to you, David. I thought that was really thought-provoking, what we heard from both Julie and Shermichael.

CHALIAN: Yes.

No, this is what happens after an election.

BROWN: Right.

CHALIAN: You look at what occurred, what the people were saying, and the parties, especially the losing party, tries to adjust and figure out a new way forward.

[11:45:05]

This is exactly how Bill Clinton came to prominence in the Democratic Party after 12 years of Republican dominance in Reagan-Bush, found a different kind of path and appeal, and we will see what comes out of the ashes here for Democrats going forward.

I just want to say one other piece of Biden's remarks today that I think are worth highlighting. Given the lies about the 2020 election that Donald Trump spread for four years, Biden took this high-profile opportunity to tout the integrity of American elections, to thank the election workers for conducting this in a free and fair way.

And, of course, Donald Trump's on the winning side now, and we haven't heard one peep of concern about election integrity, since he had this overwhelming victory.

But I thought Biden clearly wanted to stress that, not to poke Donald Trump in the eye there, I think, but to actually help future election workers and secretaries of state and people who are fortifying our security around elections, that this worked, thanked them for their work, and try to convey to the American people that the American system, as he said, the integrity of the American electoral system, honest, fair, transparent, and can be trusted, win or lose.

BROWN: That's a really important point.

David Chalian, thank you so much.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:21]

BROWN: Well, we just heard from President Biden for the first time since Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the race.

And as Democrats brace for a second Trump presidency, many are asking not only how this happened, but where the party goes from here.

Joining us now is California Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell.

Congressman, thanks for your time.

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Good morning.

BROWN: I first want to get your reaction to what we just heard from the president. Did you hear what you wanted to hear, what you feel like you needed to hear in this moment?

SWALWELL: Well, we have work to do. And I am going to do that work. I'm all in to do that work. It doesn't feel good to lose. We still have a shot at the House. It's either going to be a slim Democratic majority or a slim Republican majority.

But, right now, I have to go right back on the field, because the next play is the selection of Cabinet secretaries who will implement Trump's Project 2025. And then the play after that is going to be making sure the government is funded and making sure that we don't give more tax cuts to billionaires.

So I don't have the privilege or luxury of thinking about this too much, because these plays are going to come pretty fast and people need me and my colleagues to have our heads in the game.

BROWN: And Trump, as you know, on the campaign trail tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but we will see in reality if there is any room between Project 2025 and his policies with his administration and who he puts in his Cabinet.

But I want to go back to your party and the questions you're asking yourself this morning about your party and its direction. After this resounding presidential election loss -- I don't know if you just heard the conversation I had with the Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky, but she said the party doesn't know how to communicate effectively to voters and how to just get through to the regular person out there in America who's not inside the Beltway.

SWALWELL: She's right.

Look, I was raised as a blue-collar kid, son of a cop, a mom who worked a number of odd jobs. My brothers are cops. I was a prosecutor. And I know that people resent when you talk to them like you're trying to win a Harvard Law School moot court competition, as opposed to just talking to somebody at a bar or at the bus stop.

And I think we would be better served if we led with our personality, rather than policy. And our personalities can reflect our values, our principles, what we care about. But, too often, we're just not plainspoken enough. And, frankly, we're too nice and too modest. And we stand on virtue.

And I think you look at a candidate like Ruben Gallego, who won in Arizona, look, that guy went to rodeos. He went to soccer matches. He went to boxing matches. He went out to the tribes. He was himself. He was just Ruben. And it worked. And he beat Kari Lake in a state that Donald Trump won. And I think that's a good model of how we can win.

BROWN: You ran for president in 2020. Do you think the lack of a primary helped or hurt your party this time around?

SWALWELL: Well, certainly, Kamala Harris, in just 100 days, was trying to do something that no candidate has ever done. And she was pitch-perfect in her execution. But by not having the ability of going through a primary and being

battle-tested, of course, that comes with risk. But, as I said, I'm on the field now. And I'm not in the announcer's booth. I don't have the luxury of going back and looking at what should have been, could have been.

A young girl in a state with a six-week abortion ban is wondering what I'm going to do next. A Ukrainian soldier in the trenches, as their ally just abandoned them, is wondering what I'm going to do next. A student who's going to high school and is more vulnerable than ever to a mass shooter is wondering what I'm going to do next.

So I'm going to put my helmet back on, get back on the field and make sure I do all I can to defend and protect what we all care about.

BROWN: You mentioned Ukraine. You previously traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He says he had a productive discussion yesterday with president-elect Trump, who, as you know, has previously threatened to cut aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia.

What do you think a second Trump term will mean for Ukraine?

SWALWELL: Trump is going to impose a near-surrender on Ukraine. And our allies in Western Europe are very worried.

I have received a number of text messages from leaders over in Europe, NATO leaders, asking, are we going to stay in NATO? Will we keep our commitment? Are they going to be on their own?

And so they very much are worried. And so that is what -- as I said, it comes back to us who are on the field in the House and the Senate. Will we just lay down for Trump to do this, or will we stand up for the value of freedom and what that means in Ukraine and recognize that, if Ukraine falls, that other parts of Europe could fall and America could also fall?

[11:55:20]

So, a lot's on the line right now. And people are going to be tested.

BROWN: You mentioned the NATO -- NATO's secretary-general, he was saying now he looks forward to sitting down with Trump. He praised Trump actually for pushing member states to invest more in the alliance during his first term and he expects more of the same under another Trump administration. And he says that would be a good thing.

Can you concede that that would be a good thing, as the NATO secretary-general seems to be saying here?

SWALWELL: That is a good thing. And President Trump, just like President Obama and President Biden, are right to ask our allies to do more.

And since the invasion of Russia, they have stepped up and are doing more. And I think Donald Trump needs to understand, though, that NATO is not an institution that people pay into. It's what each government does on their own. And by just beating them up and not understanding how it works, that's disrespectful to them.

BROWN: OK.

SWALWELL: I am rooting for America to succeed. I am not against the former president. I am for our country.

BROWN: I think we're all rooting for America to succeed, no matter where you are on the political spectrum.

Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you so much.

SWALWELL: Yes. Thank you.

BROWN: And thank you all for joining me. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @PamelaBrownCNN.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.