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Democrats Take Aim At Vulnerable New York Republicans; Biden Administration Celebrating One Year Of Inflation Reduction Act; Police Raid Kansas Newspaper's Office And Owner's Home. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired August 14, 2023 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:31:47]
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So the crucial fight for control of the House already underway with Democrats zeroing in on districts that were won by Republicans in 2020 despite being Biden districts that he'd carried before. Republicans control the House by just 10 seats and that means Democrats need to flip six in next year's midterm elections to regain control.
Our chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju spoke with one of the Republicans from a blue district outside of New York City and the Democrats trying to unseat him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): Truly remarkable.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a stunner last year giving the GOP a razor-thin House majority. Six Republicans winning in the blue New York suburbs. Now, they're the most endangered.
So when President Biden recently called vulnerable freshman Mike Lawler --
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The kind of Republican I was used to dealing with, but he's not one of the MAGA Republicans.
RAJU (voice-over): -- Democrats like Mondaire Jones, seeking to unseat Lawler, were furious.
MONDAIRE JONES, (D) NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: People were horrified when they heard what Joe Biden had to say.
RAJU (on camera): So did Biden get it wrong?
JONES: Biden not only got it wrong, but I think it was just factually, like, absurd.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler is one of 19 Republicans in districts Biden carried in 2020 whose fate will determine the next majority. LAWLER: I ran to represent this district.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler says he's appealing to moderates.
LAWLER: I don't look at it as a vulnerability. I've won twice in 2-1 Democratic districts. And when the president came to Westchester and he said on stage I'm the type of Republican he could work with.
RAJU (voice-over): But Lawler's opponents are seizing on his votes in the conservative-dominated House. Like when the New York freshman voted to rescind a Pentagon policy reimbursing personnel traveling for abortions.
LIZ GEREGHTY, (D) NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: So he's totally fine with women in the military fighting for his freedom, but he won't even protect their rights.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler defends his vote.
LAWLER: Using taxpayer funds to pay for travel related to abortion services -- we don't do that.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler could soon be in another difficult spot if the House tries to begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden.
LAWLER: I think, for me, with respect to impeachment, we're not there yet.
RAJU (voice-over): Another complication -- the prospect that Donald Trump could be atop the ticket as he faces criminal charges.
JONES: Mike Lawler cannot run away from Donald Trump, and this is a district that hates Donald Trump.
RAJU (on camera): Do you think that Trump deserves to be in jail?
JONES: I think Trump deserves to be in prison. But you know what? Let's leave that up to the juries to decide.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler is critical of Trump's actions after he lost in 2020 --
LAWLER: I think Donald Trump's conduct post-election was wrong. It was wrong.
RAJU (voice-over): -- but not saying if he'd back Trump as a nominee.
RAJU (on camera): Would you support Trump if he's the nominee?
LAWLER: Look, at the end of the day, the Republican primary voters are going to choose who the nominee is. I want the party to move in a different direction.
RAJU (voice-over): Though he has his limits.
LAWLER: If he's convicted, he should not be running for public office, period.
RAJU (voice-over): Lawler says Jones, who used to represent a more liberal New York district, is out of step.
LAWLER: You're not a pragmatist. You're a political hack.
RAJU (voice-over): But Jones' primary opponent, Liz Gereghty, says this.
GEREGHTY: He's taking positions that I think are going to cause him problems in a general election.
JONES: Of course, we need to end mass incarceration and --
[07:35:01]
RAJU (voice-over): Among them, discussing defunding the police in 2020 -- something he is now walking back.
JONES: I understood those words, which are very, in retrospect, poor choices of words.
RAJU (voice-over): Many voters here are still up for grabs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody's won my vote yet, you know?
RAJU (on camera): Now, in a sign of just how important a district like this one is for the fight for control of the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy super PAC released a memo just this week detailing what it is calling the "Blue State Project," saying the House will be won or lost in Democratic strongholds like this one. And McCarthy, himself, plans to travel to New York later this month.
Manu Raju, CNN, Piermont, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now, a Republican strategist, Joe Pinion. And Democratic strategist and former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, Basil Smikle.
I want to get to Manu's beautifully windswept hair --
HARLOW: Yes, it was.
MATTINGLY: -- in a minute.
But I want to start, Basil, with your reaction to what President Biden said about a frontline Republican -- potentially, majority-maker -- earlier this year.
BASIL SMIKLE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW YORK STATE DEMOCRATIC PARTY: It's vexing.
MATTINGLY: Yes. SMIKLE: That's not helpful when you have someone like the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and if you believe the reports in the spring, being intentional about saying that he wants to be engaged in the state Democratic Party to make sure that Democrats can win. We need all eyes on this state. There are about three, maybe even four seats that Democrats can pick up in New York and flip them from what occurred just two years ago. So it's an unhelpful comment.
But I would take Mondaire Jones, for example -- a really strong leader. He wound up having to leave that district to go run in another district in the southern part of New York City --
MATTINGLY: Through the redistricting --
SMIKLE: -- through the redistricting --
MATTINGLY: -- that was largely responsible for the --
HARLOW: I think --
MATTINGLY: -- House Republican majority.
SMIKLE: Correct --
HARLOW: Yes.
SMIKLE: -- which is --
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
SMIKLE: -- which we actually have to come back to because a judge threw out those lines and we have to redraw them again.
So there's a lot of turmoil --
HARLOW: Yes.
SMIKLE: -- here, but there is certainly a lot of opportunity for Democrats in 2022.
HARLOW: Joe, you ran for Senate in New York. You know what it's like to run as a Republican in New York.
What's interesting to me is those Republicans picked up those seats when the economy was worse. I'm not saying people feel good about the economy now -- they don't -- but inflation was more vexing an issue for Democrats.
How about now --
JOSEPH PINION III, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look, I think there are plenty of issues --
HARLOW: -- for Republicans? PINION: -- that are going to be just as vexing.
I think if you look at what President Biden was able to do, he played his trump card -- no pun intended. He emptied the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He was able to help ease those gas prices down. He was able to lean on the fact that inflation -- they call transitory -- were starting to come down.
But I've often said, and we talked about this in the green room, that if you're looking at what we're going to be dealing with moving forward, you're going to have gas prices for heat and energy. Come this winter, they're going to be astronomical without that safety valve to be able to be pulled again.
You're going to be dealing with the fact that we are now seeing again people defaulting on their car payments. The fact that the credit card debt now topping a trillion dollars. The fact that the median amount of savings has gone down precipitously and continues to come down, all while baby boomers are retiring to the tune of about 10,000 per day.
So those are the type of perfect storm conditions that end up with you staring down the barrel of a 2024 election with the average people saying yes, the macro economy might be doing well, but the micro issues -- the issues that everyday Americans decide their lives on -- those are the ones that are really going to be putting down with pressure on that middle class.
HARLOW: But isn't it harder -- a little bit harder for Republicans this time around in this state?
PINION: I don't -- I don't think so. I think, honestly, the real issue is going to be who is going to be at the top of the ticket. What are those issues going to be?
I think, again, people can say whatever they want about President Trump. I don't know anyone who is a public figure or private figure who gets indictment four times and is stronger because of it. So that is certainly going to be --
HARLOW: Yes.
PINION: -- a difficult thing for President Trump, a difficult thing for the party, and Democrats have already proven they're going to try to take those indictments and put them around the neck of every single Republican up and down the ballot.
MATTINGLY: But I think that's the critical point, right? And I understand the trump card was not a pun that was intended but it actually fits to some degree here. Because if he's at the top of the -- you saw how Mike Lawler was responding to Manu when asked about that question and the gymnastics it takes to try and address whether or not you would vote for the former president if he's the nominee.
He's at plus-30 right now. These are districts that President Biden was winning by eight, 10, 12 points. SMIKLE: That's right. So when the -- when Democrats lost those seats in 2022, Donald Trump was not on the top of the ticket, but he very likely can be in 2024.
When you layer on top of that the fact that -- and I look at Speaker McCarthy in this. He's not doing something that the speaker is really supposed to do, which is protect your members. He hasn't really given any of the -- his members the opportunity to create any departure -- any wiggle room away from Donald Trump.
And as a result of that they're going to get tagged, as Democrats should, for everything Donald Trump does. Every question is going to be how do you respond to what Donald Trump did to these indictments.
[07:40:00]
HARLOW: Yes.
SMIKLE: To a trial that --
HARLOW: Well, let's --
SMIKLE: -- he might end up seeing.
HARLOW: Let's listen to how voters in Iowa -- you may have heard the Iowa State Fair is ongoing right now. A lot of politicians are there this weekend. Here's how some Iowa voters feel about those indictments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Are the indictments changing how you feel?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, because I do think a lot of that is for effect.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A lot of those are trumped up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't believe most of it, you know? They're just out to get him, you know. It might turn around, too. They might -- Biden might be the first one in jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That was our Kyung Lah who talked to a whole lot of reporters over several days in Iowa. So they seem to think nothing to see here.
PINION: Look, I think if you're talking about the confines of the Republican primary, certainly, this is not really going to affect President Trump.
I think if you're talking about the general election, we are really focusing on those anywhere from 14 to 16 percent of people who say they are undecided today, most of whom are registered Independents themselves. And those are the individuals that I think -- the individuals, like Mike Lawler, people like Anthony D'Esposito --
HARLOW: Yes.
PINION: -- here in New York, were able to convince in this '22 cycle that the direction that Joe Biden was taking the country in was not for the best.
And I think, again, it is still going to be the economy, stupid. We're still going to be talking about those economic indicators for the forgotten people on Main Street. I think that is going to be the message the Republicans who are successful in 2024 are going to stick to. Those who kind of get lost in these cultural wars. Particularly, these swing districts are going to be able to be the ones that somehow find themselves on the wrong end of the pendulum.
MATTINGLY: I think it's a good point because we try and view things through the prism of Trump or Biden. It's a national election. And those voters that Kyung was talking to had tons of great sound. It gives a great window into a Republican primary voter in Iowa, which is a very specific type of Republican primary voter, are not the voters who are going to decide --
SMIKLE: Right.
MATTINGLY: -- in November of 2024.
And so, my question is and has long been if you are the Biden campaign, do you want to run against former President Trump right now because he has all this baggage? Because he has all these issues?
SMIKLE: Well, just -- and I quick thing.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
SMIKLE: There's an Iowa voter, but there's also a New Hampshire voter. You can have --
MATTINGLY: Which is a very different voter.
SMIKLE: Which is a very different voter.
MATTINGLY: Right.
SMIKLE: You can have Independents voting in that primary so it could change the calculus, depending on -- you know, depending on the outcome.
Having said that, listen, I do think Trump presents a really important foil for the Democrats for a thousand issues. But I do think that when you consider these issues of democracy -- the reproductive rights, which are still top of mind for so many voters -- particularly, suburban voters, as you talk about.
HARLOW: And some Republicans.
SMIKLE: And Republicans. So if you -- if you cobble together Democrats who are firmly behind
Joe Biden in ways that Barack Obama wasn't at this time in his presidency, if you add those Independent voters that you're talking about, and you add disaffected Republicans -- those that were so helpful to Democrats in 2022 -- if we can still keep that coalition it bears well for anybody that Joe Biden has to go up against in 2024.
PINION: Look, I've long said you cannot rebuild the Obama coalition without an Obama on the ballot. And the only way that it actually came back together was a once-in-a-generational pandemic. It effectively changed the entire landscape of the 2020 race.
So I think --
HARLOW: All right.
PINION: -- what people aren't talking about -- Joe Biden in 2024, a much different man from Joe Biden in 2019-2020. I think the personal issues and the political baggage will lead to this being a more interesting race than some people are giving it credit.
HARLOW: Joe, thank you.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
HARLOW: Basil, great to have you.
It has been almost a year since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act. Has it been effective in reducing inflation? We're going to tell you what it did and what it still needs to do, ahead.
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[07:48:22]
HARLOW: Welcome back.
So it's been almost a year since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Starting today, senior administration officials, including the Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen, will travel across the country to mark the occasion.
The act did accomplish some key legislative things. It was key on Biden's agenda. Also, regarding the climate crisis, tax policy, and health care.
Did it reduce inflation?
Julia Chatterley fact-checking all of that with us this morning. I mean, they refer to it -- any administration member -- over and over and over again -- the IRA, the IRA, the IRA.
Did it reduce inflation yet?
JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN BUSINESS ANCHOR, "FIRST MOVE": Easy answer -- no. But it was never really about reducing inflation, at least in the short term. It was always a medium- to longer-term play.
So did it contribute to the falling inflation over the past year? No, it didn't. But it doesn't mean it wasn't potent.
And that's going to be part of the message, at least in Janet Yellen today. It was about boosting growth. It was about trying to shift away from fossil fuels and get greater investment to renewable energies. And Janet Yellen, today, is going to say look, it's already contributed to $500 billion worth of manufacturing in clean energy investment. That's potent.
And as you guys both know when you travel around the world and you speak to other policymakers, it's been a political earthquake elsewhere in the world because they think it's going to mean America attracts a heck of a lot of investment from other places. So let's not downgrade it.
But as far as inflation is concerned, rate rises. China not growing the way we anticipated. Gas prices falling. They're the contributors. And that's the second part of her message today -- the resilient U.S. economy.
Inflation has come down. No one, a year ago when this act was signed, would have believed that inflation would be below four percent in this country and unemployment would be below four percent, and that's been achieved.
[07:50:09]
So there are good things to talk about. The question is do voters give them credit for it? Not right now, and that's why they're on the trail.
MATTINGLY: Right, and particularly, given the scale in terms of the time horizon for all of these things to take effect and to really be felt. And I should note it's not just Julia's opinion. The president --
CHATTERLEY: He said it last week.
MATTINGLY: -- he said it at a fundraiser.
CHATTERLEY: Yes, he did.
MATTINGLY: So at fundraisers, President Biden is the best as a reporter because he's far more candid even though he's not on camera. And he said, quote --
CHATTERLEY: (INAUDIBLE):
MATTINGLY: -- "I wish I hadn't called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth."
CHATTERLEY: Yes --
HARLOW: Julia --
CHATTERLEY: -- but you did it for a reason.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: It was the wrong name --
MATTINGLY: Well --
CHATTERLEY: -- and now you've got to change the name.
MATTINGLY: But they got the policy in.
HARLOW: So, politically --
MATTINGLY: Maybe that's what matters and it's going to (INAUDIBLE) over time.
CHATTERLEY: But they're not getting credit for it.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: And in Republican --
HARLOW: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: -- states this is going to matter more and more because they're going to get credit for the investment and, hopefully, the jobs that come from it.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Yes.
CHATTERLEY: So --
MATTINGLY: It's fascinating, Julia. A lot more to come.
CHATTERLEY: -- it's all the message better.
MATTINGLY: Julia Chatterley, thank you.
HARLOW: Thank you.
MATTINGLY: Well, the raid of a newspaper headquarters in Kansas is raising serious concerns over First Amendment rights. Police seizing everything from computers to servers, to cell phones of reporters and editors. How the paper is responding. That's next.
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MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, 34 news and press freedom organizations, including CNN, have signed a letter condemning a police raid on a local newspaper and its owner's home in Kansas. Police searched the Marion County Record and its owner's home north of Wichita on Friday. Now they claim it's part of an investigation into, quote, "identity theft." Officers seized computers, records, and cell phones from reporters and editors.
The owner called the searches illegal and warned they could have a chilling effect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC MEYER, CO-OWNER AND PUBLISHER, MARION COUNTY RECORD: They know that if they keep our equipment long enough it won't pose grave dangers for us in terms of publishing. We're going to publish one way or the other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[07:55:04]
HARLOW: So the owner said that the searches appear to be connected to an investigation by the newspaper into how that newspaper obtained information related to a local restaurant owner. The restaurant owner accuses the paper of illegally obtaining and sharing documentation on a DUI citation she received about 15 years ago. The newspaper reports it was a source that shared the information with a reporter and they confirmed it through publicly available records. They also decided not to publish the information until after the restaurant owner started publicly accusing them of wrongdoing.
Our senior media reporter and analyst Sara Fischer joins us now. This is really much bigger than this paper, right? It matters what's happening here because it matters. It's a First Amendment question. You rarely see a raid like this happen.
How did this happen and was it legal?
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST, SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS (via Webex by Cisco): It's a great question, Poppy. And just to hit at your first point there, this is part of a broader trend within the United States of law enforcement and journalism companies going head- to-head.
We've seen the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has tracked that this has been increasing since the George Floyd protests in 2020. We saw hundreds of journalists get arrested. There were warrants issued for them to give over their footage.
And so, when we hear about something happening like this at a local paper it's a reminder that this is part of the bigger problem in the U.S. I cover a lot of press freedom rights around the globe in autocratic countries. You rarely see things like this -- a raid like this at a local paper here in the U.S.
Right now, it seems that there is a discrepancy between whether or not the paper was supposed to be raided -- whether there was legal grounds to do it. You mentioned at the top there's 34 news organizations joining the press freedom groups, arguing that this is against federal privacy law. That this is against federal law to do it.
Of course, the local law enforcement is pointing at different situations, saying that they had grounds to invade the home of this newspaper executive.
Time will tell once we get a better sense of what's going on with the story. But for now, you have a lot of journalists very worked up over this situation.
HARLOW: Yes.
MATTINGLY: Yes. I mean, look, Sara -- and you cover this stuff every single day -- it's, on its face, completely ridiculous. And I think it was stunning and got more stunning every single paragraph I would read about this story over the course of the last several days.
What is your sense in terms of whether or not the rationale and justification from law enforcement holds up?
FISCHER: My sense is that it doesn't. I mean, like I said, it's very rare for law enforcement to raid a home like this, in part because we have such strong protections for the press and for the First Amendment that it's typically very hard for them to do something like this.
But again, if they're trying to say that the reason they did it is because someone from the newspaper is involved in what they're trying to investigate, if that turns out to be the case I might feel a little bit differently. But we just don't have enough details right now, Phil, to be able to understand their rationale, which is why I think that this type of situation --
HARLOW: Yes.
FISCHER: -- is unprecedented and totally uncalled for.
HARLOW: One of the -- the owner of the paper also tried to get from the judge the probable cause affidavit that would have led to the search warrant and was not able to obtain it because the judge told them that didn't exist.
And what I think is really notable here -- they're still trying to get their weekly edition published, Sara. They're working on guests -- people -- friends, acquaintances, laptops, et cetera to get it out on Wednesday morning. And it just speaks to the dedication to journalism -- to the profession.
FISCHER: Yes, you've seen this time and time again throughout the year. Remember that Las Vegas --
HARLOW: Yes.
FISCHER: -- Nevada journalism reporter who was killed. They still had to get a paper out the next day.
I think about a lot of our colleagues in Hawaii right now that are dealing with print newspapers amid big wildfires. This is part of the toughness of journalism. But I hope it works out (audio gap) in Kansas.
MATTINGLY: All right. Sara Fischer, we're going to keep our eye on this story for sure going forward. Thank you.
FISCHER: Thank you.
MATTINGLY: And coming up, the move from Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis that could signal yet another indictment for former President Trump.
HARLOW: Also overnight, in Hawaii, we learned 96 people have died from those wildfires in Maui. It's the deadliest wildfire now in modern U.S. history. What we're learning about a lawsuit that has just been filed, ahead.
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