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Jane Harman is Interviewed about Dianne Feinstein; Swift Effect on Football; Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ) is Interviewed about Menendez and the House. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 02, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Run as a candidate after holding this seat for a year. That is going to be the open question. I am told that there were no preconditions in her taking this appointment. So, it's going to get very crowded and very interesting, Phil.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, not a caretaker. It's going to be fascinating. This is already a very intense race.

Kyung Lah, thank you.

LAH: You bet.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us now, former Democratic congresswoman from California, longtime friend of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, Jane Harman. She was with Senator Feinstein the day before she passed away. This is a picture of the two of them.

Congresswoman, it's nice to have you. Of course, we heard from you and your reflections, you know, when we lost her on Friday and we appreciate you being here with us this morning.

I'm interested in what you think she would have made of this appointment to her seat for now.

JANE HARMAN, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE (D-CA): Well, I would never dare to speak for Dianne, who spoke for herself until the very end.

HARLOW: Fair enough.

HARMAN: As you know, I was with her just a few hours before she died. And she looked so healthy and vibrant. It's - it's such a huge loss. Such a huge loss.

This is different kind of appointment than I think she would have expected, but I think, you know, she - I don't know if she knows this woman or not. I don't. But she certainly knew of and I'm assuming was supported by Emily's List over the years, as I was. It's a formidable group supporting women for Congress. And getting their endorsement was a huge deal. She probably knew this woman. The new news for me is no preconditions.

I had thought he was planning to nominate a caretaker, but this does mix up the race and there already is an African-American woman in the race, Barbara Lee, a former aide to Ron Dellums, whom I served with and adored. So -- and the other candidates, Katie Porter and Adam Schiff, I think are formidable, too.

But my point is that this could mix up the race if she decides to stay in it. It also will give her more clout in the Senate if she is not a caretaker, I suppose.

The crucial thing is for Alex Padilla to help her learn the ropes quickly and be a senator, not just a campaign person. And I assume he wants to do that. I've read some very positive comments by him about her.

MATTINGLY: I want to move on to Ukraine foreign policy in a minute, but you said something interesting, that you don't think that this is the selection that Senator Feinstein would have expected. What do you mean by that?

HARMAN: Well, I -- I - you know, this woman is not exactly like Dianne Feinstein. I don't know that Dianne would have expected -- who is like Dianne Feinstein? Let's go there. Nobody. Nobody would have the clout that she does. But I think there were other names floating around. And I don't know. I don't want to speculate. I think - I understand why Gavin Newsom did this. I want this woman to succeed. I don't know her, but she seems absolutely formidable.

HARLOW: Yes. Yes, she -- Laphonza Butler not only served running Emily's List, but also was a union president in California. She work with now Vice President Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential campaign,

HARMAN: Yes.

HARLOW: She ran public policy at Airbnb. So, she's got a lot of unique also private sector experience, which I think is going to be interesting in the Senate.

HARMAN: Ah, yes. Well, that's a good point.

HARLOW: Yes. Can we move --

HARMAN: Yes. I mean I'm just learning about her. So, that's -- she does have private sector experience. Good thing also.

HARLOW: Yes. Can we move on to what we saw happen in Slovakia and the Robert Fico has gotten enough votes to be the prime minister there. He'll need a coalition around him. But he is being called by many as pro-Russian. The Russians just out with a statement taking issue with that. But it's just interesting and I wonder what you think it does to the sort of cohesiveness of NATO and the EU writ large as it comes to backing Ukraine.

HARMAN: Well, I think NATO is strongly for Ukraine. I just interviewed Jens Stoltenberg the other day and, boy, there's just no ounce of daylight between his position, whatever it takes, and not. NATO has stresses and strains already. Hungary is a member of NATO. Turkey's a member of NATO. They're not exactly all in all the time. And, in fact, they're so far not blessing yet the admission of Sweden to NATO, which has been approved by the other states.

I think the NATO alliance is strong, durable, and the - the -- this new leadership will perhaps make a few things difficult, but I'm still bullish on NATO support for Ukraine.

What I want is U.S. support for Ukraine. It was sad to leave the funding out of the CR on late Saturday night. But I was enormously pleased to see a bipartisan letter -- let me state that again, bipartisan letter from Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Patty Murray, Susan Collins, Chris Coons, and Lindsey Graham in support of funding for Ukraine.

[08:35:06]

And I hope they will find a way to get that done in the next six-week period.

HARLOW: Congresswoman Jane Harman, thank you very much. We're sorry for your loss.

HARMAN: Thank you.

HARLOW: I'm glad you got to spend some of those final hours with Senator Feinstein.

HARMAN: Sorry for - sorry for California's loss and all of our losses. She was a great woman. Great person.

HARLOW: Appreciate you being here this morning.

MATTINGLY: Well, Taylor Swift is firmly in her football era, at least two weeks of it, and the NFL is embracing the attention. Also someone who likes to embrace attention, our own Harry Enten. He's going to break down the numbers on just how big the impact has been.

HARLOW: Here's a live look also this morning at Trump Tower. The former president will leave any minute. He's expected to appear in person at the beginning of his civil fraud trial right here in New York City.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARLOW: Seventeen times. That is how many times the cameras cut to a shot of Taylor Swift as she cheered on her rumored boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, during Sunday night's game against the Jets. That count provided by "The Athletic" and Phil Mattingly, just one indication of the Taylor-mania that has swept the NFL since Swift appeared at the Chiefs game last week.

Joining us now is chief data reporter Harry Enten.

Between you and Mattingly, I'm trying to get onboard here with this being the biggest story in the country.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Come on!

MATTINGLY: We're going to get you there.

HARLOW: Of course not (ph).

MATTINGLY: Just by week 19, and the first week of the playoffs, we're going to get you -

HARLOW: Oh, gosh.

MATTINGLY: OK, go ahead. Do your thing.

ENTEN: I'll do my -

MATTINGLY: I already gave you the data, 17 (INAUDIBLE).

[08:40:00]

ENTEN: There you go. Why don't you just come up here next time and you can do it yourself?

All right, let's take a look here. I want to give you an idea of just this Taylor Swift effect. So, the Google search for the Kansas City Chiefs are up 114 percent this week, compared to before Swift started appearing at these ball games. So, you know, Taylor Swift is really jumping in there and making the Chiefs more popular.

But it's not just that. Take a look here at Travis Kelce's metrics post-Swift at the games. His podcast with his brother now number one on Apple. How about his Instagram followers, up 900,000. How about his jersey sales? Some moola going in here. Up 400 percent. So, the fact is, Taylor Swift coming to these games has upped the metrics for the Kansas City Chiefs and it's upped it for her beau, Mr. Kelce, as well.

MATTINGLY: First up, the podcast was already very successful.

ENTEN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Second off, you seem to be implicitly going down the role of, like, oh, this is making Travis Kelce, and I'm deeply offended by that.

ENTEN: Whatever (ph).

MATTINGLY: But I do want to know, who do you think has more power, Taylor Swift or the NFL?

ENTEN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: It's like Godzilla versus like --

ENTEN: King Kong?

MATTINGLY: Yes, exactly. ENTEN: See, I know my old monster films.

All right, the NFL versus Taylor Swift on revenue. The average NFL team last year made $581 million. Swift's Eras Tour, in ticket sales alone in North America, in ticket sales alone, estimated at $2.2 billion. We're talking about three, four times as much here. So, the fact is, in my opinion, it's Taylor Swift who is dominating the average NFL team.

Now, let me take you a little nugget further and give you an understanding of why perhaps Taylor Swift is so big and is propelling the interest in the NFL and, of course, her beau. Statistically similar great performances. So, my buddy Neal Payne (ph) over at "The Messenger" basically put Taylor Swift on a -- the same page sort of statistically, how good she is compared to the average. How good is Taylor Swift? Well, if she was an NFL player, she'd be on the same page as Tom Brady through this point in her career, and Barry Sanders, who, of course, could run with the ball like nobody's business. So, I'm a big fan of Taylor Swift, despite Phil and I's bad blood this morning.

HARLOW: Oh, ha-ha, nice one.

ENTEN: I did it! I - that - that - you have to do that, right?

MATTINGLY: You let him in here.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, buddy.

ENTEN: Thank you.

HARLOW: That was great.

MATTINGLY: Well, joining us now to discuss all of this, maybe even a little bit of Harry as well, Segun Oduolowu, host of "Boston Globe Today."

I -- I've got to be honest with you, I needed to know what you thought about this, just period. And I've been thinking about this for two weeks.

HARLOW: He really has.

MATTINGLY: Give it to me now. Like, I'm fascinated by it.

SEGUN ODUOLOWU, HOST, "BOSTON GLOBE TODAY": Oh, well -- well, first, those earlier comments, I'm just going to shake that off, right? We shake it off because there are over 30 NFL teams, so half a billion times 30 is more than what Taylor makes.

MATTINGLY: Thank you.

ODUOLOWU: And the question was the NFL versus Taylor Swift. And, yes, the NFL is huge. But we love this story because, first of all, how many tight ends do

we know by name besides Travis Kelce? We know Gronk because, obviously, he's Gronk. And here in Boston he's a god amongst men. You maybe know Shannon Sharp, who is arguably one of the best sportscasters, but he's in media. Tony Gonzalez, he's in media. But you don't really get a lot of football players that are non- quarterbacks that have this type of stardom.

So, Travis Kelce, who covets the limelight, let's not forget his dating show, Travis and his brother, they're fantastic football players, but they do like being if front of the spotlight. And them you get a pop princess. This is our sports version of Megan and Harry, right? Like, you get a bona fide pop princess in Taylor Swift, you get our royalty in America, a sports athlete. This is a match made in media heaven.

Look, I saw more Travis Kelce commercials than I've ever seen in last night's game. Mike Tirico, one of the best sportscasters in the business in his own right, in the third quarter, is talking about, hey, Taylor's still here at the game. So, it's a big story. We love it. America loves it. And, come on, let's let these two crazy kids just be in love.

HARLOW: Ahh.

MATTINGLY: Come on, Poppy.

HARLOW: I'm onboard. I'm just - I am on board.

ODUOLOWU: Great.

HARLOW: And you know who else I think is going to be on board, Segun, is --

ODUOLOWU: Until they break up -- wait, Poppy -

HARLOW: What? What? Do not say that!

ODUOLOWU: Well, Poppy, until they break up -- until they break up and then -

HARLOW: Stop!

ODUOLOWU: Weel, but then she'll write songs about Travis and she'll go like triple platinum. Also like -

HARLOW: And they'll be amazing. And they'll be amazing. I believe in this love.

ODUOLOWU: That's her MO.

HARLOW: I believe in this love.

Enough, Phil Mattingly.

MATTINGLY: OK. HARLOW: OK. But you know who's going to have fun? Late-night. And late-night's back. And you know this is going to be all over late- night, right?

ODUOLOWU: It is going to be all over late-night. It's great to have late-night TV back. That writer's strike, for many people who don't know, who kind of watch TV or watch movies, they don't realize the ecosystem that is a late-night show or a show like yours or a show like mine that has producers and writers and cameramen and all the way down to the cleaning crew.

[08:45:00]

And so when those shows go off the air, it hurts not just the pocket of Steve Colbert or Jimmy Fallon, there's a whole large group of people that depend on those shows airing. So, having late-night back I hope will give leverage to some of these other striking entities, right? John Oliver touched on it on "Last Week Tonight" that, you know, this strike didn't have to happen, right? The producers, they could have come to the table and offered this deal from day one. And writers are the backbone of any television show, of any film, of the industry at large. You can't show pictures and have a story without the story writers.

So, it's great to have late-night shows back. It's great to have these writers back at work. Hopefully it will bolster the SAG-AFTRA strike because late-night shows will be kind of boring if they don't have actors and actresses to interview.

HARLOW: I second that, by the way. I don't think you'd want to see what happened to this show if we didn't have any of our grate writers.

ODUOLOWU: Amen to that.

HARLOW: No, you can't write the whole show, Phil.

MATTINGLY: I'm very aware of that fact.

HARLOW: Segun, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it.

Well, you're looking live now at Trump Tower and the courthouse Donald Trump will head to in just a short time as he - as his New York civil fraud trial begins.

HARLOW: And New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will be back in court today, as calls for his resignation from Democrats grow louder. We'll speak to a congressman who's jumped in the race to unseat him.

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[08:50:29]

HARLOW: All right, this reporting just into CNN, top Republicans are expected to try to table the Matt Gaetz resolution to oust Speaker McCarthy from his job. That's according to a source familiar with the matter. It's just unclear when that vote may happen. It could be as soon as today.

MATTINGLY: Well, just hours from now, embattled New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is due back in court. Menendez has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges. He is accused of accepting bribes to benefit Egypt in exchange for cash, gold bars, home mortgage payments and other compensation. Menendez has denied any wrongdoing and is dismissing calls from 30 Senate Democrats urging him to resign.

New Jersey Congressman Andy Kim was one of the first lawmakers to call on Menendez to step down, has now jumped into the 2024 race for the Senate seat Menendez has held since 2006.

Congressman Kim joins us now.

Appreciate your time.

I want to get to kind of the House dynamics of your day job in a minute, but to start with your decision to jump in. I think, in talking to Democrats, most of whom speak highly of you, they were still surprised by how quickly you made that decision. Did you have an infrastructure kind of in wait or did you just decide to go without a campaign apparatus set up?

REP. ANDY KIM (D-NJ) AND NEW JERSEY SENATE CANDIDATE: No. Yes, no, no infrastructure. It was not something I was planning on doing. In fact, Saturday, when I announced my run to challenge Menendez, it was my kid's eighth birthday. I had to ask him permission to step out from our family celebration to be able to send that tweet out.

I felt compelled to do so. I felt compelled in part because of my family. The fact that he is my senator, he is my kids' senator, and I want them to be able to look to a leader with integrity and I believe that New Jersey deserves better. So, that's why I jumped in.

MATTINGLY: There is often an assumption in Democratic politics in the state that you kind of have to come up a specific way, you have to be from a certain region or of a certain place, none of which I think would be boxes that you would check, and yet I think that's probably why you've raised as much money as you've raised coming out of the gate.

Do you have a sense of kind of what your chances are at this point given you've taken a different route?

KIM: Yes, look, my philosophy is always about making sure that the people have a choice. And, you're right, when I jumped in to run for Congress six years ago, you know, no one in the political establishment knew my name at the time, but it was my home. You know, I was running in my home community. People here knew me. So, you know, that's what we're up against right now. You know, we just want to make sure that, you know, we're all trying to have the accountability that we need.

We were able to raise about a million dollars in this first week. I mean it's been incredible seeing the outpouring of folks all over the country. So, you know, I'm excited about the energy and I hope that the people have a choice in this and that they see this as a choice for integrity.

MATTINGLY: It will be fascinating to watch going forward. Some of your New Jersey colleagues may hop in the race as well. We're still kind of waiting to see.

But I do want to ask you about the House. You know, the reporting from our colleague Manu Raju, who I'm sure chases after you on a regular basis on Capitol Hill, about Republican leaders moving to table or try and kill any motion to vacate. They'd need Democratic help. What's your sense right now? You're not considered a far left progressive who doesn't come across the aisle. Is that something you would be amenable to?

KIM: I mean, look, I'll take it as it comes when we get down to the Capitol later today. But I will be honest with you, Kevin McCarthy's job security is not at the top of the list of my priorities, especially right now when we are still working through trying to figure out how to avert a shutdown a couple weeks down the road. I mean we had millions of federal employees unsure what's happening. A lot of people concerned about what -- a lot of seniors concerned about Social Security and other issues. So, I really think that we need to make sure we're focused on the American people. And if it looks like we're just trying to figure out our own internal musical chairs, you know, people are not going to stand for that.

So, I - look, I'll deal with it as it comes, but right now it's not something that's taking up any of my bandwidth.

HARLOW: You have been a key voice on national security issues inside the caucus, particularly as your class came in. On Ukraine, if -- the emergency funding was left out of the continuing resolution. Do you see a pathway for Ukraine funding at the end of this 46-day period?

KIM: I do. I mean that's certainly something that we want to focus in on. What we heard from our military leaders, at least in terms of our conversations, is that, you know, they do still have enough runway to be able to continue the support. A lot of the concerns actually about not being able to have some of this funding go forward is about the United States being able to resupply our own stock. So, you know, that's something that I'm concerned about. We want to make sure our readiness is as strong as possible.

[08:55:01]

But, look, we have strong bipartisan support. I think we have over 300 members of the House of Representatives, a huge bipartisan support in the Senate. This is something that I think people recognize. We need to be standing up for democracy here at home and abroad.

MATTINGLY: Do you think that Democratic leadership could strike a deal related to the speakership related to Ukraine funding? Is that a pathway you could see? KIM: Look, I mean, I certainly think that there's conversations that

are - that are happening, that's thinking through these priorities. I mean certainly if that were to actually come to be it would need to be something where we see what are we getting out of it, because I'll be honest with you, Kevin McCarthy is someone who's been on the wrong side of almost every issue that I've been trying to push forward, whether it's health care or climate change or, you know, the concerns about a nationwide abortion ban. These are things we cannot see come to fruition. So, we need to see something significant.

But like I said, right now the main thing is we need to focus on delivering for the American people, making sure we don't have a shutdown, making sure that we can show that we can govern and we have adults in the room.

MATTINGLY: Congressman Andy Kim, of New Jersey, I appreciate the patience of your eight-year-old on his birthday, hopping into the Senate race. Thanks for your time, sir.

KIM: Thank you.

HARLOW: All right, before we let you go, take a look at this. We've got pictures of the courthouse in lower Manhattan. That is where the former president, Donald Trump, will arrive today where he has chosen, Phil, to go be in the courtroom for this civil trial.

MATTINGLY: Which he didn't have to.

HARLOW: Right.

MATTINGLY: And is clearly driven by more than just his view on the legal proceedings here.

HARLOW: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I think there's no question about that.

HARLOW: Well, the future of his business is hanging in the balance.

Much more ahead on "CNN NEWS CENTRAL."

We'll see you right back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

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