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Obama and Pelosi Privately Discuss Biden; Democrats Remain Divided; Democrats Waiting in the Wings. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired July 12, 2024 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Are friendly. They are not friends. One person who knows both of them said to me a couple of years ago, neither one of these people really has friends and they're certainly not friends with each other.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Sounds like me.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: No. You need a friend in Washington, get a dog.

ALLISON: Yes.

DOVERE: They - they - they have - they have not been in contact as much over the last couple of years of Biden's presidency as people might think. They've talked a couple times. And Barack Obama has forever been skeptical about Joe Biden's chances as a presidential candidate. He - part of the reason they picked him as vice president is they thought he would never run for president. Easy enough.

In 2015 there was a moment in the summer there, after Beau Biden died, when Biden was thinking about getting into the race. And the way that Joe Biden remembers what happened, and he's written about this in his book, is that he says Barack Obama was not encouraging.

Obama's sense of what happened in that conversation is different, notably, that he was just saying, focus on your grief. He was trying to say to Biden, this is going to be a really hard race. You sure you're up for it?

Now, fast forward to right now. I talked to a number of people about this who said not only would it be complicated for all the other reasons for Obama to step in, but that if he said to Joe Biden, someone said to me, you should step aside, that Biden's reaction would basically be, well, Mr. President, you used that chip in 2015, and that's what got us Donald Trump.

So, basically saying, your judgement on this that you may think is the thing to do is not the right thing to do.

I think also the - it taps into a lot of frustration that a lot of Democrats have had of Barack Obama since he left office that he has really stepped away. Obama has a theory of why he's doing this, that it gets - let's the next generation come up, that it doesn't trigger Donald Trump as much, all of that. But Obama is not prone to getting involved here. And if people have looked - every time they've looked at him over the last couple of years, they say save us Barack Obama, his response has basically been, I'm going to stay right here for right now and not say anything.

HUNT: Yes.

How - is that - is that helpful? I mean, and what do you make of these conversations also, Ashley? You've made your - you've made your views of where you think the part should be very clear. No one - very clear this morning.

ALLISON: Well -

HUNT: These two seem to disagree with you.

ALLISON: Well, I guess I just want people who are weighing in on this right now to - it is insufficient as a leader to say, take step a but not then how we get to z. So, people say, step down Joe Biden, but they don't tell us then like, I'm going to fall - throw all my support behind Kamala Harris, or we should run an open primary. That, to me, is irresponsible.

I also remember - look, I remember the day Beau Biden passed away. I was working at the White House at that time. I remember the day Donald Trump - I was in the Rose Garden the day Donald Trump won and President Obama told his whole team to like support the process.

I was someone in - I was probably like a lone wolf, but I was someone in 2015 that wanted Joe Biden to run for president. And I appreciated the grief, but I thought he could beat Donald Trump. And then we saw what happened with Hillary Clinton losing.

So, I understand - and I remember having conversations the day after Donald Trump lost in the West Wing and people who - they - they were - we weren't like super senior folks that we like next to the president that day, but people saying, wow, I wish Joe Biden had run.

So, it is complicated. I think President Obama also realizes the weight he carries in the Democratic Party and doesn't take that lightly. So, he is being thoughtful because whether or not Joe Biden and him are best friends, he respects him as a colleague. He respects the role that Joe Biden played for him as vice president, as being the first black person ever elected to the highest office of the land. And so he - I think he is taking that with a great weight, which is why he wants - if he's going to say something, he's not going to say, here's step a and figure the rest out. He's going to lay a pathway.

HUNT: Isaac, what is the difference between - we spent a bunch of time talking about Obama and that relationship, which I find fascinating - but Nancy Pelosi has been like - like taking - you know, she has been lock step with President Biden in all of the accomplishments that he has laid out, right, all the things he's the most proud of. And it does seem like she actually seems to be taking a leading role here. Because I will say, having covered her for many years, if she knows how to do anything, sure, she runs House races every two years, a lot of them are competitive, but the woman knows how to win, right?

DOVERE: Yes.

HUNT: And it's like the thing that is the most important to her. And I think she understands better than anyone what the consequences would be if Donald Trump were to win the White House. We expect Republicans to win the Senate. The hope that they had was to hold on to the House of Representatives. Is that a message that you think she could delver to Biden?

DOVERE: That is a message that a lot of her colleagues hope that she will deliver directly and that they took from her appearance on the other network two days ago as saying that what - what - what they wanted to hear and saying it directly to Joe Biden basically.

[06:35:05]

That caused a lot of heartache in the White House and in the - the Biden orbit, that Pelosi did that. Look, she has been in Joe Biden's corner for a long time, including throughout this presidency. She - they've known each other for decades. She is older than he is. There is a power that she has to come in personally and politically, like you say, to make this case.

Look, I don't know that we know who's going to be in control of the Senate when this is all done, but it doesn't look great for Democrats. And they know that.

HUNT: Didn't look great before that.

DOVERE: It didn't look great before that. There are so many Democrats who are so petrified in their House races now. People who were not worked a couple of weeks ago. And, of course, the presidential race. So, she could have that real power. She has been talking about it with Obama. They are concerned. They were concerned before. They are more concerned now. And it is a dynamic that they are trying to work out of how to relay this message to Biden in a way that gets him to a decision.

I mean at least in Pelosi's mind it seems very clear that - what she wants the decision to be.

HUNT: Well, and, Doug Heye, I mean Pelosi also has the benefit of having shown how to pass the torch -

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes.

HUNT: In a pretty - I mean, look, it was masterful what she did. She avoided the kind of infighting that can really damage - do damage to political standing.

HEYE: Yes.

HUNT: And she looked around and said, OK, my - my time has passed, and she handed it to younger people.

HEYE: So, as one of the architects of the fire Pelosi campaign in 2010, I have nothing but respect.

HUNT: Which she won, by the way.

HEYE: Nothing but respect for her abilities on that.

And this is where we see the public versus private be a push versus pull. And what we're seeing on the inside game is Pelosi and Obama, they're trying to pull Joe Biden out of this race. The push is George Clooney. And what George Clooney did was - it's very easy for a Republican to dismiss Hollywood actor. But I remember watching TV after it came out, and Harvey Levin of TMZ was on local Fox News here, which means he was on a lot of local Fox News. And I'll talk about the Harvey Levin voters.

HUNT: OK.

HEYE: They are people who don't like either one of these candidates. They're the double haters. And what they're seeing from this is, when George Clooney spoke out, this is the push. And it's not just happening, you know, on sets in Washington, D.C.

HUNT: Yes.

HEYE: This is playing out on phones and on apps. This is younger voters. They also - they skew younger. They skew more female. They're seeing this everywhere they go. Not just "People," magazine, which you have here on the table -

HUNT: Yes. (INAUDIBLE).

HEYE: But on their phones.

HUNT: Right.

HEYE: And that's why the Clooney thing is a push that is significant.

HUNT: Yes, I mean George Clooney -

HEYE: And it involves money as well.

HUNT: Right. And he is sort of - I was reading - I - forgive me for blanking on which outlet exactly has sort of - had sort of laid this out. But his category of celebrity is much different than the vast majority of actors in Hollywood (ph), right?

HEYE: The Democrats take him seriously as an activist.

DOVERE: And Joe Biden takes him seriously. They have a long standing relationship. This goes back a long, long time for Biden. And so it was personally an affront to him and a hurt to him to have Clooney speak out against him.

I think one of the things that's in the reporting also is that part of what seems to have gone wrong here is that fundraiser in Los Angeles -

HUNT: Yes. DOVERE: And then maybe the jet lag that grew off of it. The only reason why they flew Biden from Italy across all the way to Los Angeles overnight to that was because George Clooney, who they wanted to do the event, said that was the only day available in his shooting schedule. So, there is a frustration then that comes out that then Clooney is the one who took the shot at Biden. And, like, there are a lot of layers to what's going on here.

ALLISON: Can I just say, to underline, though -

HEYE: Is the president allowed to look George Clooney in the eyes? Like, how does that work?

ALLISON: The - the -

HUNT: Final thought.

ALLISON: I will just say, I think the underlining thing that is frustrating a lot of people is that Dems might be missing a point, is that the reason why people may be say - speaking out against Joe Biden or Joe Biden is staying in this race is because we understand the existential threat that Donald Trump is. And in all of this, it feels like a circling, firing, whatever the analogy -

HUNT: Circle, the firing squad.

ALLISON: The firing squad.

HUNT: Yes.

ALLISON: When - when we should be aiming at our opponent, Donald Trump.

HUNT: Right. Well, and, of course, the challenge in doing that now on display on - on the debate stage, which is, of course, why we're here.

All right, next, if not Biden, who? The governors of Michigan and California are two of the names on the Democratic short list.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): (INAUDIBLE). But there's one thing in closing that we have in common, is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: We're going to get you caught up on the latest buzz on possible Biden replacements.

Plus, we're going to ask Michael Smerconish what this race looks like if Joe Biden bows out. Love Smerconish Fridays.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:44:35]

HUNT: All right, 44 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

Donald Trump meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago. A spokesman for Orban says he discussed peace between Russia and Ukraine with the former president. Orban's recent visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing have angered NATO allies.

In Houston, over a million people are still without power amid deadly heat thanks to Beryl.

[06:45:01]

Texas Governor Greg Abbott calling for an investigation into how the power companies prepared for the storm.

And sources tell CNN Melania Trump is planning to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week. It is not clear whether she'll speak or be part of the official program. The former first lady has attended just two public events with her husband since 2022. Once a year, I guess, on average.

All right, let's turn back now to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW WITH JIMMY FALLON": They say more Democrats are calling for Biden to step aside. Biden hasn't seen this many people jump ship since he vacationed on the Titanic.

The majority of Biden supporters think that he should step aside. At this point I think we can stop calling them supporters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, it wasn't a total disaster. It wasn't a home run either, though. Biden's press conference last night keeping many Democratic lawmakers still in limbo, unsure about where to go from here, unsure about what it would look like if Biden does stand down.

Joining me now is Michael Smerconish. He is the host of CNN's "SMERCONISH" and also a CNN political commentator.

Michael, happy Friday. Always wonderful to have you with us.

Let me just start with your top line reaction to the press conference last night. I mean I talked to Democrats who felt like maybe this would buy President Biden more time, but not fundamentally change the calculus. I'm not really sure how more time for him to ultimately maybe get out of the race helps anyone, but I want - I want your take.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm sure you've had the experience, Kasie, of being in the green room and ready to go on and do a television interview like this, and then the guest ahead of you uses a word choice that you had written down. That's how I feel this morning, because in the margin of the notes that I was writing last night, I wrote the word "purgatory." And now I see it's on the lips of many commentators. It doesn't mean it's the wrong assessment, it just means it's no longer my unique assessment.

We are in a holding pattern, right? We're in - we're in God's weigh station right now. And time, I think, is the enemies - is the Democrat's enemy at this point, not their friend. Meaning, there is time on the clock for a so-called blitz primary. You can get it done in the next five or so weeks. But if President Biden is sort of hobbling along as a candidate without resolution of this, it makes it a lot less likely that there's a change in horses.

HUNT: Well, and that, I mean, "The New York Times" put that strategy on their front page a couple of days ago, that the Biden team was basically running that - that strategy, run out the clock to jam everybody up. I mean, I guess I do question whether that is even plausible, like a - the primary process in this amount of time. It seems like some of - even the reluctance of Democrats on The Hill to come out and push Biden to step aside is that they don't know what it looks like next.

SMERCONISH: Right. I mean it's - it's uncharted waters, but I don't think a coronation is Vice President Kamala Harris' best friend. I think that she would benefit from a competition. If it's a vote of acclamation, if everybody just sort of pitches in and she becomes the candidate, then the questions that were left unresolved about her when she ran in the last cycle as an opponent of Joe Biden and many other Democrats I think then go to the debate against Donald Trump. We don't know what that looks like.

I am a big believer that if a change needs to be made, it ought to be a competitive process. I don't buy what Governor Newsom says, that he's not interested in running against Kamala Harris. As long as there's not an endorsement from Joe Biden, I think it's a very exciting process. It's must watch television. And whomever emerges from that would have the wind at their back.

Can I just say that a Kasie Hunt, Michael Smerconish ticket, and I'll give you top billing.

HUNT: Absolutely not.

SMERCONISH: We start out - we start out with 45 percent of the vote against Donald Trump because anybody starts out with 45 percent of the vote against Donald Trump. It's a game of inches.

HUNT: Yes, well, maybe you would. I - look, I - I've covered politics long enough to know that I want absolutely nothing to do with running for elected office, ever. But thank you for your faith in me, Michael. I do appreciate that.

Hey, while I have you, this - the press conference - I mean everyone was obviously watching, and this happened in the debate, too. We reported that voters who were supportive of the president, they're watching with bated breath. They're just anxiously hoping that there's no mistakes made.

We saw, of course, that was how the same supporters went into this press conference. Like, hoping, praying he didn't make the mistakes. It's likely going to be that way for the rest, you know, for the rest of the game here that President Biden does. They are out there trying to prove that he can do that and that he's consistently going to be showing up. But we've seen, even in some of their efforts to do that, this came out yesterday. He did a pair of interviews on the radio. They were his first kind of forays before he did that interview with George Stephanopoulos after the debate.

And we learned yesterday that the Biden campaign called one of the radio hosts and asked them to edit what was said, edits that were initially agreed to.

[06:50:07]

Now they have put out the things that were edited out. And I want to play one of them, what he had said about black people serving in his administration just to kind of give you a sense. But I really want your take on it as a radio host about what happened here and whether it was appropriate.

Let's first listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In addition to that, I have more blacks in my administration than any other president, all other presidents combined, and in major positions, cabinet positions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So, they wanted that cut out. The radio host agreed. Now he's - this host is more on the opinion side than the straight journalism side. So, there's that aspect to this as well. But the fact that the Biden team is so aggressively trying to prevent that from being heard also says a lot.

SMERCONISH: Well, it also is compounded by the problem of the same interviews being asked in back to back interviews in the aftermath of the debate. And now we know, because Victor Blackwell brought this to light, that the White House had fed those questions to the radio hosts, and the radio hosts went along with it.

Kasie, in August of 2009, I was privileged to conduct the first live radio interview with President Obama from the White House and interviewed President Obama several times thereafter as president. I know a thing or two about how this all works.

Never have I heard of questions that would actually be suggested to a radio host. Is there some pre-show cajoling in terms of what will the subject matter be? Do you think you're going to get into the situation in Ukraine? Might you talk about Gaza? Yes, that takes place. But no host of any kind should ever accept questions suggested by any principal. And in this instance, if the question is, will you edit the tape? The answer is, hell no, we should have run it live.

HUNT: A hundred percent.

All right, Michael Smerconish for us. Michael, thank you.

SMERCONISH: Thank you, Kasie.

HUNT: I'm not running for president with you.

SMERCONISH: Reconsider. Reconsider.

HUNT: But I love having you. I hope you'll come back.

All right, have a good weekend, sir. I'll see you soon, I hope.

SMERCONISH: You too.

HUNT: All right, coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, if not Biden, then who? As some Democrats begin to think seriously about changing up their ticket, two governors names keep coming up in the conversation. We'll discuss, ahead.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[06:56:32]

HUNT: All right, welcome back.

With a growing number of Democrats calling on President Biden to drop out, it does seem to raise the question, who would replace him at the top of the ticket? In addition to Vice President Kamala Harris, who really is the second front runner, there's been a handful of high- profile Democrats whose names have been floated, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

She was asked earlier this week on CNN about President Biden's mental fitness. And she had an interesting answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Should he, as some people have suggested, just go ahead and take a cognitive test and demand that Donald Trump do the same?

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I don't think that would hurt to be honest. But at the end of the day, you know, I -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you think that he should take a cognitive test?

WHITMER: I don't think it would hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: I don't think it would hurt.

And then there's California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been insisting that he is standing behind Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In September you said in an interview with Chuck Todd that you would not oppose - or run against Kamala Harris in a presidential campaign.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm curious if you still feel that way.

NEWSOM: Of course. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That was actually Newsom saying that he basically would get behind Kamala Harris, which, Ashley, you've been talking a lot about this. Interesting how these two are approaching this question.

ALLISON: Yes, I mean, look, the thing about it is, Donald Trump is 78, Joe Biden is 81. So, if Joe Biden takes a cognitive test, we were just saying in the break, so should Donald Trump. And we could just put it to bed. But they won't, you know, and, fine, you don't want to sometimes get on somebody else's terms.

I also don't know if taking a cognitive test would actually satiate the naysayers of Joe Biden because people are so dug in right now on where they are. It's actually why the debate has unsurfaced a lot more questions and concerns but actually haven't shift the poll numbers drastically is because people are like, they are who they are.

HUNT: Yes. (INAUDIBLE).

ALLISON: And in November I'm just going to have to do what I got to do.

HUNT: So, one thing about this kind of whole replacement that we've touched on it throughout the show today, but, Isaac, the bottom line for some of these people, including Newsom and Whitmer, to a lesser extent Harris, she has been the vice president here now for a number of years, but none of them have been tested the way that the crucible of a presidential campaign tests you.

DOVERE: That's right.

HUNT: They just haven't. And, honestly, Biden denied them that when he decided to run for re-election back in the fall of last year. If there was a mistake made, it was probably right there. Because now it's not clear that either one of those, even if in, you know, a pipe dream or hypothetical polling, we have no idea how they would stand up to the scrutiny of a campaign.

DOVERE: Yes. And also, look, Gretchen Whitmer is very popular in Michigan. I don't think most people in North Carolina or Pennsylvania know who she is. There is - it would be very hard - and that's another thing that gives an edge to Kamala Harris in this conversation in a lot of minds. But then there are the political realities of it. Donna Brazile, who is a Harris outside adviser, former interim chair of the DNC, said to me two weeks ago that when people have been coming to her and suggesting people like Whitmer and Newsom, her response is, and it's morning TV, so I'll sanitize it, how the f are you going to put any of these white people ahead of Kamala?

ALLISON: That's right.

HUNT: Right. We are - we've got a minute left.

Doug, how are you looking at this?

HEYE: I think exactly that. How are you going to leapfrog Kamala? But they aren't very well known outside of their home states, but they are unavoidable for comment at this point. They're everywhere. And what they're saying basically is, in case of emergency, break glass, here I am. They still want to be part of this conversation.

HUNT: Yes. I mean, obviously. I mean it's - especially for Newsom. I mean the ambition is like almost visible.

DOVERE: Yes. You are not the only person that feels that way about Governor Newsom.

[07:00:03]

And look, there are a couple of others circulating around too. This is a - but the - the conventional wisdom that has settled in for a lot of them is that it probably - if we're into the hypothetical here -

HUNT: Yes.

DOVERE: Then Harris would have to put herself forward and then sort of fail on her own. It's hard to see that that is where this is going to go. But look, if there's an open primary, let's see who actually would step forward and run against her.

HUNT: Yes, let's see.

All right, guys, thank you very much for joining us today. Isaac, thank you, especially because it's your birthday. Happy birthday.

ALLISON: Happy birthday.

HUNT: You missed your kid's concert for you.

DOVERE: Yes. This is my present.

HUNT: So, we're grateful to have you. Go home. Talk to your kids. Have a great day.

Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.