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Erin Burnett Outfront
Biden Picks Sen. Kamala Harris As Running Mate, First Woman Of Color On A Major Ticket; Biden Official: Biden Called Kamala Harris To Offer Her The Job 90 Minutes Before The Announcement; Biden, Harris To Appear For First Time As Dem Ticket Tomorrow; Trump Responds To Biden Choosing Harris As Running Mate; Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) Is Interviewed About Biden Picking Harris As VP; Trump Again Pushes For College Football After Big Ten And PAC-12 Cancel Sports For The Fall. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired August 11, 2020 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: We'll all be watching tomorrow. Those two candidates are together on the same stage.
And I'm Jim Acosta. Thanks very much for watching. Our breaking news coverage continues right now with "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" tonight. Goodnight.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next breaking news, Joe Biden making history announcing Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Plus, a former longtime aide and a sorority sister at Howard University, two people who know Sen. Harris well are OUTFRONT.
Plus, President Trump pushing for college football to be played this fall. So is it safe for the 10s of thousands of players? Let's go OUTFRONT.
And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news, history. Former Vice President Joe Biden picking Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris is the first black woman on a major party ticket in the United States of America.
Now, by picking Harris, of course, Biden is embracing a former rival. And in a letter to supporters, Biden writes, "I first met Kamala through my son Beau. They were both Attorney Generals at the same time. He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made this decision."
As for Kamala Harris, she tweeted a short time ago, "Joe Biden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as President, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals. I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief."
Now, Harris' husband Douglas Emhoff, who was a constant presence on the campaign trail with her in the primaries, also tweeting, "America, let's do this." Jill Biden tweeting, "Hey, Douglas Emhoff. Are you ready?"
So as we have this history making ticket now, we are learning a lot of new details at this hour about the 2020 ticket. Jessica Dean is OUTFRONT live in Washington outside Sen. Harris' home there. Obviously, she's a senator. Jessica, when do we expect to see Biden and Harris together for the first time?
JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Erin, we're expecting to see Joe Biden and Kamala Harris together as the Democratic ticket for the first time tomorrow. They're going to hold an event together in person and they're also going to do a grassroots fundraiser together because of COVID.
They're not doing any major rallies like they normally would in this situation. So instead, what the campaign is doing is encouraging everyone to take part in this grassroots fundraiser where they can build a community online. That's where we're going to see them tomorrow at both of those events.
The last time the two of them were together in person in public is when we saw them in Detroit, Michigan, just before the primaries there. It was right before COVID happened. They had just started giving out hand sanitizer.
Joe Biden stood up there with Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Gretchen Whitmer and said that he sees himself as the bridge to the next part of the Democratic Party and that's really how he views himself, which was very interesting to kind of hear him say that for the first time and now it'll be picking Harris. He is making history by putting the first woman of color on the ticket as a vice presidential nominee. Of course, he was part of a historic administration serving under President Barack Obama.
And it's interesting, I know you talked about Beau Biden and how Joe Biden talked about Beau today in all of the releases that he put out, in all of the emails that they put out announcing Kamala Harris as the nominee, as the VP pick. And Harris and Beau Biden served as Attorneys General together.
And really, we hear Joe Biden talk about Beau all of the time on the campaign trail. He says that he wakes up every day and hopes that Beau is proud of him. So you have to think that Beau Biden was certainly in Joe Biden's head as he thought through this process. And again, resounding praise, Erin, from across the Democratic Party this evening with Barack Obama saying that Biden really nailed this decision, Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Jessica, thank you very much.
And I want to go to Arlette Saenz. She's in Delaware. And of course, Arlette, you cover Joe Biden from the very beginning in this campaign. What else do you know about what went into this decision?
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, Erin, this was a month long process as Joe Biden search for his running mate. His search committee conducted an extensive vetting of each of these candidates, which involves turning over documents also having interviews with that search committee, the search committee talking to allies, people who knew these contenders who were in the mix to try to get some input on how these women operate and the views that they could bring to this process.
So there were about 11 women who were considered overall. And in the end, Kamala Harris emerged as the former Vice President's choice to be his vice president, should he be elected. So Biden spent the last weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth, Delaware after speaking and meeting with some of these women as well in person.
[19:05:00]
And ultimately it came down to making the decision to select Kamala Harris as his running mate. He saw her be tested on the campaign trail since they both ran against each other during the Democratic primary. They had that personal, heated moment at a debate.
But Biden has long said that he doesn't hold grudges. He's a politician. He knows how this business works. But ultimately, Biden has decided to go with Kamala Harris and it can't be under understated how significant and historic selecting her is. She is an African- American woman. A woman of South Asian descent and so he is looking to make history a second time he hopes in an administration with a diverse woman, serving with him as vice president if he's elected.
BURNETT: All right. Arlette, thank you very much. And I want to go now to our Chief National Correspondent, John King, Political Correspondent, Abby Phillip and our Political Analyst, David Gregory.
John, let me start with you. We're just finding out now that Joe Biden called Kamala Harris 90 minutes before the formal announcement. So it isn't as if she knew a day ago or even a few hours before. She knew 90 minutes before. They wanted to announce this the way they wanted to announce it.
We know a friend of hers said, look, they considered a dozen people for the slot. But he had sort of always felt that she was the one who made sense for the job. But what do you make of that, only 90 minutes before the announcement that she find out?
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You want to keep it tight because there's a lot of leaks in these things. That's part of the process. Number one, you want to make sure you're comfortable yourself.
There's a couple of big things at play here. First of all, this is a historic day for Kamala Harris and we should congratulate her. It is a very important day for the Democratic Party to go forward in the campaign. But we should also be clear issue number one, issue number two and issue number three in the election is President Trump, the incumbent President of the United States in his handling of the coronavirus.
But Harris is important because Joe Biden wants to prosecute a case, Erin, that he gave up that when it got hard he quit, that he won't pay attention to science, that he keeps saying things that are misleading. He wants to prosecute a case that this President has quit when the country faces and the world faces a giant challenge. So he picked a prosecutor to help him make that case and I think that's important.
Some of the big pictures here, their survey research said, the voters they care about most, the African-American base of the Democratic Party, independent voters and suburban women think Kamala Harris is ready to be president. They think that's a big part of this year.
Another big thing is Joe Biden was impressed in the campaign even though he took a few punches from Kamala Harris. He was impressed with her energy and vigor. This may seem a small thing, the Biden campaign. This is a campaign like no other. The Biden campaign think she's very good on Zoom.
Candidates can't do rallies just yet. They think she's a very good communicator in this new world.
BURNETT: Yes.
KING: So that's a small piece of it of a big part of the puzzle. The main thing is prosecute the case that this President gave up.
BURNETT: And, obviously, prosecute is what she can do.
Abby, she would be the first woman vice president. She'll be the first black Vice President and she will be the first South Asian American Vice President. I mean, people may not know her fascinating background. She's the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India and that is all that she would bring to the table if elected.
I mean, just setting breaking barrier after barrier. It is a history making pick for Joe Biden and it is worth pausing for a moment to think about that.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. It's history making on all of those fronts that you just mentioned. And I do think that it also says a lot about Kamala Harris as a person. All of those different identities really have determine what kind of person she ended being.
It's one of the things that she would say allows her to identify with so many different people on the campaign trail. And I think that for this moment for so many different constituencies at the Democratic Party, but also citizens of this country seeing Kamala Harris in that position is critically important. It is a moment of just relief and an emotion for a lot of black Americans.
And I think for a lot of South Asian Americans, just based on what I've been hearing from people who have reached out to me so far, people want to be seen. They want to be recognized and I think that they see that in Kamala Harris.
But I do think that it's also about how can she used these identities to build bridges between voters. One of the things that Biden is going to have to do is bring as many people along with him as possible, every candidate in politics has to do that. And I do think that one of the pluses for Kamala Harris' candidacy is her personal magnetism. It's what she brings on the campaign trail that draws people to her.
And that as John said, in the Zoom era, that is so much more important than ever before, because you don't have the ability to hold someone's hand so that magnetism really has to come through a camera, through a computer screen, through a TV screen.
BURNETT: Yes. And she does have a kind of a charisma, I don't want to use the word celebrity, but in political terms she does. We've all seen certainly covering her and people's reaction to her in person.
David, the thing is, though, that we are always told there's all this coverage about a VP pick and whatever it brings to the table.
[19:10:04]
And in this case, all these history making things but it's the top of the ticket that always matters. Ultimately, studies show right people - they may say they care, but they care about the top, they don't care about the VP. Biden would be the oldest president ever elected if he wins, could this time, David be different? Will people be looking at her differently?
DAVID GREGORY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think so. And I think john made the point from their own surveys that they had important voting blocks, who wants to know that she was ready. We always say in these moments that this is a presidential decision and the first presidential decision that a candidate who wants to be President makes. We learn something about how they reach decisions, what matters to them, what they prioritize.
And in Kamala Harris, he has someone who's tough, who's run for president and who is seen as being ready for the job, even though he wants to set the strategic direction for what the administration would be and he wants her loyalty and wants agreement from her.
He wants to make sure he's projecting the idea that she can do the job. If she becomes the vice president and he's the president, let's also be very clear, she is the future of the Democratic Party and perhaps the front runner to become his successor. So it's in a really important moment.
But I want to go back to something else that John said which is, I think it was very important for Joe Biden to keep the focus on Donald Trump, on the President of the United States who is hurting in the polls, whose leadership is suffering by his own hand. And in that way, I think he's met the moment.
This is not a surprising pick. It is an historical pick. There's nothing conventional about a woman of color, a woman and an African- American woman being chosen to be a running mate. But I think that she's (inaudible) expectations and I think she will be seen as not ideologically as extreme as other potential choices, which I think is important for Democrats right now.
BURNETT: Right. And in that line he's trying to thread, you want to be progressive, but you want to get those moderate suburban votes. I mean, that was trying to thread the needle on every front. That, perhaps, she does that.
John, a source familiar with the search told us that former President Obama was a sounding board, didn't weigh in, but was a sounding board. And, of course, we know Joe Biden was a loyal VP to President Obama for eight years, was looking for his own Joe Biden. Somebody who kind of really checked a lot of boxes. Is that sort of how he ultimately saw this that she, if things go right, checks a lot of boxes?
KING: It's very smart if you're Joe Biden that you would check in with the last Democrat elected president than the most popular Democrat in the country right now with voters, because that's where you have to start with your own base. So it's very smart. They did that and very smart that word gets out about it.
But what was Obama about most of all, hope and change in 2008, a lot of people say, oh, that was just that cheesy slogan. Branding matters in a cluttered campaign, Erin. Donald Trump, as we know from 2016 can throw a lot into the air. So what is Biden-Harris about, that is going to be key to them to brand those going forward.
So now Obama had hope and change, Harris and Biden have changed in history. They need to focus on the change, a country in the middle of a pandemic with an economy in the tank. suburban women don't like the character of this president the way he attacks people on Twitter. They need to convince people you have a great option for change. You want to change what you have, here's a great option for it.
And so Obama's big on the story arc, because his point always is give people a north star, because there's going to be a lot of clutter and a lot of things thrown at you. And that was his advice to Biden, find a narrative that gives you a north star for people to look at. They think this works. We're about to find out.
BURNETT: All right. thank you all very much. And our breaking news coverage continues.
Sen. Kamala Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants now on a presidential ticket. As I said, think about it for a second, it's amazing. How did she get there?
Plus, Kamala Harris has had a long career in law enforcement. So that means a long record. Will any of it come back to haunt her?
And Trump's campaign already on the attack. Is Harris really ready to take on team Trump?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:17:31]
BURNETT: Sources close to Joe Biden have long said he was looking for a governing partner. Someone that would be there side by side on decisions and that apparently was a key point for Kamala Harris. May have been her experience as the Attorney General of California and he said he knew her back then, because she knew his son, Beau. She led the second largest Department of Justice in the country. Kyung Lah is OUTFRONT. And Kyung, you covered Harris extensively on
the campaign trail. I remember all of these pieces you did from people who knew her in college, to her record, to people who had very strong feelings about things she had done as Attorney General. What do voters need to know about her record because goodness knows it is all now going to come out?
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: Yes. She has a very long record, especially in elected office when it came to law enforcement. She was the first. We've been talking about how Kamala Harris has been the first black woman elected as San Francisco District Attorney, California Attorney General. The first black South Asian to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Being the first means that you have to be tough and this is something that she is known for. She cut her teeth here in California. It has not been an easy ride for her. There was no playbook for a woman of color like Kamala Harris when she came up through the ranks and she's had to learn some hard lessons on her own.
In the first 100 days when she was San Francisco District Attorney, there was a police officer who was killed and she did not press charges when it came to the death penalty. She said she would not seek the death penalty and she did not cave, despite enormous political pressure that was publicly led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
So that won her progressives over here in San Francisco, but then when she was Attorney General, she did not take a hard line stance and so that made her lose some of that progressive sparkle. So that's where you hear some of the criticism, Erin, of some people saying she's not progressive enough. She is not bold enough. But then at the same time, you'll see women in politics here who say there was no guide for her and she was doing the very best she could for the time.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Kyung.
And I want to go OUTFRONT now to two people who know Kamala Harris very well. Jill Louis, a close friend and sorority sister of Kamala Harris. They attended Howard University, a historically black college. Their sorority, AKA is the nation's oldest black sorority. And also with me is Ian Sams. He was the spokesperson for Harris' 2020 presidential campaign.
OK. So both of you have known her in very different ways, but very well. So Jill, first you, you have known her since college.
[19:20:04]
JILL LOUIS, ALPHA KAPPA ALPHA SORORITY SISTER TO KAMALA HARRIS: Yes.
BURNETT: Both members of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first black sorority in the United States and you have memories of her, my goodness, I can only think back to things people knew in college. You know her. How surreal is this moment for you?
LOUIS: It's something that I feel like we've been building up to, when she was running for president. That was the first surreal moment. When she became a senator, that too, was a particular moment in time for us.
And now, I think, more than anything, we're just overcome with this notion of duty and this is our opportunity to really do something important for our country. And so seeing her in this position, we're just here to support her.
BURNETT: So Ian, you worked with her, obviously, through her run for president. Do you think that she had any surprise? I mean, Kamala Harris ended her campaign late last year. Do you think she expected that this was possible?
IAN SAMS, FORMER KAMALA HARRIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SPOKESMAN: I don't know. I think that she chose to run for president because she wanted to run for president. And it was, as you know, a historically crowded primary and Joe Biden ran away with the contest.
And I really think that what it shows is something remarkable about Joe Biden is his ability to sort of turn yesterday's rival into today's ally. It's a real character strength of his. That kind of shows the way he's going to govern, kind of with a team of rivals, if you will. And it's just such a stark contrast with President Trump whose primary metric for anyone in his cabinet or his vice president is total fealty to whatever he says.
And so I think that that's a pretty remarkable thing that the Vice President has done and he's picked an incredible person, an incredible candidate, Kamala.
So, Jill, tell us something about her. Something about her that we may not know that you would want voters to know, about her as a person as a longtime friend.
LOUIS: Well, that she is a real person, just like any of you may have gone to school with. I was talking with someone about that recently and I said, when you've seen someone who has done all of the things that you did when you were in school, the parties, pledging our sorority, protesting in marches, being a part of the fabric of the school, stepping on the yard, things that a real person does.
And then to say this person has been called to serve in this moment and I think that that is the kind of thing that people don't really think about that these are real people and real people who've just been called to serve.
BURNETT: So Ian, we all remember many moments in the campaign. Obviously, you referenced the one where she was talking about bussing and segregation, calling out Joe Biden and saying that little girl was me. It was an incredible moment. There was also this one. A protester rushed the stage, grabbed Harris' microphone, threatening her.
Her husband jumped up there. You can see him there with the yellow and orange T-shirt, jump right in. What role do you think he'll play in this campaign? SAMS: Well, it's historic, isn't it? I mean, it's almost bizarrely
refreshing to be talking about a male spouse of a person on the national ticket, what a good problem to have in this country. Doug is Kamala's biggest supporter, his biggest fan or her biggest fan. And I think he's going to be a tremendous advocate for her and for Vice President Biden over the next 90 days or so until the election.
And interestingly, Karine Jean-Pierre, as you probably saw there in that clip, who was moderating that event is now her chief of staff on the Biden campaign and is a wonderful advocate as well. And so she's really got an amazing team around her and a really amazing team that's going to help the ticket be successful in November.
BURNETT: So, Jill, she's about to face a lot of scrutiny and obviously she has before she ran for president. And she showed she knows how to deal it out, no question about that. But this is going to be nasty. It's going to be incredibly nasty, anything that the Trump campaign can find. They will and it's going to be ugly. Is she ready for that?
LOUIS: Oh, absolutely. That's the thing about somebody who's come through the Howard University tradition. If you can make it through a Howard University, speak out when you are running for elective office in that arena, you can absolutely make it on the stage. We are steeled for that.
One thing that people need to understand is that women of color have dealt all of their lives with disrespect, with being seen as other with people who think that they don't belong in the positions that they're in. And so we don't come to this party not understanding that and not being able to stand up and stand for what we believe in.
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We are raised in this and so this is not new for us and she is ready.
BURNETT: All right. Jill and Ian, thanks very much. I appreciate it.
And next, guess who donated to Kamala Harris' past campaigns for Attorney General, Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka. Wow. Interesting. Interesting. What Harris do with that money?
Plus, she'll soon be debating Vice President Mike Pence, so how's that going to do?
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[19:29:22]
BURNETT: Breaking news, it will be Biden-Harris in 2020 for the Democratic ticket. President Trump moments ago weighing in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She was my number one draft pick and we'll see how she works out.
I like Vice President Mike Pence much better. He is solid as a rock. He's been a fantastic vice president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Kaitlan Collins is OUTFRONT. So, Kaitlan, the president weighing in and he continue to go on. I want to play more of that in a moment. But this is as we learned that he and his daughter actually donated to Kamala Harris.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right, which kind of throws a wrench in the President, attacking her and going after her in the way that he was just there in the briefing room.
[19:30:04]
But, Erin, honestly, if you watched the president, he kind of seemed to struggle to really land this line of attack on Kamala Harris as he was talking about this. He was reading -- he appeared to be reading from this bullet point list. He kept looking down and looking back at us as we were in the briefings room.
And he was talking things about fracking. He talked about how she grilled now justice, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh over Robert Mueller. He says he found her disrespectful in that way and he talked about the memorable exchange that she had with Joe Biden on the debate stage saying that he found it to be disrespectful.
But he really didn't seem to have a clear line of attack on Senator Harris. Even at one point I tried to ask him about the donation that not only came from the president and his daughter, the president made multiple donations to her. But even his treasury second also donated to her campaign in 2016.
But look her at how he reacted to those questions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Mr. President, why did you donate to Kamala Harris, then?
REPORTER: $6,000 to her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: So you see there at these briefings now, he just takes a few questions and then he leaks. He didn't call on me. He did not answer that question.
And one bigger debate and campaign dilemma we're going to see from the president's re-election effort that we should keep an eye for, Erin, is whether or not to paint Senator Harris as this overzealous prosecutor back in her days when she was a prosecutor, or is she anti- cop and against the police, something they're trying to use on Joe Biden. But so far, it has really not been a successful line of attack.
BURNETT: Of course she's got, you know, a record on both sides of that. All right. Thank you very much, Kaitlan. I want to go now to Angela Rye, former executive director of the
Congressional Black Caucus, and Paul Begala, former counselor to President Bill Clinton and the author of the new book, "You Are Fired: The Purple Guide to Beating Donald Trump."
So, Angela, you are close to Senator Harris. I know you spoke with her today. President Trump went on in that briefing, Kaitlan was referring his line of attack. He said she was, quote, very, very nasty. One of the reasons it surprised, she was very -- she was probably nastier than even Pocahontas to Joe Biden. She was very disrespectful to Joe Biden. It's hard to pick somebody that's that disrespectful.
Of course nasty is a word he likes to use, right?
ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
BURNETT: He used it a lot with Hillary Clinton. Is this just how -- a taste of how it's going to go, Angela, that he's come out right away with that word?
RYE: Well, first, I just want to correct. I texted her today. I haven't talked to her.
BURNETT: I'm sorry.
RYE: That's okay, Erin. You got a lot to do, besides minding my text messages. But I was going to say, you know, I'm not surprised by Donald Trump. He normally lodges this kind of attack against women, particularly women of color, particularly black women from Jemele Hill to Congresswoman Maxine Waters. It's no surprise that this is the line of attack he chooses against Senator Kamala Harris as well as one of her colleagues, Senator Elizabeth Warren.
It is just like Donald Trump. He is super intimidated by women who have their voice, who understand who they are and what they bring to the table. And so, nasty women -- nasty and ambitious women, it will be all the way until the Election Day.
BURNETT: And so, Paul, you know, is this -- is this what he's going to try to do? Do you think it is fruitful at all for Democrats that they found that he donated multiple times to her attorney general's campaign?
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I think it's sort of an inconvenient fact, isn't it, that Donald Trump -- he thinks she's terrible but he gave her $6,000, donated to her.
I do have to say that my friend, Angela, called this yesterday.
RYE: Yes, Paul!
BEGALA: Angela, you got it. I'm so psyched. I'm so impressed. Always have been, but you nailed this.
Just for Democrats like us, that takes a ton of guts, right? People like me, I think I did the right thing for me was step back. Hats off to Angela.
You could see in that presser, Trump doesn't know what to do. Does he attack her for being black, being the daughter of immigrants from India, the racist roulette wheel was spinning in his hand, he just didn't didn't know where to land.
I do think it's noteworthy. That actually a woman said this on Twitter, but she's right. It's -- when someone challenges Donald Trump, especially a woman, but even men, he gets rid of them.
Kamala challenged Joe in those debates and he admired it. He likes a strong woman. He likes a strong -- even when somebody is standing up to him.
I had the honor to be in the Oval Office. There's nothing more important than having people there who can stand up to the president, and Kamala sort of probes she can do that.
BURNETT: Right. So, I want to play that moment. I want to play it for a specific reason because of something you said. Paul, it's usually played in the context of, man, how could he pick her or he's so wonderful to be able to overcome this and how awful was for him. OK.
But one thing that I saw in that moment, Angela, was something Paul just said, which is Joe Biden seemed to kind of be shocked but have admiration.
[19:35:03]
Even in that moment, like, okay, you're bringing it, and I -- and I didn't expect someone to bring it, but wow. Let me just play it again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe -- and it's personal. It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.
And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bus to school every day, and that little girl was me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And it was in that moment which continued to show, but Angela, what does it say to you that he picked her?
RYE: Well, it says to me that he may be reckoning with his past, that he's ready to atone for the decisions he made as a legislator that have not served black people well, including the little girl who was bused to school in California, right? Maybe this is a turning point. Maybe the fever pitch that this country reached with George Floyd and
Breonna Taylor and so many others maybe he finally heard those cries and he's willing to say I didn't get all those things right. Time will tell, right, but I think we're a hell of a lot closer, Erin, with Kamala Harris being at his side.
BURNETT: Paul, Senator Harris is a household name, right? She ran for president. People know her, OK? Most people know of her.
Biden surely picked her for several reasons, right? Of course she is a black woman, right? And that is you know, Angela was among many who wrote a letter saying he needed to pick a black woman. Yet in a Quinnipiac poll in November 2019, which was the last poll that we have just before she dropped out of the race, Paul, she was polling at 5 percent with African-American voters.
So, you know -- and I want to get Angela to weigh in on this too. But, Paul, how important is that going for that voting block in her selection to Joe biden?
BEGALA: Well, some of it as Angela pointed out yesterday as she was publicly calling on Joe to pick Kamala, some of it is just -- political manners. Joe is the nominee of my party because of African- Americans, particularly African-American women. So, some of it is that.
But some of it is also that she's just so dadgum talented. I mean, it's just -- I know she didn't do well in the campaign, but she's shown in those debates. And the fact that she ran and did poorly I think it's an asset. Joe Biden ran against Barack Obama and did poorly, but it made him a better candidate when he did run for vice president. Bill Clinton picked Al Gore who had run a terrible campaign in 1980. It was a great running mate in 1992.
So, having been through that gauntlet, I think she'll be the best governing partner, too, irrespective of gender or race.
BURNETT: OK. Quick final, Angela, what would you say? Is she going to, you know, cause passion among black voters, particularly black female voters that we did not see in those early polls?
RYE: What I'll tell you, Erin, you brought up the letter with the 700 black women who signed on to it, there's not a woman I talked to today that wasn't screaming, crying, and thanking God. So I think that polling numbers change, they have since the racial tension that has unfolded in this country over the last several months with COVID-19 and George Floyd. We're ready. We're ready.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you both very much.
BEGALA: Bald white guy was dancing around too, Angela. Don't leave us out.
RYE: All right, Paul white guy.
(LAUGHTER) BURNETT: All right. Next, President Trump claims Kamala Harris is too liberal. Will that attack actually help her with progressives?
Plus, the coronavirus death toll in the United States, tonight now topping 164,000 dead Americans, cases over 5.1 million. Universities are now struggling with whether to allow sports this fall.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:43:12]
BURNETT: Breaking news. President Trump going after Joe Biden's pick for vice president, Senator Kamala Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She is a person that's told many, many stories that weren't true. She's very big into raising taxes. She's in favor of socialized medicine. She's also known from what I understand as being just about the most liberal person in the U.S. Senate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Kamala Harris' friend and fellow California Democrat, Congressman Barbara Lee, who also endorsed Harris and the Democratic presidential primary.
And you are, of course, very early to do so, Congresswoman.
So these attacks coming from the president are just day one, right? We had played a moment ago, you know, he was calling her nasty several times in that exchange with Joe Biden on the debate stage. How will she take on President Trump's attacks?
REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA): You know, Erin, first of all, let me just say how happy I am today. I'm happy for Senator Harris, of course, but I'm happy for our country.
And, you know, Donald Trump is going to attack any woman, especially any woman of color, any African-American woman, and he's going to attack any Democrat. So that's him.
But let me just tell you a little bit about Kamala Harris, what we know about her. First of all, she is so prepared for being the vice president. She represents the largest state in California -- of California, largest state in the country, excuse me. And she stands up to what's wrong in this country.
She fights for racial justice. She -- can you imagine in the debate with Mike Pence, and just look at how she took on the hearings as it relates to -- excuse me -- the Supreme Court nominee, Kavanaugh, when he was up for nomination.
[19:45:02] When you look at her performance on the Judiciary Committee, on the intelligence committee, when you look at the fact that she's connected so much to people throughout the country.
BURNETT: Yeah.
LEE: And because I was on the campaign trail with her, I can tell you one thing, grassroots organizers and grassroots activists and people at the local level really are excited about this ticket and will come out to vote, because she is prepared to be the vice president.
BURNETT: So on this front, you know, this is -- maybe this is what is going to make her appealing, but it is where this is going to be the pressure. The president, you just heard him say, right, she's the most liberal person in the U.S. Senate. And yet, you have others who say, you know, she's been -- there's criticism that because she's a prosecutor in this era where there's such focus on racial justice and crime, that she would be incapable of handling the situation because of her prosecutorial record.
So, you have two different set of criticisms. I asked her about that specifically recently, and she rejected this criticism. Here she is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA): I know the system from the inside out. I'm a child of parents who marched in the civil rights movement in the 1960s and I strongly believe if we are going to change these systems, there has to be the kind of brilliant activism that we've seen from the outside like Black Lives Matter and the leadership there, combined with what we need to do on the inside to actually upend these systems in a way that me when we make change to get closer to that ideal we have of equal justice under the law. And it takes everybody to be a part of that process and that movement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: How would you describe her, knowing her, knowing her senatorial, knowing her prosecutorial record, her attorney general record? Is she a progressive and the most liberal person in the Senate or is that unfair?
LEE: Listen, first of all, there's nothing wrong with being a progressive. A progressive is an agenda for the people of the United States of America in terms of economic security and especially now, our health security.
Kamala Harris as attorney general, she took on the big banks on behalf of consumers. She took on big oil on behalf of our environment. She took on the gun lobby. You know, she has taken on the whole COVID pandemic as it relates to making sure there's contact tracing, making sure there's money for testing and referrals and addressing the whole demographic disparities in health care.
So, you tell me that that's not on behalf of the American people and we're not going to benefit from not only her history and her experience, but what she's going to do as the vice president. The vice president trusts her and knows her and she's going to be an excellent partner with him in the Situation Room, in the cabinet meetings.
And she's a woman who is fully prepared for this.
And so what Donald Trump has to say, you know, that noise is going to go on. We have to look at --
BURNETT: Yeah.
LEE: -- Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as a partnership who are going to -- who will win this election once we get out to vote and make sure that the Biden/Harris ticket wins. So, I'm encouraging everyone to be excited as I am and to encourage everyone to get out to vote.
BURNETT: All right. Congresswoman Lee, I always appreciate your time. And thank you.
LEE: Thank you.
BURNETT: And next, the grim daily death toll. It is on the rise across the South of this country. Cases also on the rise. So, why or should universities have sports?
Plus, Russia claims it has created the first coronavirus vaccine. But does Putin know it actually works if it was tested on about 100 people?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:52:41]
BURNETT: Tonight, the coronavirus death toll in this country now more than 164,000 Americans with deaths trending up in the south from Texas to Georgia and a big announcement tonight from two major college sports organization, the Big 10 and Pac 12 saying, they're postponing college football and suspending fall sports.
The president, though, making it clear he thinks it's the wrong call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We want to get football and colleges, these are young, strong people. They won't have a big problem with the China virus. So we want to see college football start, and hopefully, a lot of great people are going to be out there playing football, and they will be able to fight it off and hopefully, it won't bother them one bit. Most of them will never get it statistically.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
So, Sanjay, they will never get it statistically untrue obviously. You know, they expect something, you know, the vast majority of the population is going to end up getting this at some point and, yeah, they may be well, young and strong. Certainly that doesn't mean they won't have any problems as we have talked about. It also doesn't mean they won't transmit it to others who could have problems.
You know, but is it possible for schools to essentially ramp up testing like the NBA has, do bubbles like the NBA has done and make this possible, or is it just -- it's just too much to wish for?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, I've spent a lot of time talking to folks at every level, NFL, NBA, baseball, MLB, trying to understand models. Let me tell you, they are challenging models to implement at the professional sort of sports leagues. I think a football bubble is really out of the question.
They were able to do this with the NBA because everyone was essentially able to play in one location, which is down in Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort. Football, this big field, you know, stadiums, it's tough to actually create a bubble-like atmosphere.
And, Erin, the thing is that these are students, right? So, I mean, it's like it becomes a little irony if you bring students back to campus, are you just bringing them back to put them in a sports bubble? I They are supposed to be coming back for their education. Are they going to be doing virtual learning --
BURNETT: Right.
GUPTA: -- from inside there? Are you going to have enough testing? All the stuff that goes with this.
So, to answer your question and this is after lots of consideration, talking a lot of sources, I think -- you know, I love college sports.
[19:55:03]
I just think it would be very hard to create that sort of atmosphere and that environment of a bubble, which seems to be a way to keep players safe but hard to do, hard to --
BURNETT: Yeah. Well, you raise a good point. I understand the economics of college sports and how important and the emotion of it for so many players, but if you're not going to have an in person classes, it's very hard to say we're going to do this instead, right? I mean, I understand the point.
GUPTA: Right, exactly.
BURNETT: You know, the president today also said the U.S. is doing better than European countries. You know, almost as if that's OK we have 164,000 dead people even if it were true. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Since the end of July, the seven-day average for cases in the United States has fallen by nearly 20 percent but the virus continues to increase in nations across the globe. Last week France and Germany both recorded the highest daily number of new cases in three months. Not that I want to bring that up but might as well explain it to the media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: What's the truth here?
GUPTA: Well, let me -- let me show you this graph. I mean, you know, this is interesting, Erin. This has been an issue throughout. But it has to do with how you look at absolute numbers versus relative. So, yes, you can make the argument there is a slight uptick with the European Union and a bit of a downward trend when it comes to the United States.
But I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. These graphs speak for themselves. We're talking about similar populations here. In fact, the E.U. in total is a larger population of the United States. They are way lower than we are, Erin, and even if they trend up a little bit, we would be lucky to be in the position they are now. We're nowhere close.
BURNETT: As you point out, their population is significantly larger when you look at the entire, you know, all of Europe so, you know, to your point about relative versus absolute makes it look smaller.
All right. Sanjay, thank you very much.
And now, the race for a vaccine. So you may have heard that Russia today says they've already got one and it's a victory and approved one and it's good to go but doctors here in the U.S. say not so fast.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLP)
SCOTT GOTTLIEB, FORMER FDA COMMISSIONER VIA CNBC: I wouldn't take it, certainly not outside of a clinical trial right now. It appears it's only been tested in several hundred patients at most. They are certainly not ahead of us and we certainly wouldn't allow a vaccine to be used for mass distribution at this point based on the data we have in hand.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Matthew Chance is OUTFRONT.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You couldn't accuse the Kremlin of ignoring the propaganda value of its vaccine. They have even called it Sputnik after the Soviet satellite that launched the space race. Now, it's the vaccine race the Kremlin says it's won hands down.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA (through translator): A vaccine against coronavirus is registered for the first time in the world this morning. I know that it works quite effectively. It forms a stable immunity.
CHANCE: But how does he know? Well, he says one of his own daughters, perhaps the one who is an acrobatic dancer has been vaccinated or his eldest, a medical specialist, or Putin says she had a slight temperature at first but feels much better now. Extraordinary from a Russian president who rarely mentions his family, we still don't know for sure how many children he has.
Still, it under lines how much confidence the Kremlin wants to show in its new vaccine. Despite concerns no clinical data has been published, soldiers were used as volunteers in early testing and crucial third phase human trials and not even started worrying shortcuts, say critics. The Kremlin dashed across the line.
ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY OF HHS: The point is not to be first with the vaccine. The point is to have a vaccine that is safe and effective for the American people and people of the world.
CHANCE: There's been criticism inside Russia, too, a prominent pharmaceutical industry body this week calling on health officials to postpone the vaccine because it may put lives at risk. Not a warning that's been heeded. Officials say front line health workers and teachers will be vaccinated first, then the elderly and other vulnerable groups.
In fact, Russian officials say there is a vast global appetite for their vaccine. Applications for more than a billion doses they say have already been received from more than 20 countries. It may not be safe or even work, but Russia can proclaim at least to itself that it is once again at planet saving scientific super power.
Matthew Chance, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And thanks for joining us. Don't forget you can watch OUTFRONT anytime, anywhere. You just have to go to CNN Go.
"AC360" with Anderson Cooper begins right now.
