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Inside Politics
How the Trump-Pelosi Relationship Is Defining Washington; Trump Insults Rex Tillerson Again; Biden Leads Pack with 33 Percent of Dem Support; Candidates with High Favorability Are Most Known in the Race; Democrats Grapple with Anti-Abortion Party Members. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired May 23, 2019 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[12:30:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: -- if gets in trouble with her caucus about that, she was trying to find a ploy to cooperate with the White House. That shrunk yesterday.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, no question about it. And then when you have the budget deal, $120 billion in automatic cuts if they don't reach a budget agreement right now. Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy has been aligned with Democrats on the idea that they need to figure out some way to cancel this, forestall it to reach a broader agreement. They had a great closed door meeting with White House aides on Tuesday that they thought kind of was a sign that things were actually progressing forward.
Now, nobody knows where that stands. And then the debt ceiling. You don't mess around with it. Default is not something you want to screw around with.
How do all these things get done even if there's bipartisan agreement on the Hill that they have to get done? If you don't know where the president is going to end up or if one-to-one relationships are so broken right now.
KING: And to that point, the president said yesterday, tweeted again, his aides say don't necessarily believe this. But he says as long as you're investigating I'm not doing anything. You can't do both. You can't do both.
Speaker Pelosi says you can.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you work with him on anything?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Of course. I do think that we have a responsibility to try to find common ground. We're not saying as the president said if you don't stop investigating me -- if you don't stop honoring your oath of office, I can't work with you. That's basically what he's saying. Maybe he wants to take a leave of absence. I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It's the last part. It's the last part. This is now a test of wills. She's saying sure, we can work with the president on these things but now she's going to make him blink in her view.
TARINI PARTI, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BUZZFEED NEWS: So, the president obviously made that announcement yesterday, but if you look back at his press conference immediately after the midterm elections he basically said the same thing. You know, he praised -- in that clip that we saw praised Nancy Pelosi. He said we can do, quote, beautiful deals but then he also said if you investigate me, I will take a war- like posture, I think it was the phrase he used and that's exactly what he's doing now. So he just kind of reinforced that yesterday and now like you said we're in this sort of who will blink first moment.
KING: It's an important moment given the list of priorities for the people watching out there in the real America.
When we come back, the president on Twitter today says his former secretary of state is dumb as a rock. So then why did he hire him?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:36:32] KING: Topping our political radar today, a quick look at the markets. The DOW down around 400 points. Stocks shuttered as a side effect from the president's trade war with China. Today President Trump trying to fix another side effect by bailing out farmers yet again. The White House plans to announce $16 billion in new aid for farmers at an event this afternoon. The administration already gave farmers $12 billion in assistance last year
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez teaming up for a second time this week. In a new video posted on Twitter just this morning, the pair calling out Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Mnuchin's role with the bankrupt Sears. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We've sent Steven Mnuchin a letter asking him what he did as a member of the Sears board when Eddie Lampert proposed gutting the business, closing it, and buying back stock rather than investing in workers.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the American people deserve answers, and we're out there to fight for them.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: That's right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: President Trump with some choice words this morning for his former secretary of state. President Trump tweeted, Rex Tillerson, quote, is dumb as a rock and was totally ill-prepared and ill-equipped to be secretary of state. The president nominated Tillerson as secretary of state, but you will remember they fired him last year. They had a strained relationship throughout and there are reports that Tillerson called the president a moron. Here's the current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo taking the president's side. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He, meaning Rex Tillerson, was guided by, quote, American values such as democracy and freedom but he could not offer the same assessment for the president. What do you make of that comment?
MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: It's pretty outrageous, and it probably explains why Rex Tillerson is no longer the secretary of state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: There are always family feuds in administrations. There always are egos and rivalries in politics and high-powered government jobs, but this one is pretty extraordinary. A, the president did hire Rex Tillerson, he says he hires the best people if Rex Tillerson is not dumb as a rock but if he were, why did he hire him and then why is Rex Tillerson up briefing members of Congress this week on the president. This one is bizarro.
JULIE PACE, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Not only did he hire Rex Tillerson, he was pretty darn excited to have scored Rex Tillerson. Big CEO, powerful businessman, exactly the kind of figure that Trump imagined himself surrounded by when he came into Washington, and exactly the kind of figure he had always been trying to get respect from when he was a businessman in New York. So the fact that this fell apart and that Tillerson was insulting his intelligence, that I think really has gotten under Trump's skin. But it is still amazing to see this play out even more than a year after Tillerson left Washington.
JONATHAN MARTIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Two fast points. The number of former Trump aides that had a falling out with him keeps growing and growing. They've turned on him or he turned on them or both. And those things do add up and I think it kind of hurt you politically in the long run.
But second, I think back to a focus group that was done last month for the House Dem campaign committee that asked people, swing voters about what issue do you think of when you think of Trump, what policy issue? They didn't mention any policy issues. What they mentioned, this focus group was his conduct, his behavior, his Twitter fights, his insult wars, and that to me is Trump's biggest vulnerability is these kinds of things. He can't resist not swinging back at people when he sees them attacking him on the TV or in the paper. And that's what defines his administration more than any other issue with the voters he needs.
KING: Temperament, temperament.
MARTIN: Right.
KING: When we come back, another poll showing Joe Biden with a big lead.
[12:40:00] But, if you are one of the other candidates or support one of the other candidates, stay with us. An interesting opening.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: A new poll released just moments ago offers a glimpse at how, yes, Joe Biden is the clear early Democratic frontrunner. But, this new survey also finds the race is more competitive than the national polling suggests. Let's take a look.
The new numbers are from Monmouth, they released at the top of the hour.
[12:45:01] This is the national poll, Democrats. Right, national poll. Joe Biden, 33, 15 for Bernie Sanders, 11 percent for Kamala Harris, 10 percent for Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg rounds out the top five at six percent. That's Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters. But then Monmouth redid the numbers with just Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters in the early states, the states that vote before super Tuesday. Much closer race here, yes.
Biden still on top, 26, Senator Sanders at 14, Senator Harris at 14, Senator Warren at nine, Mayor Buttigieg stays at six. So when you get to those early states, your Iowans, your New Hampshirites, your Nevadans, your South Carolinians, the places where candidates have been spending most of their time, where voters were actually getting to see more of them. Biden still on top but a more competitive race in the early states than you see if you just look at the national numbers. Mayor Buttigieg in the top five, says, sure, Biden is the frontrunner but nothing, nothing is decided yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think you earn the nomination by winning it. Nobody has earned the nomination in 2019. I think for the Democratic Party today, the other way you earn the nomination is demonstrating that you're the one who can beat this president and win. I worry that even now sometime -- because there are some parts of the country where the very concept of a Trump voter is treated as exotic, I think that the likelihood or at least chance that this president wins a second term is being underestimated in our party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Two important points there, number one, the underestimated parts whether you support Pete Buttigieg or somebody else, if you're a Democrat, that's worth listening to. Look, the economic numbers, look at the incumbent, we had three two-term presidents in a row. It's hard to beat an incumbent president in a good economy.
On the point about Joe Biden, if you're Pete Buttigieg, you look at the national numbers, it's another great poll for Joe Biden. When you do look at the early states, it does reminds you -- nobody has voted yet, and as -- in those states where they've seen the candidates more he's still on top, but.
MARTIN: It's a long runway here. Look, we haven't had any debates yet. Biden has not been really forced to perform under any kind of duress. He's had a nice rollout with a pretty light schedule, to be frank.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
MARTIN: So I think that there's a long way to go here, and, look, you've got candidates like Bernie Sanders who spend a lot of time in these early states who have, you know, deep support there. They may not add up to a ton but it's pretty firm. And you've got a ton of -- you know, other candidates vying for the same kind of voters that Biden already has right now which is kind of left of center, kind of moderate, traditional mainstream Democrats. He's going to face real competition for those voters from folks like Mayor Pete, Kamala Harris, and others, and it's not going to be handed to him.
But I felt it's a fascinating real fast in that bite that you played was -- it also he's kind of self-serving to say that we're underestimating Trump because he's from a red state, he's from Trump's America, right, so he knows from that crowd.
KING: He does. And so we're going to have these two sets of debate. We'll have debates in late June, then debates in July. I would posit we're going to lose several candidates. How many is the question. Their money is going to dry up and so you get the question, so where does their support go if they do go.
Just look at the historic diversity in this field. Look at the women candidates running for the Democrats. They take up 27 percent of the vote here if you look at. You have Senator Harris, Senator Warren, Senator Klobuchar, Senator Tulsi -- Congresswoman Gabbard, Marianne Williamson, and Senator Gillibrand. A 27 percent total there. It does remind you in a -- this is -- we're just looking at the female candidates here, the women running in the phase but when you have such a big field when we do get the dropouts that's when we're going to have a reshuffling.
DAVIS: Totally. And that's what a lot of these candidates are doing right now is not only trying to build their own support but make themselves attractive if so and so gets out. And, you know, there are a lot of theories being bent about, about if a Klobuchar gets out, a Gillibrand gets out. Where do those voters go?
I think the debates are going to be really our first test of this field, and it's going to be tougher for people to break through. It's going to be crowded out there two nights back-to-back. Who you're on stage with is one of the things that worry these campaigns a lot. If you have one night a bunch of the frontrunners and then Biden gets his own night. If you're on stage with Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, some of these lower tier candidates if you're on stage with some of these people polling at one percent, do they have to go hard against Biden to have a moment to really break out? It's really, really complicated and the stakes are incredibly high because there is so much Democratic interest right now.
KING: And yet there's huge room in the getting to know you part, even though we've been covering this campaign for months because it started so early. Normal people out there again in the real America. Again, if you're in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, some of those early states, you've seen them or if you're a Democrat you're paying attention. But, just look at the favorable ratings here, this is in the Monmouth poll. Biden, 74 percent favorability rating among Democrats. Only one percent of Democrats have not heard of Joe Biden. I'd like to meet that one percent actually.
But if you look at, you know -- and Senator Sanders obviously ran last time, only two percent of Democrats say they haven't heard of Bernie Sanders. If you look at Senator Warren there, you look at Senator Harris, you look at Senator Booker. And obviously, if you're talking about Pete Buttigieg or Beto O'Rourke, those are even higher numbers of Democrats say I just don't know enough to have an opinion yet.
[12:50:05] MARTIN: Right.
KING: So that's a huge -- still a huge opportunity in the getting to know you.
PARTI: That's right, and the polling is reflecting that. I think another way to look at this field and kind of the alternative option is the grassroots money that we're seeing coming in. And we looked at sort of the first quarter money that came in. And of a lot of those grassroots donors, the second option for a lot of them was Kamala Harris. So there were a lot of donors who are giving to three, four, five candidates and Kamala Harris was the one who had the most overlap. And I thought that was another very interesting statistic to look at in terms of these voters trying to find an alternative option in case someone drops out.
KING: That's a great point. I'll sneak one more, and we talked about this during the break. Elizabeth Warren passing Bernie Sanders among more liberal voters in a Q poll, Quinnipiac poll released the other day. Senator Sanders clearly has the fundraising network, has the support from the last campaign, but there also questions about whether he's stuck -- sort of stuck in the tight teens. We'll see as that one plays out.
When we come back here, several states proposing new abortion restrictions. What's it like to be a Democrat who says abortion is wrong?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[12:55:43] KING: It is lonely to be an anti-abortion elected Democrat, and today had isolated. The congresswoman in charge of getting Democrats elected to the House, Cheri Bustos opting out of a planned fundraiser for Congressman Dan Lipinski who staunchly against abortion. Congresswoman Bustos' statement reads, "I'm proud to have a 100 percent pro-choice voting record and I'm deeply alarmed by the rapidly escalating attacks of women's access to reproductive care in several states. This does not change how I will work as DCCC chair to protect our big tent Democratic caucus."
Congressman Lipinski told Jonathan Martin who's here at the table with the New York Times that, quote, shunning anti-abortion Democrats was, quote, how we got President Trump. People felt like they weren't welcome in the party.
Dan Lipinski is an outlier in Democratic politics but now he feels he's being picked on because of his beliefs, and because of the shifting mode in the party.
MARTIN: Yes, post-Alabama, I think the politics got very hard for Chair Bustos to have that event in Chicago. And what --
KING: Forget me for interrupting, but she says in her statement I'm still for the big tent. Well, if you're for the big tent, why don't you help the guy raise money? She's shrinking the tent.
MARTIN: She's trying to walk this line between intensively (ph) supporting incumbents like Lipinski regardless of their politics but not going too far to be publicly for him which I think is what created the blowback when she was revealed to be hosting this breakfast for him that was to be next month in Chicago. She, yesterday, pulled back from doing that which to me is the best indicator yet of the changing politics of abortion in Democratic politics.
There is less tolerance now for anti-abortion lawmakers and governors in the party. I think in large part because of what's happening with the GOP and they're poised to the right on the abortion issue. But I was in Chicago in the last couple of days on the story talking to activists out there, progressive activists and I'll tell you what, that they are sick of this congressman who has been there for about 10 years now. His dad had the seat before him. It is a seat that looks a lot like the ones that AOC won in New York and Pressley won in Boston last year.
Historically kind of cops and firefighters, working class, Polish and Irish, now much more affluent and diverse and the congressman is facing some real challenges going into next year. He won by two points last year in his primary, facing the same challenger next year, and the question is will Democrats support somebody who on this central issue isn't with them.
KING: And so let's listen, this is Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on television essentially making your point about how much the party has shifted. And whether it should -- whether some want as you hear here, a litmus test. If you're not with us on abortion rights we don't want you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): You know, personally I do think that there should be a set of core Democratic ideals that we all agree to and that you can't say you're a Democrat if you're against immigrants, if you're against abortion, if you're against gay marriage and LBGTQ rights. I'm not sure what it means to be a Democrat if all of those things are true. So hopefully there's not people that are like that, and if there are, then, you know, I think you will see challenges, and you will see many of us supporting those challenges.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PARTI: I think this is where the Democratic base is right now. They're not even talking about protecting abortion rights. They're talking about expanding abortion rights. They're on the other extreme.
I was in Alabama this week and I was talking to a lot of younger average Democratic voters and a lot of them are get include into the 2020 race just because of this issue. So it's clearly something that's driving a lot of conversation and probably bringing a lot of people into the 2020 discussion.
KING: It was always a source of tension, but there used to be a much larger group when the elder Bob Casey passed away several years ago, was the governor of Pennsylvania. Planned Parenthood versus Casey was about a Democratic governor. His son now in the Senate had very different views on abortion politics when he gets into politics than he does now. We were talking before Bart Stupak, there used to be a great decent number, half dozen or more in the House, gone.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And we're talking about the break but the shift inside the Democratic caucus particularly in the House over the course of the last four or five Congresses is stunning. I think when you look at it and just where Jayapal is, is where more Democrats are now than anywhere else.
KING: Thanks for joining us today in the INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you have a great afternoon. Dana Bash is in for Brianna Keilar, she starts right now.
[13:00:00]
