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Inside Politics

Trump Rehashes Familiar Grievances in Kickoff Rally; Trump Launches 2020 Bid with Familiar Refrains on Immigration; Trump Shares Take On Some 2020 Dems. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 19, 2019 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:31:01] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: The president's re-election campaign now officially underway. It's new and yet oddly familiar. The signs and slogans might be new, the calendar might 2019 but the president cued up a long list of his greatest hits from that first run for the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The individual mandate on ObamaCare, one of the worst things anybody has ever had to live through. The Democrat agenda of open borders is morally reprehensible. People are pouring in. Our immigration laws are a disgrace.

Many times I said we would drain the swamp and that's exactly what we're doing right now. We're draining the swamp.

So if you want to shut down this rigged system once and for all then show up November 3rd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The president did tout his achievements so far, a booming economy, judiciary confirmations, tax cuts, and a lot of deregulation but he invested morally time and morally energy in stoking familiar fears and grievances, rampant immigration, fake news, radical left- wing Democrats. The campaign today though calling this launch a whopping success. It says the president and the Republican Party hauled in, get this, $24.8 million in just 24 hours.

So the campaign organization which is bigger, stronger, more professional now got what it wanted, the money. Listening to the president could have closed your eyes and gone back four years.

VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, the irony of it is that we're talking about draining the swamp but a big part of why he was able to accumulate that amount of money in such a short time is the RNC is now a little bit more on board versus what they were -- you know, in 2016 where he was really struggling to get that support from the establishment which he has so loathed and has been against. And so that is a big reason why. So, I mean, it's a double-edged sword for him because on the one hand he's getting the funding that he needs but on the other hand, it's exactly the same people that he says that he doesn't want to be associated with in this campaign and why he appeals to voters, so.

KING: The question, will it work? He's running as an outsider anti- establishment. He's been president for 2 1/2 years by the time people vote. He will be president for two months shy of four years. So he complains against a rigged system. He's the president.

He complains against a Washington that doesn't work. For the first two years, they had full Republican control of everything. Will it work?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: If Democrats think automatically that it won't, they're wrong about that because the reality is it does work with his base for sure. The question is does it work for people in the middle. And he talks about the judicial appointments that is of top concern to many, many voters who otherwise would not be voting for him, would not give him a moment's look but they like what he has done to the courts.

On regulations, on tax cuts, so it is -- it would be a fool's errand for Democrats to say, oh, that same old song is not going to work. We don't know if it's going to work but one thing that is different as you're saying, what is happening sort of behind the scenes of these rallies, so important, in Central Florida, in Orlando, in Orange County which he lost last time, they were collecting information, collecting data. That's what they're spending money on so they're building a world-class establishment campaign.

He, of course, is trying to run from the outside. It's a discordant but at this point, it would be impossible for any Democrat to fill a room like he did last night.

KING: It was striking listening to him though. A lot of it was familiar but as a guy who remembers when the Gennifer Flowers allegations were threatening Bill Clinton, Donald Trump thinks his critics are coming after him. The connection between they're after me because I'm trying to help you from the president last night.

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TRUMP: Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice, and rage. They want to destroy you. They tried to erase your vote. Erase your legacy of the greatest campaign and the greatest election probably in the history of our country.

They tried to take away your dignity and your destiny. But we will never let them do that, will we?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now again, the fact check machines will break in the sense they tried to take away your vote. [12:35:03] It was his deputy attorney general, a Republican appointee who named the special counsel. I think that's what the president is referring to there, the whole Mueller investigation.

But, he normally makes things about him. That's a more clever political foil to say they're coming after me because I'm trying to represent you.

MICHAEL SHEAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right, and in some ways he offered a lot of the same grievance-filled messages when he was running in 2016 but he couldn't personalize it the way that he can now because now he's been president and the target of everything is him and so he amplifies that same message. I think Jeff is totally right, though, because when you think about whatever message Donald Trump runs as president on and there's no reason to believe that anything is going to change dramatically between now and the next 18 months, they are overlaying what he did in 2016 with an incredible amount of stuff they didn't have then.

Money, resources, data, you know, an entire operation, a Republican operation that was so kind of hesitant about him in the general election last time and now is anything but. And so -- I mean to underestimate - I mean, sure, the message might be stale somewhat and the rally yesterday felt a little stale, felt like what we've seen for the last, you know, 2 1/2 years not to mention the campaign before but, boy, there's really a big difference between now and then.

SALAMA: There's one other really important thing to add to that list and it's vetting. They're vetting people who are joining the campaign, who are helping them out, and that was something that was absent in 2016, so problematic to them in the future. Sorry, Seung Min.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No. I thought it was interesting the framing of how he was framing his personal struggles at the Russia investigation because it reminded me back in 2016 when Hillary Clinton's campaign used the phrase I'm with her. He kind of turned that on its head and said I'm with you and that's -- it's clearly a message that resonated with his supporters.

KING: Dancing with the ones who (INAUDIBLE) him. All the campaign and try to find new ones. (INAUDIBLE) to see if it works.

Up next, Boeing has a problem. He's named Captain Sully.

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[12:41:32] KING: Topping our political radar today, a new United Nations' report says the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was a, quote, deliberate, premeditated execution. The independent investigation also found what it calls sufficient credible evidence that the Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman is responsible and it says he should be hit by targeted sanctions. The Saudi Government yet to comment.

The Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler today saying states can now set their own carbon emission standards for coal-fired fuel plants. The move reverses an Obama administration policy, fulfills part of President Trump's promise to help the coal industry. This change despite EPA data that says reversing that Obama rule could result in 1,400 more premature deaths by 2030.

Captain Sully Sullenberger slamming Boeing during Capitol Hill testimony today about the company's 737 Max. The "Miracle on the Hudson" pilot telling the House Transportation Committee he tried to recover a 737 Max in a simulator but could see how crews might run out of time. The 737 Max was grounded after two crashes that killed more than 300 people. Captain Sully adding pilots need to experience these situations in a simulator and that iPad training, he says, quote, not even close to sufficient.

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CHESLEY "SULLY" SULLENBERGER, "MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON" PILOT: I recently experienced all these warnings in a 737 Max flight simulator during recreations of the accident flights. Even knowing what was going to happen I could see how crews could have run out of time before they could have solved the problems.

Prior to these accidents, I think it is unlikely that any U.S. airline pilots were confronted with this scenario in simulator training.

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KING: When we come back the president's big campaign launch rally. He says give him a Republican House and he'll change immigration laws. Did he forget something?

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[12:47:58] KING: Immigration, of course, was a major focus of the president's rally last night. He says Democrats are obstructing efforts to pass better, tougher immigration laws. And either he forgets or just wants you to forget, the Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress for the first two years of his presidency.

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TRUMP: We will elect a Republican Congress to create a safe, modern, and lawful system of immigration. It will be a system of immigration that strengthens our country, upholds our values, and protects our way of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Remember, he had Republican Congress for two full years, House and Senate. And take a listen here to how build the wall expectations seem to be morphing a little.

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TRUMP: The wall is moving along. It's moving along rapidly. It's beautiful. I changed the design. It's stronger, bigger, better, and cheaper.

Cheaper. A lot cheaper. You know, sometimes when they don't give you the money you have to make it cheaper. Not going to happen but it's going well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Again, the fact check machines would break sometimes. They're building some new wall, most of what they've done so far is renovating existing wall but the president would have you believe that the wall is marching across the border.

SHEAR: Yes, it's not. I mean, I expect somehow that the bill -- that if the chant had been renovate that wall back in 2016, it probably wouldn't have worked quite as well.

ZELENY: Really rolls off the tongue.

SHEAR: But, you know -- look, he -- I mean, he is a master at trying to change reality when the reality doesn't work for him. And what he's been trying to do, you know, for a long time now but it has accelerated recently on the immigration front is to kind of deny the facts on the ground.

[12:50:01] To deny that the wall isn't really built and to try to claim that it is being built. And to sort of, you know, claim that he's got this big immigration he has a big immigration plan when in fact there is no active consideration for any kind of comprehensive immigration overhaul that anybody on Capitol Hill, Republican, Democrat, House, Senate, nobody thinks that there's anything really marching through, so.

KING: But this is the fascinating question to me and the defining question of the race. Again, I asked this earlier in the program. Can he pull this off?

He's been president. He will be president for just shy of four years by the time people vote next November, and he makes it as if, you know, like we need to pass immigration laws. He had a Republican House for two years.

Now, the Democrats disagree on a lot of things. He doesn't have enough votes in the Senate. He would have to have a compromise. They had one stretched out once and he walked away from it because he decided he wouldn't give status to the Dreamers. Can he carry this grievance argument into an election where he's the sitting president of the United States, his brand was strength, his brand was dealmaking. He hasn't done it.

ZELENY: Among millions and millions and millions of voters, yes, he can. But the question of in the middle, we don't know yet. But he is trying with all his might to make this a choice between him and whoever the Democratic nominee is. It's not a referendum on his presidency. So it is the burden on the Democrat, whoever that nominee may be after this long, protracted, presumably primary is, but he is making the argument that he's been blocked by Democrats, and Democrats recently have given him ammunition for that.

So it is going to appear along -- you know, it's going to be ancient history that the Republicans controlled the House. I'm not sure that anyone is going to really be voting on that. And, you know, we see Hope Hicks walking back in the room there. We'll see if she comes back to join the president. But certainly, he can still make that argument among some of his supporters.

KING: I don't think she is coming back but she is back in the hearing room for questions. We'll continue to keep track of that.

When we come back, Democrats watching the Trump rally last night didn't like a lot, but should they be a little jealous of the energy?

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:56:33] TRUMP: Remember the statement from the previous administration? You need a magic wand to bring back manufacturing. Well, we'll tell sleepy Joe that we found the magic wand. He's a sleepy guy.

More than 120 Democrats in Congress have also signed up to support crazy Bernie Sanders' socialist government takeover of healthcare. He seems not to be doing too well lately.

America will never be a socialist country. Ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A bit more there. President Trump last night, right there, sharing his take on two of the top 2020 Democrats. Now, the Democrats, all of them, might not like what he says or what he calls them, but they no doubt must take note of his venue and the energy.

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CROWD: USA! USA! USA!

TRUMP: Thank you, Orlando, what a turnout. What a turnout. By the way, that is a lot of fake news back there. That's a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: So we talked about it being familiar. Familiar worked last time, and this, again, one of the great questions about 2020. The president lost the popular vote by a pretty sizable number. In 2016, he won the Electoral College by Trump rallies like this. They've perfected them. You have made the point they're more professional.

As the Democrats watch this, should they be thinking like, what do we do to do that, what do we do to get 20,000 people in an arena and thousands more trying to get in?

ZELENY: I think they are thinking that, and that's definitely a question underlying everyone, who can beat Trump but who can get the excitement and the enthusiasm. I think one thing that is different is that the idea of Donald Trump actually winning the election is not sort of a joke or an impossibility which it was to a lot of people. A lot of voters who weren't enthused about Hillary Clinton say, I'm going to say home or maybe I'll vote for Jill Stein, maybe I'll write in Bernie Sanders.

So I think it -- you know, you don't need the clarifying notion that he can be president. But look, Jim Messina, the Obama 2012 campaign manager was in Charleston, South Carolina yesterday at a third way conference. Remember, third way, the old moderate Democratic group. He was warning Democrats to pay very close attention that Trump could be re-elected. So that energy is one reason why.

That's why Democrats must, you know, sort of nominate someone who is enthusiastic. Of course, beating him though, you know, is going to make it enthusiastic in some respects.

KIM: And finding -- I mean, obviously Democrats are enthused about -- and they're motivated about the prospect of beating Donald Trump. And if you look at the early polling now, Biden seems like the candidate for now. But, again, going back to our conversation about Biden earlier, a lot of his rhetoric, a lot of his comments and a lot of his past positions on certain policies are not something that makes Democratic voters enthusiastic. And that's, again, something he'll have to navigate.

KING: So does Trump animus overcome reservations perhaps about the nominee? We're still a ways from that, but the energy part, the Trump campaign gets that and especially now with the high-tech data operation.

SALAMA: I mean, he's a showman. That's something that he's done for years and he's really good at putting on that show and getting a crowd riled up and having them come out for that if nothing else. A lot of people just come out because they're simply curious. You speak to them at the rallies.

But ultimately it's going to be about him kind of sticking to that message and being able to prove that his record actually matches what he tells people in these rallies. Is the economy really as good as he says it is? Is he really fighting immigration? All of those things, we'll wait and see.

KING: Yes, (INAUDIBLE). I don't think they'll underestimate him this time. The question is, can they beat him. We'll see.

Thanks for joining us in the INSIDE POLITICS.

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