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Biden Defends his Record; Biden Wasn't Prepared for Harris' Attack; Trump Considers Executive Order for Census. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 05, 2019 - 12:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:01] DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Dana Bash. Welcome to a special holiday edition of INSIDE POLITICS.

In an exclusive CNN interview, former Vice President Joe Biden defends his record on race and says he's been taking on, quote, bullies like Trump his whole life.

Senator Kamala Harris is expected to announce a fresh fundraising haul this hour as her presidential campaign catches fire.

And a red-hot rebound for the economy as the jobs market roars pack to life from a mediocre May.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: I share the president's frustration, as should all of America, with a Fed chairman who raised rates too fast and engaged in quantitative tightening in the absence of any inflation --

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEWSROOM": Is the chairman loco in your view?

NAVARRO: I'm not going there, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I understand, but are you uncomfortable with (INAUDIBLE) because --

NAVARRO: I'm not going there. I'm -- I'm -- I totally support the president and his characterizations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: But first, presidential candidate Joe Biden is defending his decades-long record in an exclusive interview with my colleague, Chris Cuomo. The former vice president is trying to recover from last week's Democratic debates and Senator Kamala Harris' direct assault on his record on racial justice, especially federally mandated school busing to desegregate schools in the late '60s -- excuse me, yes, to desegregate schools, rather, in the late '60s and early '70s. Biden says he just doesn't think it matters to today's voters. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Did you see the questions about your past positions from the perspective of race being as relevant as they are?

JOE BIDEN, (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, and I don't think they're relevant because they're taken out of context.

It's so easy to go back and go back 30, 40, 50 years and take a context and take it completely out of context. And, I mean, you know, I -- I get all this information about other people's past and what they've done and not done. And, you know, I'm -- I'm just not going to go there. If we keep doing that, that's -- I mean we should be debating what we do from here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Here with me to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Abby Phillip, Julie Hirschfield Davis with "The New York Times," Elana Schor from "The Associated Press," and Margaret Talev with "Bloomberg."

So many interesting things to dissect in this -- in this really great interview with the vice president, starting with this whole notion of busing and what happened back then, what happened with Kamala Harris. I want to go quickly to another part on this topic of this interview talking about his record, defending and explaining it and talking about it in the context of 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was in favor of busing that was dejure busing. That is, if it -- a court ruled that there was a law passed or circumstance that a county, a city, a state did that prevented black folks from being somewhere, then that's wrong, you should bus. I even went so far in the middle of that busing controversy with saying, I'd use helicopters if that was necessary to make the point.

What the issue is now is, for example, and it was then, voluntary busing. We supported it. We supported it then.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So Chris Cuomo very rightly said that this isn't necessarily just about the issue of busing. That is not why Kamala Harris brought this up. Maybe that was an issue for her, but she was obviously going for a larger point here. And this is an issue that goes to his record, which he tried to say isn't as relevant.

Is that going to fly?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I don't think it is. I mean I think what seems to be missing here is Joe Biden understanding why people want to hear more from him about looking back on that period of time. What do we know now about the undercurrents of opposition to busing? Where did that come from?

And it wasn't just about the logistics of busing. It wasn't about -- about whether a court ordered it or not. It wasn't about whether really the federal government ordered it or not. It was about whether white parents wanted their kids going to school with black students. That's what the debate is about. And that's the part that when -- when he goes into -- he sort of falls into these technicalities as he tries to explain his position. He's not seeing the bigger picture. And I think that's where some of this frustration with Biden is coming from. And I think he perpetuates that in this interview where he is not taking a look at the bigger picture and explaining himself in that broader context.

And even looking back on his position and saying, well, knowing what we know now, or learning what I have learned over my 40 years in politics and having seen everything that I've seen, here's what I would have done differently at that time. I think that's the part where Biden seems to be unwilling to revise his views from that period of time. And I think that's going to continue to be a problem for him.

BASH: And he says it's not relevant. And, again, I'm not so sure that voters who are used to going through somebody's very long record, if they have such a thing, are going to agree with that, or whether or not they're going to say, you know what, he's right, let's talk about what he's going to do for us if he's in the White House in 2021.

[12:05:18] JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean I think he is partly right. He's right on paper when he says that people -- busing is not a huge issue that people are going to be voting according to in this election. It's not about busing in this election.

But it is very much for Democrats about who is the candidate that represents their values, who is the candidate who is speaking in deep and relevant ways about issues of -- like race and look -- and able to sort of reflect on his own record in a way that makes them feel like he would make good decisions going forward. So it's not all about being backward looking.

I think in a lot of ways this is a real -- it's a signaling issue. And I think that's why Kamala Harris clearly brought that up at the debate and was prepared to do so because she's trying to show that she is a person who has a more current and more deeply felt position on this and that Joe Biden does not. And until he's willing to do that, that last part that Abby was talking about, to say, I had this position then, but knowing what I know now, it might have been different, I think that's going to continue to be an issue.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There is like a duality to kind of what the polling and focus groupings and feedback tells us right now about where Biden stands. On the one hand, the polls, even though he kind of declined and Harris came up after the -- that first debate, the polls still show pretty consistently that people think he is the one best poised to beat President Trump.

But, on the other hand, when you look at his messaging, both across the aisle and to his own base, his own base are women and people of color. And on kind of the middle and the Republican side, Trump is very good at talking in kind of today's format and sound bites and Twitter-sized pieces. Doesn't make things complicated, just repeats the same phrase over and over again, injects it into the bloodstream. Like Biden has not demonstrated an instinct to do that.

And then when it comes to talking to the base, how do you talk about race issues? Do you use words that instinctively make sense to people? Do you talk the way people talk? Do you think the way people think? And these are his two challenges in these two different pockets. And yet, at the same time, like kind of intellectually people -- when you ask voters what they think, they think, yes, he kind of makes the most sense. He's probably the best poised. But does he connect?

BASH: So, you know, that -- that's true. And he really try to stake a claim on the notion of him being the best guy to go after Trump, which I want to talk about in one second.

But one thing that I really thought was so fascinating and tactical was the way that he described how surprised he was about the way Senator Harris went after him. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Why didn't you fight it like this in the debate?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Be -- in 30 seconds?

CUOMO: Were you prepared for them to come after you?

BIDEN: I was prepared for them to come after me, but I wasn't prepared for the person coming at me the way she came at -- she knew Beau. She knows me. I don't -- well, anyway, I -- but here's the deal, what I do know, and this the good and the bad news, the American people think they know me, and they know me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You know, I will give you that little pop-up video, remember that, from -- from -- you probably don't even remember it.

DAVIS: Yes, yes, I do, thank you. I'm with you.

BASH: I'm not even asking you, Abby.

PHILLIP: I remember -- I remember pop-up video.

BASH: But -- but the point is, is that he's basically saying she knows me and she was being political.

ELANA SCHOR, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE ASSOCIATED PRESS": Well, of course. And Joe Biden has run for president twice before, so it's a little funny that he goes 30 seconds, as if he's not very used to this format. But that she knows Beau thing is really interesting --

BASH: Yes. SCHOR: Because Kamala Harris and Beau Biden were really close and the Harris campaign wanted to talk about that until this skirmish with, you know, Joe Biden, his father.

BASH: Yes.

SCHOR: And now these two campaigns continue to be scrabbling on Twitter. I mean this debate exchange has clearly gotten under people's skin, you know, on the staffing level, and that's showing in the way he's talking about it.

BASH: OK, so let's talk about the number one issue among Democratic primary and caucus goers, which is, who can best go after Donald Trump.

Here's what the former vice president said on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: How can Democrats have confidence that you can take on the biggest and the baddest when you're having trouble sparring in party.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think I'm having trouble sparring. It's how you want to spar.

You walk behind me in a debate, come here, man. Don't you think I -- you know me too well. I mean I -- the idea that I'd be intimidated by Donald Trump? He's the bully that I knew my whole life. He's the bully that I've always stood up to. He's the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid and stutter and I smacked him in the mouth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So the president, before he left for his golf club in New Jersey, responded to that. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think I'm a bully at all. I just don't like taken -- being taken advantage of by other countries, by pharmaceutical companies, by all of the people that have taken advantage of this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:10:03] PHILLIP: You know, it's interesting, Joe Biden may not be wrong in the sense that the Kamala Harris sparring that he experienced and wasn't prepared for is going to be a little different from what you might see if he is up against Trump. It is a little bit more -- the Trump one is more visceral, I think. The way that Trump fights in a debate, the way that he fights in the media is different. It's not about intellectualism. It's not about, you know, really thinking deeply about these issues from the '60s and the '70s. It's about who's going to win out on these very guttural issues. And I think that he -- I think that Biden feels like that is a different thing for him and that he's more prepared for that. We'll find out.

But I do think that that, you know, a Trump versus Biden and a Kamala Harris versus Biden, these are two completely different types of fights.

BASH: Oh, yes.

PHILLIP: And I think that's kind of what Biden was referring to when he says, I know the Trump, because he's the guy who was on -- in my school yard, you know, 50 years ago making fun of me. And we'll finding out if that's the way that it plays out.

BASH: All right, everybody stand by because -- it's a very good point. You're talking about him positioning himself to fight the president. But, of course, the fight is just beginning among Democrats to figure out who is going to actually get that chance. The vice president talked about his position on issues very different in many respects from a lot of his competitors. We're going to talk about that and much more after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:13] BASH: We're back with more of CNN's exclusive interview with 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, where the former vice president made his case that his positions are more mainstream in his party than others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think Ocasio-Cortez is a brilliant, bright woman, but she won a primary. In the general election fights, who won? Mainstream Democrats who were very progressive on social issues and very strong on education, health care.

Look, my north star is the middle class. When the middle class does well, everybody does well.

What I've seen around the country is the vast majority of Democrats are where I am on the issues.

And I wish I had been labeled as moderate when I was running in Delaware back in the days when it was --

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Eighty percent of your party says it's center left.

BIDEN: No, I am center left.

CUOMO: Farther left is getting more attention.

BIDEN: No, no, no.

CUOMO: It's getting amplified but there's a disconnect.

BIDEN: It is. Look -- look, it's center left, that's where I am. Where it's not is way left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I should just add that Bernie Sanders, who, like others on the liberal side of the -- of the field running for 2020, jumped on the former vice president's comments about AOC and he said on Twitter, I'm proud to be working with AOC and so many other Democrats to pass Medicare for all, debt-free college and a green new deal. This agenda -- this is the agenda America needs and that will energize voters to defeat Donald Trump.

This is so fascinating because as much as, as we talked about in the last segment, there's such a push to figure out who is going to be able to beat Donald Trump. There is a real ideological divide, differences, philosophical differences within the Democratic Party. And Joe Biden articulated his position, I think, so much more than he did last week with this interview with Chris Cuomo.

TALEV: Yes. Yes.

SCHOR: And when it comes to Medicare for all, to be clear, polling supports that Biden is on to something here. You know, polling consistently shows that although Americans like the idea of Medicare for all when you explain more about it, right, you might lose your private health insurance and not have a choice, people prefer what Joe Biden is talking about, which is a Medicare buy-in option. So it's good that he's getting more specific about these issues. But he's also going to invite the kind of pushback from Sanders that he needs to have a more nimble response to than his campaign has in the past.

TALEV: But Sanders is looking for a way back in.

BASH: Yes.

TALEV: I mean Sanders' beef is much more with Elizabeth Warren these days than it is with Joe Biden. You're not -- it's not like, oh, I'm really trying to decide between Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders, right?

BASH: Right. But I think -- but it just does illustrate it's Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It's the people who are more -- who are drawn to vote for those candidates versus whether or not Joe Biden -- I mean the question going into this primary race has been, does Joe Biden's brand of Democratic politics still play in today's electorate? And he is doubling, tripling down on that.

And let me just give one other example during the interview. He got even more specific on the issue of health care, on the issue of what to do about undocumented immigrants.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think every -- there should be health care for everyone. I have a plan how to do that, that's rational and will cost a hell of a lot less and will work. We're in a situation where if you provide an option for anybody who in fact wants to buy into Medicare for all, they can buy in. They buy in. And they can do it. But if they like their employer-based insurance, which a lot of unions broke their neck to get and a lot of people like it their -- they shouldn't have to give it up.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: You have people who are running close to you now who are saying decriminalize coming into the country illegally. Do you believe that should be decriminalized?

BIDEN: No. No, I don't. No, I don't. I think people should have to get in line. But if people are coming because they're actually seeking asylum, they should have a chance to make their case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:08] BASH: I mean you have a book coming out on immigration. You understand better than most all of the different points of view across the spectrum, but particularly inside the Democratic Party on this.

DAVIS: Well, it's true that, you know, this is a huge issue. And one of the things -- the first thing, I think, that President Trump pounced on after the second Democratic debate was that everyone had raised their hand when asked whether their health plan would cover undocumented immigrants. And he said, you know, game over, and --

BASH: Which -- which the vice president still stuck by.

DAVIS: Which he -- which he absolutely stuck by.

BASH: Yes.

DAVIS: But he is distinguishing himself from the rest of the field.

But I think the reason that Trump thinks that is that, you know, this is a very difficult issue for Democrats. I would put it in a separate category than health care, which I think the vast majority of the party is in the same -- has the same goal and it's just a question of how you get there.

But this is a really difficult question for Democrats of where to come down on enforcement and how you deal with the undocumented people who are here. And it is a real -- it's a -- it's going to be a divide in the primary. It's going to be a huge issue in the general election. But I think it's also an example of the competing impulses in the -- in the Democratic Party right now --

BASH: Right.

DAVIS: Because there's all of this pent-up anger and opposition among Democrats to what President Trump has done on immigration, and so many of these other issues, health care, education as well, but immigration for sure. And so they want to push this as far opposite from where the president is as you can go, which leads you to say, we should just decriminalize illegal immigration -- or decriminalize crossing the border illegally. They also really want to beat President Trump. And you could argue, and I think make a pretty effective case, that that is too far to the left, that that is too far out of the mainstream for a general election position to be able to beat the president. Most Americans do not believe that you should just be able to cross the border without consequences. If you look at the survey that's -- the surveying that's been done on that issue.

TALEV: But he really is -- Biden really is returning, in many ways, domestically to the case for a third Obama term. I think on both immigration and on health care. He's basically saying, preserve Obamacare. Obamacare would be more successful if Republicans weren't trying to kill it by a thousand cuts.

BASH: Which -- which means preserve the private health insurance system.

TALEV: Yes. And then, on immigration, it seems to me that what he's basically saying is very similar to the Obama approach, which is, until Congress is in a place where they can pass bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, let's patch it with some DACA fix, enforce when you have to enforce, show mercy otherwise. It's basically a return to the previous status quo argument that tries to balance law and order with mercy. And that seems to be the space where he's making the argument.

I think where we haven't really heard Biden yet as much as we probably will at some point in the next few months is on foreign policy and how much he wants to step away from Obama's approach on foreign policy. During the time that they were in office together, he was a good soldier, but he did have differing views on how to handle various things. And he's going to have to take a step out. But for right now the election is so much going to be about the economy, health care and immigration, it makes sense that we haven't heard that much yet on foreign policy.

BASH: Yes, that's what the voters want to hear about, absolutely it seems like, domestic issues.

OK, everybody stand by because up next, President Trump says he's considering an executive order for a controversial citizenship question on the 2020 census.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:28:03] BASH: President Trump is venting his frustration over a census citizenship question today. A source tells CNN that the president thinks his own Justice Department threw in the towel after the Supreme Court rejected the administration's argument for inclusion of a question about whether or not people are a citizen of the U.S. The source says the president has made clear that he wants to fight, and the president himself said today he's considering a number of options to do that, including executive action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But we could also add an addition on, so we can start the printing now and maybe do an addendum after we get a positive decision. So we're working on a lot of things, including an executive order.

Think of it, $15 billion to $20 billion and you're not allowed to ask them, are you a citizen?

(INAUDIBLE) was a good man. Look, a lot of people thought his answer was fine. I didn't see the answer yet. They thought it was fine. It can be expanded very simply.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: CNN's Ariane de Vogue joins me now.

Ariane, you have new reporting about the Justice Department and what their next move is. Tell us more.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT REPORTER: Right, Dana.

CNN has learned that the Department of Justice is going to tell a federal judge later this afternoon that it wants to keep its options open, look for ways that it could add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. For now, the Justice Department says that it will go to the printer without the question, but they want to keep their options open. As the president said there, they think that they have some scenarios that could muster a court's approval and they want to keep working in that direction.

And, Dana, that comes after a wild week, right? Earlier in the week, the Department of Justice told this federal judge that it wasn't going to add the question. And then Trump issued those biting tweets and he said he wanted to keep fighting. And now the Department of Justice will say, no, we want to keep our options open.

[12:30:03] So what that will mean now is daunting legal challenges because this Maryland judge is likely to set a schedule