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WH Officials Worry Harris' Answer on Border Will Overshadow Trip; GOP Piles on Criticism of Harris For Not Visiting Border; Val Demings Announces Senate Run to Unseat Marco Rubio. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 09, 2021 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Do not come. Do not come.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Even some close allies in the White House are perplexed by this odd answer to an obvious question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Do you have any plans to visit the border?

HARRIS: At -- at some point. You know, it -- we are going to the border. We've been to the border. So this --

HOLT: You --

HARRIS: -- this whole -- this whole thing about the border, we've been to the border. We've been to the border.

HOLT: You haven't been to the border?

HARRIS: I -- and I haven't been to Europe. And I mean, I don't -- I don't understand the point that you're making.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Our panel is back with us now. You are part of the reporting at CNN. I saw the headline here, "Administration officials perplexed by Harris' border answer and worry it will overshadow her trip."

She knew she was going to get asked that question. That is not the answer.

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: No it's not. And look, I mean this is, from my reporting and Phil Mattingly and others, this is not one of those stories that we covered a lot in the Trump White House, which is, you know, it's kind of people in one camp getting ready to jump on those in another camp.

The people who we're talking to are eager for Vice President Harris to succeed and were not understanding why she wasn't ready for those answers or those questions. Not because they don't understand that some of -- a lot of the attacks on her coming from conservative media saying she should go to the border. But because the quicker you dispense with those in a -- in a very sort of agile way the quicker you can focus on what you want to focus on.

KING: Right.

BASH: And she didn't do that.

KING: Right, she didn't -- she didn't do that. And I think the point where even her allies get perplexed is you watch a politician to see if they grow. And that answer was very reminiscent of during the Democratic primaries when she knew Medicare For All and what are the Democrats going to do in the Medicare For All debate. And she didn't have a good answer and she kept not having a good answer and it caused her problems.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Exactly. And she, at times, for someone who is so terrific at asking questions. We've seen in that the confirmation hearings when she was a senator.

She has struggled to answer them at times. During the presidential campaign and obviously during her trip on the -- during her trip to Central America. And I think it's been difficult for Vice President Harris and her team to kind of better sketch out her role because she is correct, that her role is to primarily deal with the root causes of migration by dealing with the issues in Central America. But immigration is so interconnected, you know.

KING: Right.

KIM: It's hard to divorce these issues. And Dana has a great point from her allies, you -- this is something that she could dispense with very quickly by going to the border. And it will be interesting to see if that happens soon.

KING: Now she says she will go to the border. And to everyone's point, number one, let's not make too much of any one trip. However, she is under an enormous spotlight anyway. She is the first vice president, she's a history-making vice president.

There are questions as to whether this president will seek a second term. He's not going to answer that question for a while, for obvious reasons, it would impact his leverage. So she gets even more attention because of this and the right, it's her plus the immigration issue, which to them is their -- one of their favorite pinatas.

Kevin McCarthy tweeting, "The only thing Vice President Kamala Harris managed to achieve in the last three days was to avoid actually dealing with the worsening crisis."

Ted Cruz, "Kamala Harris hasn't been to Europe, she hasn't been to Australia, but we don't have an Australian border crisis." You get the point of is, the Republicans just think -- for them they think this t-ball.

LISA LERER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Oh totally. Especially given how hard it's been to land attacks on the president who does -- you know, even folks that disagree with him, Republican voters, activists I talk to, they sort of like him personally. He doesn't feel like much of a lightning rod figure.

So Republicans are looking for someone that they can sort of make the face of this administration and they think they have that with the vice president. I can say the Democrats I've been talking to are really worried about her political instincts.

As, you know we talked about just a second ago, these are not new questions, but given her role. Biden of course ran and said quietly and not so quietly to a lot of Democrats that he saw himself as a transitional figure.

She sort of came in as the heir apparent whether that's in he says he's running again. So, may or not be in '24, maybe it's in '28. But she is sort of the person that a lot of Democrats see as being on deck.

And I've been hearing a lot of sort of grumbling this week and concerns about her instincts and whether they could, you know, somewhere far down the line face kind of crazy interparty battle over this.

So, I think she does get this additional scrutiny because of the uniqueness of her role.

KING: And another question added into that. "The New York Magazine" tees this one up, "President Biden isn't making life easy for Kamala Harris." He is a former vice president too, is president now. He wants an empowered vice president.

So he says, you know, take the root causes of immigration, help me on voting rights and he hands her a portfolio that is literally quick sand.

JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS; CONGRESSIONAL EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right. I mean, it's -- the scrutiny is only going to continue and probably increase because President Biden has given Kamala Harris really important, yes, high profile, sure, high payoff jobs.

But also very, very difficult and tractable problems that are politically very hard. It's very difficult to see how the voting rights agenda that he president wants to see, the Democrats in Congress want to see, is going to be able to get done.

[12:35:00]

She's going to be the public face of it, but that's going to be a really difficult thing for her --

KING: Yes.

DAVIS: -- to advance. And this immigration issue is not going to go away. And as we saw with her trip and as we know from watching Republicans on Capitol Hill, they are planning to focus on this more and more.

And you know, what was fascinating about the trip and her, you know, don't come message, is this has been a problem that administrations have dealt with for a long time now. President Barack Obama said the exact same thing and got a lot of pushback years ago on this. And President Biden -- then Vice President Biden traveled to Central America to try to do the same things.

KING: Right.

DAVIS: But it's not gone away and it's probably not going away. And so, it's a very -- it's kind of a suboptimal portfolio to have.

BASH: Yes, and well exactly. I actually interviewed the vice president a little more than a month ago and asked here this question, saying, when the president called you and said I want you to take on immigration, did you say, gee thanks Mr. President?

And she reminded me that he had that role when he was vice president.

KING: Right.

BASH: So, it's not as if the president, you know, then vice president doesn't understand it, doesn't -- didn't have an eight year history of himself getting assigned some pretty tough stuff.

LERER: But she -- you know, she wanted voting rights.

KING: Right.

LERER: And I had heard that she wanted a piece of immigration as well. So, that is like sort of adding to these questions about her instincts. Like, why not take something where you could get a win?

DAVIS: And don't forget this, you know, to have the immigration portfolio pre-Trump and to have it post-Trump are two very different things.

KING: Right. Right.

DAVIS: To say don't come after four years of a president literally slamming the border shut and putting in place policies that made it impossible for people to immigrate in a lot of ways, that is a very different message that Democrats are much more reluctant to hear now, even than they were eight years ago.

KING: And so we'll circle back on this question in six months and see if it looks the same then as it does now and then we're close to other calendars. We shall see.

Up next for us, what do two off-year elections maybe tell us about 2022?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:35]

KING: OK, time for a little tea leaves reading now with our great reporters. Virginia and New Jersey hold off-year elections and they held gubernatorial primaries yesterday. The question today is, do the results give us any early clues about the 2022 midterm climate.

In Virginia a familiar face won big. Former Governor Terry McAuliffe in a crowded Democratic primary field.

And in New Jersey former State Legislator Jack Ciattarelli won the Republican nomination for governor. Ciattarelli is the candidate backed by the Republican establishment and he was the winner over several candidates who ran as Trump loyalists.

Our panel is back. And so the question is, do they mean anything? Do they tell us anything. Often the November results in these off-year elections do tell us about intensity about the midterm elections. Does these primaries tell us anything?

LERER: Well I think in Virginia the fact that Terry McAuliffe won, he was slightly more pragmatic kind of candidate. He was a white man running in a much more diverse field. He sort of cast himself as a sort of a Biden-esk kind of figure in terms of like where he falls on the ideological spectrum of that party.

And I do think that is a little striking. Like we've seen a number of these kind early Democratic primaries that we are sort of seeing in the New York mayor roll race too, that more moderate candidates are having a little more success. It doesn't feel like a huge moment for the progressive wing electorally. But, you know, it's still early and every state and every race, of course, is unique.

KING: Yes.

BASH: And in New Jersey, you know, what would have happened if there was one Trump loyalist running?

KING: Right.

BASH: Right? And not multiple who split vote. And so, you know, the big question on the Republican side obviously going forward is going to be what happens in the Republican Party?

What happens to those Republicans, the few who are left, who are running as more moderates like we saw in New Jersey versus the real Trump loyalists? And I'm not sure because they split the vote that -- look, you see right, I mean they really split the vote --

KING: Right.

BASH: -- that that answers the question. KING: It is it a -- is it a true indication? So now we wait till

November in both of those -- both of those states are blue states. Virginia used to be a red stated, then it was purple state, it's a blue state now.

So you expect McAuliffe to win? You expect the governor of New Jersey to be reelected? The question then is what are the margins, right? All right, A, are you surprised, leave open to surprise in this age of volatility, but A. what are the margins? Who's coming out to vote? That's one thing we'll learn.

Another thing that happened today is Congresswoman Val Demings decided officially she will run against Senator Marco Rubio in Florida. She announced her candidacy with a video that included this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. VAL DEMINGS (D-FL): There are some in Washington who prefer the same old tired ways of doing business. Too tired to fight the efforts to suppress the people's vote. I'm running for the United States Senate because of two simple words, never tired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now again, we have no idea and Florida is a tough state for Democrats statewide. The fact, look at the Trump margin last time. However, this is good news for the Democrats in the sense that one of the ways you test are Democrats afraid of next year's climate? A lot of top tier candidates would say I'm not going to do it. I'm going to wait for a better cycle.

The fact that Val Demings is willing to go out there guarantees, A., she's going raise a lot of money, she's going to make Marco Rubio work. She's going to probably take other Republican money, national Republican money and make it go into Florida which means it's not going somewhere else. Just that's a win right there.

DAVIS: Sure, right. I mean, it's an uphill battle for sure. Florida is not an easy state for Democrats to win. You know, statewide it's very hard. But Val Demings is a pretty strong candidate going in.

I mean, she has this profile that she built up when she was impeachment manager. You saw her in that -- in that video riding her motorcycle. She's a former police chief. She's a black woman. She's -- you talked to -- you heard her talk about voting rights. She really checks a lot of boxes for a really strong candidate who could potentially have a chance statewide.

[12:45:00]

I think the question is much like you were talking about in New Jersey and in Virginia, what is the electorate going to look like.

KING: Yes.

DAVIS: And can Democrats put together a coalition? But no question, just her being in the race is going to really complicate things for Marco Rubio.

KIM: And the batter for the Senate is going to be so interesting next year. I mean, I think for the House there's a general consensus that Republicans have a pretty good shot of taking back the majority, but the Senate is a little less clear.

And a lot of it, obviously the 50/50 dynamic, so every race literally matters here, but you have so many Republicans retiring who have been battle tested, like Rob Portman and Pat Toomey leaving those states open.

Democrats trying to find great, you know -- you know, talented challengers like Val Demings. And a lot of, you know, primary threats where the former president is really making his presence known among the Republican electorates.

So, that would be -- I mean, I'm Senate biased, obviously, but that's a really interesting midterm overall state of play that we're --

KING: Yes, I think the whole climate is fascinating. Number one, do you have a traditional election where both Trump and Obama lost the House in their first midterm election? Do you have something like post 9/11, post pandemic where the first election after a crisis things are different.

Here's the president's approval rating if you look at, January the Gallup poll, it was 57 in January, it's 54 now. That historically is the most important benchmark. What is the president's approval rating when you get close to the election? We've got a ways to go.

BASH: Yes. And I will say, I was in a briefing the day that Joe Biden went to deliver an address to the joint session with the House speaker. And her argument was that it is a different world, that you can't make the --

KING: Right.

BASH: -- you know, it's the first midterms in a -- in a president's terms because the way that politicians communicate it is so different now. That's the way that she is --

KING: We all --

BASH: -- looking at -- looking for the W on the board.

KING: It will be a -- it will be a while before we know if she's right or not.

BASH: Yes.

KING: But we'll have a lot of fun in between now and then.

When we come back, we just heard moments ago from Dr. Anthony Fauci, his warning about a new coronavirus variant as the U.S. does pass a very important vaccine milestone.

[12:46:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:45]

KING: The latest COVID news now, including millions of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines that are reportedly approaching their expiration date. Now the company and the FDA are working to extend the self life beyond three months where it currently stands. We'll update you as we get more on that.

Let's look at the latest numbers. Number one, a milestone today, half -- a little more than half of those age 12 and older, now that the vaccines are available to 12 and up, half of those in the United States fully vaccinated. That's an important milestone.

If you look at the case trends, they are down, they are better, 14,380 new COVID infections a day being averaged. Go back five months ago, it was 251,000 -- 251,000 to below 15,000 in five months. That is important progress.

Let's look at the vaccine snapshot right now. In terms of the total U.S. population, more than 42 percent fully vaccinated. Nearly 52 percent partially vaccinated. This has slowed down. The pace of advancement here has slowed down even though these numbers, if you look around the world, are pretty good.

Look at the vaccine map right now. On this map you want your state to be darker. Darker means a higher percentage of adults partially vaccinated. Thirteen states have already met the president's goal, which is 70 percent partially vaccinated by July 4. You see here in New England and the northeast, the problem down here mostly in the southeast, a little bit out in the mountain west as well working this up.

Here's the challenge for the president, you want to get to that 70 percent goal by July 4? Right now we're averaging 358,000 first shots a day across America. We need to get it way up to this to make that goal. So, this goal might not be met. But, the administration says any progress is helpful.

Also, a lot of good news, yes. A little hiccup here. Listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci. He says yes, things are better. Yes, many of you are fully vaccinated. Yes, many of you are getting back to normal. But, he says there is a dangerous variant out there. Don't let your guard fully down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR OF NIH: We don't want to let happen in the United States what is happening currently in the U.K. We have a troublesome variant essentially taking over as the dominant variant, which has made it a very difficult situation in the U.K.

The way you prevent it is by continuing to get people vaccinated and not declare victory before we're there. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: When we come back, add TikTok to the long list of things the Biden administration is handling in a way different from the Trump administration.

[12:54:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:35]

KING: Topping our political radar today, President Biden now revoking executive order signed by his predecessor Donald Trump targeting TikTok and WeChat. Instead the Biden administration says it will order the Commerce Department to review all apps connected to foreign adversaries including China, but it doesn't ban them outright.

Mike Pence, the former vice president making a trip to Iowa next month to address the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines. The key test there his, perhaps, his future presidential ambition. The organization is a favorite for Republican hopefuls because of its support among Christian conservatives. Case in point, other speakers at that meeting include the South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Another setback to bipartisan gun reform talks here in Washington. GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas had been talking with his Democratic colleague Chris Murphy of Connecticut trying to find a compromise on background checks for gun owners. Cornyn though says those talks are over now. But we should note, he left he door open to perhaps someday later coming back to the table.

president Biden delivering a video message to the graduating class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Tuesday. Nine victims of the Parkland shooting would have been in that class. He told them they were already changing the world and asked them, implored them, keep it up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This class lost a piece of its soul. You've been tested in ways no young person should ever have to face. Every few generations young people come along at a point in history with a chance to make real change. The world has already seen just how capable you are. How strong you are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Appreciate your time joining us today on "Inside Politics." Hope to see you back here at this time tomorrow. Don't go anywhere. A very busy news day. Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage now.

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