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Inside Politics

One-On-One With Air Force Veteran, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan; Debate Begins On Controversial Amendments To Defense Bill; KFile: RFK Jr. Repeatedly Claimed Chemicals In Water Are Impacting Sexuality Of Children; Politico: Top Donors Sour On DeSantis, Look At Scott; Appeals Court Sides With Dems On New York Congressional Map; May Tilt Balance Of Power; Dems Worry Biden's 2024 Campaign Moving Too Slowly; Diamond Duel: Congress, Media Play Annual Congressional Women's Softball Game For Breast Cancer Awareness. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired July 13, 2023 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: I wonder what you say to Americans who are fundamentally, philosophically opposed to abortion and they say, my taxpayer dollars should not be used in any way to deal with an abortion, even if it's to help somebody go across state lines.

REP. CHRISSY HOULAHAN (D), PENNSYLVANIA: So what I would say is about 20 percent of our military force, importantly, are all volunteer military force right now are women, and largely in reproductive age, you know, range.

We also should account for the fact that most people in the military also have a family. So they have wives and children as well. And so reproductive care and choices about abortion are not theirs to make in states and places that they don't choose to be stationed in.

And so this is something where, you know, I grew up, as I mentioned, in a military family, you serve at the will of the president, you serve and you take the orders to wherever you're going at the -- for the needs of the military. You don't get to pick where you are.

And, unfortunately, in many of the places where our men and women are right now, they don't have access to reproductive freedom and abortion services. And that, I think is something where if you're trusting a person to wear a uniform and to serve and protect and defend you, then you should trust them to make their own reproductive choices.

BASH: You've previously told me in a conversation, not about abortion per se, but just about being a woman in the military and when you were a mom, on a base that you didn't feel that you got the support that you needed and that was a part of your reason, maybe a big part of the reason you decided to leave the Air Force. If these amendments were to pass, are you concerned that other female service members might leave?

HOULAHAN: Yes. I mentioned 20 percent of us, in uniform, are women right now. It's looking like we think it could be as large as 30 percent within the next decade. I think that will absolutely be a suppressing way for people to not feel as though they're welcome in the military, women to be welcome.

We are already not meeting our recruiting goals and to eliminate 51 percent of our population who would feel not necessarily welcome is I think a real danger and a hazard for future readiness and for our future national defense.

BASH: Real quick, do you think there's a chance that this bill might not pass? Will it fail?

HOULAHAN: The numbers are very tight on the Republican side in terms of their majority, and there are a lot of vulnerable Republican members who I'd be surprised if they would be able to stomach voting for something like this that is as draconian as this might be. I know that there are members like myself who will really be struggling in terms of what our vote will look like.

I'm absolutely a supporter, of course, of the military. But when we're politicizing the military in the way that we are right now, it's a really dangerous recipe and we're flying without a net right now.

BASH: Well, that is a little bit scary since this is a must pass legislation dealing with the military.

Thank you so much for coming in.

HOULAHAN: Thank you for having me.

BASH: Nice to see you.

Up next, CNN digs into and debunks a conspiracy pushed by RFK Jr.

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[12:37:25]

BASH: Robert Kennedy Jr. has a history of spreading farfetched conspiracy theories and new reporting from CNN's KFile found that the presidential candidate repeatedly pushed the unfounded claim that man- made chemicals could be making children gay or transgender.

CNN's Andrew Kaczynski joins me now. Andrew, you have reviewed dozens of podcasts and interviews of RFK Jr., what exactly is he saying?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Yes, that's right. He has suggested that man-made chemicals found in the water could be making children gay or transgender. He's also suggested a conspiracy that these same chemicals could be responsible for making boys more feminine and girls more masculine.

Now, experts that we spoke to strongly pushed back on these claims. Take a listen to just a couple of those comments from Kennedy.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's atrazine throughout our water supply atrazine, by the way. If you in a lab, put atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will chemically castrate forcibly, feminize every frog in there. We're seeing these anomalies, which are no longer anomalies, but in sexual development in boys and girls, but particularly girls getting, you know, nowadays commonplace for nine and 10 year olds to get their periods.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KACZYNSKI: Now, we talked to experts and they told us that this was basically comparing apples to oranges. Look, we're humans. Frogs are amphibians. For humans, sex is determined at the moment of conception. For frogs, they can be determined by a number of things in environmental factors.

So we pose this question to the Kennedy campaign. How does he respond to what the experts told us about what he said? And here's what they told us. A spokesperson for Kennedy said, "He is merely suggesting that, given copious research on the effects on other vertebrates, this possibly deserves further research".

BASH: Andrew talking to you about frogs and vertebrates was not on my bingo card, I have to say. Thank you for that excellent reporting. Appreciate it.

And here to share their reporting, CNN's Phil Mattingly, Tia Mitchell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Leigh Ann Caldwell of The Washington Post. As we discuss this, let's just put up on the screen what the latest CNN polling is of -- on the Democratic field. Of course, the President, he's at 64 percent.

Look in the middle there, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at 17 percent. Phil Mattingly?

[12:40:10]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Really was hoping you were going to look Leigh Ann or Tia. Following Andrew's reporting, I do like the idea that because of copious research, there needs to be more research, that copious research that did not draw the conclusions that he has drawn.

Look, I think the numbers you put up are important for this reason that you can't just laugh off or chuckle off or think like, wow, that's totally bizarre and kind of crazy. Those are tangible numbers. I think the question, when you talk to kind of national Democratic operatives, they say it's the name, it's the kind of general apathy for President Biden or an age issue that that's what's driving it, not necessarily the issues.

I do think though the issues have gotten him a very significant, kind of very online --

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- group of followers and fans, whether or not that kind of overlaps with Democrats and the Democratic primary is another question. But this is a reality, and I think the real question becomes, is it never something that the President or that his team feels like they need to address? My sense is no. At this point in time, there are other things that are worried about, but those are real numbers.

BASH: So I'm going to move on to the Republican field unless either of you is dying to talk about it.

MATTINGLY: Oh, come on.

BASH: Was that so mean? OK.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: I just, to your point, there's a very kind of broly (ph) masculinity above all else, reach of the internet and social media and it kind of pours into politics. People like Elon Musk and Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan. And to me, Robert Kennedy Jr. kind of falls within them, but that means he does have power because those folks have platforms and they're elevating him.

BASH: Yes. That is such an interesting take. I didn't think of it that way to put him in that category, but that's -- it's very, very smart.

Let's talk about the Republican field and specifically about Tim Scott, because he's breaking in some money. If you look at what his campaign raised, this is just the second quarter, which ended June 30th, $6.1 million. Super PAC $19.3 million.

And Leigh Ann, that is on top of a pig -- chunk of change that he had cash on hand. Well, he has cash on hand, total $21 million. And the reason is because he had a lot of money that he transferred over from his Senate campaign.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, EARLY 202 CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, he's really spent a lot of time building up this donor network. He had a Senate campaign in conservative South Carolina where he had no real challenger and he continued to raise more than $20 million for that campaign that he didn't necessarily need to win a Senate race. That was in preparation for a presidential campaign.

He is serious about this. Every single, you know -- in the hallways on Capitol Hill, he used to be very chatty for the past year. He has no longer talked to reporters in the hall. He has become very disciplined and he offers something unique in the Republican Party that people are perhaps gravitating toward.

BASH: And there was a quote from a top political donor, Andy Sabin, in Politico, who said, "A lot of donors that I've met are all curious and want to meet Tim and see what he's about.

He's the one guy running who's got some personality and charisma. His delivery is terrific".

And as we talk about that, I also want to put on the screen so far the people who have met the donor threshold for the debate. Tim Scott is one of them. Also there is Chris Christie who announced on CNN last night that he's got the donor threshold, which is 40,000 donors. The polling question is separate. Go ahead.

MATTINGLY: I was texting with the pretty high level Republican donor when I knew we were going to talk about this. And this donor said, you don't understand. He crushes at fundraisers and I think this tracks with the quote you were just reading. Tim Scott.

BASH: Tim Scott?

MATTINGLY: Right. That the quote you're reading of Politico in the sense of when people get in a room with him, if you are his campaign, all you want is somebody to give him a chance, right? Because when they -- when people get in the room with him, they are sold.

And I think one of the elements here that's always been at play is were people ever going to decide that he had a real chance? Because everybody who meets him on the Republican side likes him, thinks he's smart, thinks he's a future. If people are starting to think he's having the real chance and the money seems to be saying that the permission structure starts to exist, that is a potential game changer.

BASH: Yes. So interesting. And we're going to have to take a quick break, but maybe tomorrow we can play an ad that his campaign has been starting to run in Iowa, talking about his faith. They've been doing a lot of spending money on his bio --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BASH: -- which kind of speaks to what you're saying, Phil.

So does slow and steady actually win the 2024 race? Some fascinating new CNN reporting on that next.

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[12:49:31]

BASH: An appeals court is sending New York back to the drawing board literally. The split decision from the five judge panel agreed with Democrats that the state's congressional map needs to be redrawn. The consequences here are really big.

And they reach well beyond New York because if upheld, Democrats can potentially swing as many as six Republican held seats in their direction. And just in case you forgot, the GOP holds only a four-seat advantage in the house. And that's largely because of what happened in the state of New York.

Now, to new CNN reporting about growing alarm among some Democrats that President Biden's reelection campaign is too much tortoise and not enough hare.

[12:50:10]

CNN's Isaac Dovere reports, quote, "A half-dozen senior Democratic advisers said they were concerned about the slow pace of the campaign". A person who played a big role in Biden's winning in 2020 framed the concerns this way, quote, "If Trump wins next November, and everyone says, how did that happen, one of the questions will be, what was the Biden campaign doing in the summer of 2023?"

Well, guess what? We have Isaac here to share more of his reporting at the table. What was your overall takeaway of how much people inside Biden world privately agree with the concerns coming from outside?

ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I mean, inside Biden world, the real circle of people around the President, they don't agree with this at all. And what they would say is, how many times do we have to go through this? How many times people have to doubt Joe Biden and say he doesn't -- he can't win an election, he doesn't know how he's doing it, he's doing everything wrong.

And then at the end of the day, he won the primaries, he won the nomination. He won the election in 2020. The Democrats did well in the midterms in 2022. Obviously, not as well as they wanted, but much better than expected. And he's gotten all these things done as president.

But this is what they face and always. And the latest version of it is this thinking among a lot of Democrats, like there's not enough going on, fundraising's not where it needs to be. How are we're going to do this? Trump is maybe coming back. We need -- so much is on the line here.

And, it's even fed this conspiracy thinking and some people that maybe his heart's not really in it. That's what's going on. He's going to drop out. And as they were pointing in the piece, that's even led to some top Democrats going to perspective alternative candidates and saying, get ready. I'm telling you he's not going to run.

Now they don't know. Obviously they're just guessing.

BASH: Yes.

DOVERE: But that is what is -- what it's like in Democratic circles these days.

BASH: OK. So you mentioned that inside the White House they're saying, give me a break. We hear this all the time. You left a little Easter egg. And for political junkies, you'll understand what I'm talking about when I say this.

Jim Messina, who ran the Obama 2012 campaign, he said, quote, about the Biden campaign, "They are so underestimated, and they keep getting it right". He said, "We spent a lot of money in the field in the off year, and there's an argument that that wasn't money well spent. There are different ways to stoke the fire, and policy is one of them".

Chief White House Correspondent?

MATTINGLY: Yes. I think that that -- the Easter egg is good. We'll let people figure that one out. Yes, I think that reflects the view of things -- look, I think if you were talking to a White House official, which I may or may not have spoken to over the course of the last --

BASH: Of your life.

MATTINGLY: -- couple of hours, knowing that, that too, knowing about Isaac's reporting, the idea of, OK, well, tell me what happened this week. Tell me what happened this week. He was in NATO. He locked in the 31st and 32nd members, soon to be 32nd member of NATO. Kept them completely together in a level that they haven't been in a very long time.

And, by the way, inflation is down. From 9 percent last year in June to 3 percent this year in June. And Bidenomics, maybe the President will finally accept the term when he comes back. They very much feel good about the economy.

The concerns to Isaac's reporting, which is very good, are very real. They're also just very much on brand for the Democratic Party. And I liked the intonation Isaac took when he was reflecting those concerns, because that's very much how they sound.

We're not seeing things, so everything must be wrong. And I think, you know, maybe they're right, but like at this point, it was very unright (ph). Yes, it was good.

MITCHELL: I just think we have to -- the Biden campaign has to be practical about their approach. At the end of the day, he is an 80- year-old candidate. He's also an incumbent. So I think they've made strategic choices.

Of course, if they lose next year, everyone's going to second guess those choices, but they've had to make choices given the atmosphere, given their candidate and given who their potential opponent could be.

BASH: OK, everybody, thank you so much for coming in. We'll get you next time, Leigh Ann, because you want to hear what's up after the break.

Better up journalists and members of Congress take a swing at breast cancer in the annual congressional women's softball game. I was there and I'm going to have the report next.

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[12:59:04]

BASH: And now bipartisanship is alive and well in Washington. Well, it was last night on a Capitol Hill softball field, where else can you see the House Speaker Kevin McCarthy schmoozing with the Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff. It was the annual congressional women's softball game. That's where female Democratic and Republican lawmakers team up against female reporters to raise money for breast cancer awareness.

It was an intense game with reporters known as the Bad News Babes dominating at the beginning, but members of Congress rallying towards the end. Senator Shelley Moore Capito grandmother of eight, crushed it at third base with more plays there that I could count, and I was counting.

I had the privilege of announcing the game as I do every year along with Senator Amy Klobuchar, who is a breast cancer survivor. This year, Garrett Haake of NBC News joined us and in the end, powerhouse hitting from reporters like CNN's Katie Lobosco and Mikayla Bouchard led reporters to victory with the final score of 15 to nine, but the real winner was the cause they were playing for.

The game raised nearly $590,000 for the Young Survival Coalition, beating last year's record, and bringing the total raised since the game started 15 years ago to $3.7 million.

Thank you for that. And thank you so much for joining INSIDE POLITICS. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.