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Inside Politics
Biden Keeps Busy Campaign Schedule While Trump is Stuck in Court; Haley Wins 150,000+ Voters With Zombie Campaign in GOP PA Primary; Pro-Palestinian Protests Erupt on College Campuses Across U.S.; ADL Says Surging Reports of Antisemitic Incidents on College Campuses; Columbia University Says Students Can Attend Classes and Take Final Exams Remotely Through End of Semester. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired April 24, 2024 - 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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[12:33:20]
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Welcome back. While Donald Trump is stuck in court, President Biden is keeping a very robust schedule of campaign events. Since the Trump trial began last week, he has been to Pennsylvania -- Joe Biden has to talk about the economy, Virginia to talk about clean energy, and Florida to talk about abortion.
Here to talk with me about all of that and much more, the man who masterminded Barack Obama's election and re-election, CNN Senior Political Commentator David Axelrod. Does mastermind, I hope that is a positive connotation?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know it sounds kind of batman.
BASH: It does.
AXELROD: Yeah.
BASH: I know. I feel like I would own that if I were you.
AXELROD: Yeah, OK.
BASH: Let's talk about the Trump trial and the other side of the ledger, so to speak. How do you think that the Biden campaign is playing this?
AXELROD: I think well actually because I don't think he should be involving himself in the details of that. But it is an opportunity for him to go out and talk about the future and talk about the contrast on substantive issues. And I think ultimately, a message that works for him is I am focused on your future, he is focused on his past. And this is very much being reflected in what is going on right now.
BASH: I mean, do you think any of the sort of witch-hunt, all of the things that Donald Trump is saying, most of which is totally not based in evidence or truth, has any legs?
AXELROD: Listen, I think what he is doing now and these judges, good luck to the judge trying to contain Trump. He is not going to put them in jail and a $1,000 fine is not going to stop him from talking, or I think any amount.
[12:35:00]
AXELROD: He is pre-spinning the result of this out of fear that it could be a conviction. It may not be. And this is what he did, as you know, before the election.
BASH: Yep.
AXELROD: So, this is what he does and there may be, particularly if there's a hung jury, there may be some sympathy for him, but I think primarily among his own supporters.
BASH: Let's talk about some of the elections that are still going on, the primary elections, and what that might tell us about November. Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, those famous collar counties around the suburbs, around Philadelphia. I want you to look at some of the results. This is on the Republican side. Delaware County -- Donald Trump got 76 percent; Nikki Haley 24 percent.
AXELROD: Yeah.
BASH: Bucks county -- Trump 81, Nikki Haley 19. Montgomery County -- Trump 75, Nikki Haley 25. I just want to mind our viewers --
(LAUGH)
BASH: Nikki Haley is not running for president.
AXELROD: And hasn't been for quite awhile.
BASH: Exactly. So, what does that tell you?
AXELROD: Well, there's obviously resistance to Trump. And this was a closed primary, so these were Republicans voting. There is a contingent of Republican voters who are reluctant about Trump. I am sure this trial isn't helping their feelings about that. And this was a way to express that. The question is does that translate into a vote for Biden?
BASH: And what's your feeling on that?
AXELROD: You know, I think some portion of them will, but we are very a tribal society, right now, politically and when people see the D and the R, a bunch of that is going to melt away. But in a marginal race, it could be a difference.
BASH: You're inside the Biden campaign right now, how do you reach those voters?
AXELROD: Listen, I think that the voters who are not engaged, right now, are very much about economics. This is why -- the objective fact is the U.S. is doing very, very well compared to other countries, but insisting on that and getting credit for it was not a winning strategy. Talking about how you're fighting to bring down costs, talking about how you're going after predatory interests who are gouging consumers, those are winners. And putting Trump on the other the side of issues like the tax cut, the 2017 tax cut that favored the wealthy, that will come up for renewal. Those are winners for Biden. And I think pitching himself as Joe from Scranton, fighting for the working person is a better pitch than President Biden telling you what a great job is done on the economy.
BASH: Really interesting. David, always good to see you.
AXELROD: Always good to see you.
BASH: Especially in person.
AXELROD: Yeah.
BASH: Thank you. Up next protests swallow college campuses and show the difficulties of disentangling legitimate grievances from the ugliest, antisemitism.
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[12:42:25]
BASH: From New York to California, you've likely seen images like this, of students protesting Israel's handling of its retaliation against Hamas terrorists, the war that is happening in Gaza. Students at Columbia and at least 11 other universities staged Gaza solidarity camps. If that's all we were talking about, pro-Palestinian protests, well, protests on campuses are nothing new.
But there's a critically important line between free speech and hate, hate that is making Jewish students at these schools feel scared and unsafe and in some cases, not because of differences over the war, but because they are Jews. And since the brutal October 7th massacre by Hamas inside Israel, we've seen that line crossed over and over again. This is what Jewish students are hearing on and around college campuses.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go back to Poland! Go back to Poland!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get the hell out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Hamas, we love you. Hamas, a terrorist organization, and it's not just dangerous words. Jewish students say they are being assaulted on campus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELISHA BAKER, JEWISH STUDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: My friend, on Saturday night, was full-blown assaulted. He had -- he was shoved around. He had his flag stolen and they tried to burn it.
ANDREW STEIN, JEWISH STUDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I will not walk on that campus with my coupon. I was personally assaulted. My friend was personally assaulted.
SOPHIE ARNSTEIN, JEWISH STUDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I've been physically intimidated and harassed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: No student should ever fear displaying their faith at a school place that it is supposed to be fertile ground for freedom of expression, whether it is a Christian student or a Muslim student, or a Jewish student.
Joining me from Providence, Rhode Island is Jillian Lederman. She is the President of Brown University Students for Israel and Chair of Hillel Israel Leadership Network. And here in Washington, Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world.
Jillian, I am going to start with you. Up in Providence this morning, dozens of brown students formed a Gaza solidarity camp on your campus. You gave us a video that we are going to show. What was it like walking by that?
JILLIAN LEDERMAN, PRESIDENT, BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FOR ISRAEL: Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on.
[12:45:00]
LEDERMAN: The protests formed early this morning, about 80 students decided to follow suit from students at Columbia and at Yale and at other schools by setting up camp, by setting up tents on (inaudible) dozens of tents set up forming a Gaza solidarity encampment. There are multiple students who are now joining the protest, who are pledging to stay there indefinitely until Brown University divests from what they say are weapons manufacturers (inaudible) genocide in Israel.
Walking through the protest felt very much like walking through many of the other protests that have occurred on campus throughout the past six months. But what I will say is that it is uniquely framed in light of what's been happening at other campuses over the past couple of days, when you see the violence happening at Columbia, the violence happening at Yale. Thankfully, that has not happened at Brown. It has remained peaceful. I am hopeful that it will remain peaceful, but the context of other campuses has made this protest incredibly unique.
BASH: Yeah. Well, let's hope that, especially given the fact that the ADL just recently did a survey on college campuses around the country and Brown got a 'D' when it comes to antisemitism. This is before everything that we are seeing now.
Adam, here in Washington, I want to read you, speaking of the ADL, something that Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL, wrote in an op-ed on cnn.com. He went to Columbia's Hillel, met with about 80 Jewish students. He said one depicted the assault of a Jewish classmate, an Israeli flag ripped from his hand. Another showed a Jewish student being screamed at by a fully masked individual who came right up to his face, his voice shaking with fury. He went on to say demonstrators calling openly for Hamas to burn Tel Aviv. We heard that ourselves. Others yelling that October 7th is about to be every day.
What I want to know from you is, if you have any sense from the Jewish students you talked to all over the country, all over the world, but specifically, let's start here in the U.S., why is this happening? Why is it going from basic protest, free speech, to intimidation and sometimes some scary violence?
ADAM LEHMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO, HILLEL INTERNATIONAL: Yeah. Thank you for having us on this conversation, Dana. It is really quite simple. There are organizations like National Students for Justice in Palestine that are not interested in dialog and debate. They are not interested in even necessarily simply supporting Palestinians. They are interested in advancing a political worldview. In the end, that reflects the goals of Hamas, of Hezbollah, of Iran, and they are using campuses as an instrument to try to effectuate that change.
And unfortunately, a lot of students who understandably want to think about and express compassion towards Palestinians, hopefully they think the same towards Israelis, the victims of 10/7 and others who have been so adversely impacted. But even with all of that, they are getting in my view, co-opted into a political movement that, as we have seen, has been marked by hateful, discriminatory, and violent speech, and actual harassment and violence spawning from those protests.
BASH: What are you encouraging university presidents to do, to try to separate the genuine freedom of speech protest from what you are describing as much more insidious? And maybe even in some cases, completely separate from what the students are experiencing on campus.
LEHMAN: Yeah, first of all, I think we have to call this free speech argument for what it is, which is a red herring. The campuses involved in this story and really the hundreds of other campuses where we've seen protests have provided ample time, place, and space for protest. However, passionate or aggressive students want to be in those spaces, students are running and non-students coming in to take advantage, running roughshod over those parameters. So administrators need to just continue to do what they can achieve in re-asserting control over the campus.
BASH: How should they do that? Do they need better help from law enforcement?
LEHMAN: They absolutely need help from law enforcement. We appreciate that the president has spoken out in ways that recognize the antisemitism and completely unacceptable conditions. But we need law enforcement coordination at federal and local level. And frankly, there are a lot of universities that have done better and they've done better by getting ahead of these problems. It took months for administrators at Columbia and many of their impacted schools to take action. It really concerns me a lot as we look toward graduations.
BASH: And Jillian, on that note, we only have a short time left. Do you feel that (inaudible) you are Brown. You said that things are a little bit more sedate there.
[12:50:00]
BASH: But, do you feel that at Brown, they are getting out ahead of what could happen just with the encampment -- encampment rather starting to come up today?
LEDERMAN: I think they are. I think it is a testament to the administration. They sent out a message yesterday saying that the encampments did violate the university's code of conduct, that if they escalate, action will be taken. There are university officials out staged at the encampment, taking down students IDs, ensuring that things do not get out of hand. And so, I usually credit my administration for responding in that way and I think that other universities should follow suit.
BASH: OK. Thank you so much, Jillian Lederman and Adam Lehman of Hillel. Appreciate both of you and your time this morning. We'll be right back.
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[12:55:00]
BASH: Last hour, promise of a court fight from TikTok's CEO, just minutes after President Biden signed a bill into law that could change the way Americans use the notoriously popular and controversial app. Until that happens, because the president signed that into law, the clock is ticking for TikTok's Chinese-owned parent to sell the app. Here's the only catch. They only have nine months to do it. Beijing has said it strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok and won't approve the sale of its algorithms citing national security grounds. That leaves few options to secure the future of TikTok in the U.S., its biggest market with 170 million users.
Thank you so much for joining a very busy "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" starts after the break.
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