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Inside Politics

Harris: "We Are Fighting For The Future"; Harris Finishes 3-Day Swing Through Wisconsin, Indiana, Texas; Harris Campaign Video: "We Choose Freedom"; Trump Amps Up Rhetoric One Week After Preaching Unity At RNC; Sources: Biden To Forcefully Urge Netanyahu To Accept Ceasefire Deal; Harris Condemns "Despicable Acts By Unpatriotic Protesters". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 25, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. We were just showing a graphic a few moments ago what the Ukrainians are saying and warning their own athletes about all of this. Mind your every handshake with Olympic athletes from Russia. Just an incredible stuff.

Christine Romans -- Christine Brennan, I should say. Thank you so much for reporting live from Paris. Always great to see you. Have fun in Paris. I know it's going to be a great time for you over there. Really appreciate it. And thank you very much for joining me here on the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta. Stay with CNN. Inside Politics with Dana Bash, starts right now. Have a great day.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, Donald Trump goes from zero to garbage in warp speed. Remember that slash of a moment when Trump said he was going to be nice, while he unsurprisingly and explicitly ditched that. And moments ago, the vice president made clear, she's not pulling her own punches.

Plus, the push for peace. Joe Biden says that ending the war in Gaza and securing the release of hostages held by Hamas will be a major focus of his final months in office. It begins today with a crucial face to face meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. We have new reporting on what may happen behind closed doors.

And Jennifer Aniston is slamming the Republican VP pick over comments he made about women without children. We'll tell you what the megastar who crashed Instagram when she joined the platform yet rarely gets political says, she's praying for J. D. Vance's daughter.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

First up, Donald Trump is clearly feeling like himself again after surviving an assassination attempt 12 days ago. Here's what he said on Fox this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I get a kick out of one thing, they say sir, you just got hit with a bullet. Maybe he's changed, be nice. And I'd love to be nice, but I'm dealing against real garbage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: A Harris campaign responded to that interview with a statement. It came out within moments and here is what the subject line said. 78- year-old criminals, Fox News appearance, and among the biting lines inside that email. After watching Fox News this morning, we only have one question, is Donald Trump, OK?

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is in Houston, Texas, where Vice President Harris just wrapped up her speech there. Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: While the vice president is certainly trying to define her campaign, and they're not pulling back any punches. But while she's doing that, she's also trying to strike a balance after the president abruptly withdrew from the race earlier this week. And that's a little bit of what we saw during her remarks here in Houston.

She acknowledged the president's address last night, saying that he showed true leadership and that she was grateful for his service. Well, then quickly pivoting to what will be the core argument for her on the campaign trail, looking at the past versus the future. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Today, we faced a choice between two very different visions for our nation. One focused on the future and the other focused on the past. And we are fighting for the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now she spoke about multiple issues including, reproductive rights, healthcare, student loan debt, but also importantly, unions. That was crucial for President Biden. It's also going to be crucial for the vice president. She made that clear thanking them and her address to the American Federation of Teachers. The first union to endorse her this week when she became the lead of the party's ticket.

And Dana, it is notable where she's been this week. She was in battleground Wisconsin where she had that raucous rally that also became fodder for her campaign video today. She was in Indianapolis yesterday, talking to a black sorority. And then she's here in Houston, Texas today where she is addressed the union, the second largest union of teachers.

So clearly, they are trying to build on the momentum and especially their core constituencies as they look to the months ahead. We're also expecting that former President Barack Obama will soon endorse the vice president, that too would be significant for her going into the next few weeks.

BASH: Absolutely. Thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it, Priscilla. And I want to bring in some other amazing reporters who are right here at the table with me to open up their notebooks for us. CNN's Kayla Tausche, CNN's Eva McKend, and Leigh Ann Caldwell of The Washington Post. Hello, happy Thursday, or just a day that ends in why because who knows what day it is -- I know. We'll just go with it.

Let's talk a little bit more about what we just heard from the vice president. You saw it on our air live. She's clearly crystallizing the argument that she's making, and she will continue to make against Donald Trump and against Republicans more broadly. I want you to hear a little bit more of her case against Donald Trump.

[12:05:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: Donald Trump and his extreme allies want to take our nation back to failed trickle down economic policies back to union busting, back to tax breaks for billionaires to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants. And I say to AFT, they even want to eliminate the Department of Education.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Obviously, that was a very focused speech, but that mine about Department of Education for her audience, the union, that represents teachers. Kayla, you represent -- you represent us. You've covered the White House and the Biden campaign. Or I should say, Biden campaign, now the Harris campaign. You did cover the Biden campaign --

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We covered all the campaigns.

BASH: Oh, all the campaigns.

TAUSCHE: They said that Biden is still going to be out on the trail. We'll cover him too.

BASH: What are you hearing about how she's trying to sort of figure out her footing and the strategy?

TAUSCHE: Well, the strategy right now is to embrace what Biden has done in his legacy, but also chart a course of her own, whether that means having the campaign reshaped in her image, charting her own course on policy, which I'm told the campaign wants to give some time to figure out where she might diverge from President Biden, and also trying to figure out where her coalitions are strongest.

We know in recent days she has spoken with black women, with the Latino community. Now she's been showcasing some endorsements from labor. And then the event that you were just referencing earlier today, she has pockets of influence. That in some cases overlap with Biden's but in other cases are outside of that Venn diagram. And they're trying to figure out exactly what their map is and what their strategy is.

But Dana, I think one of the most significant data points is from the CNN poll that we published yesterday. And that is, the number of respondents who said that in this election, they will now be voting for Kamala Harris and not against Donald Trump.

There was a material shift from those who were undecided or independents, or who had decided whether they were going to vote that now they feel that they want to vote for Kamala Harris, rather than against Donald Trump. The question is, how long the honeymoon can last, and what she says in the coming weeks to try to solidify that support.

BASH: Like how you snuck in the Venn diagram in that. That was a very, very subtle. I know you're also doing some reporting. And I want to -- as I bring you in Eva, talk about something that is really striking. And that is the use of the word freedom -- the song freedom, the Beyonce song, obviously is now her theme song with queen bees' permission.

But also, just on the politics of it, our friend, friend of the show, Amy Walter, put on social media that she has been hearing for a long time that the word freedom works a whole lot better in reaching voters than the word democracy, fighting for freedom, works better than fighting for democracy.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It's clear, it's their strategy. And I can tell you from being out on the ground, that it seems to be working with the voters that were looking for inspiration. I was with her during that Milwaukee rally. And they told me that while they were grateful for President Biden's service, they're relieved now that they have someone who can really fight fire with fire, who can really make the case for this administration in a clear and concise way.

And so, she can use freedom not only to talk about reproductive choice, but she's also using it in the lens of talking about gun violence. Some people say that they don't know much about her record but having that as sort of an anchor, allows her to talk about all of the policy issues that she's been involved with in the White House during her tenure.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" NEWSLETTER: So, that's really interesting on the freedom versus democracy, because as Amy Walter said, I had also been hearing that there was tension within the party of what the messaging and what the strategy should be. Obviously now, we think that Kamala Harris was on the side of freedom than the side of messaging democracy.

But playing that clip that you just played about what her message is, it's actually not much different than what President Biden's was. And now it was some of the frustration of why people thought he should step aside is because he was unable at this point to articulate a very clear and concise message. Not that they didn't agree with the message, but he wasn't able to get that across. And we have seen that Kamala Harris is much more effective at that and Democrats are absolutely thrilled and enthusiastic that she's able to prosecute it.

[12:10:00] BASH: If we learned anything from the 2016 campaign, it is that voters are moved by the way a candidate makes them feel as much as, and in some cases maybe even more than the policy proposals that they have. Speaking of how a candidate makes people feel.

Let's turn to Donald Trump and talk about what he has been saying. I mentioned in the intro. He talked this morning on Fox & Friends about garbage, about the other side being garbage. And that is just kind of the latest in his very stepped-up conversation attack on Kamala Harris, which he really started to hone himself last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The discord and division in our society must be healed, we must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together, or we fall apart. They say, something happened to me when I got shot. I became nice. If you don't mind, I'm not going to be nice. Is that, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. I am going to own that. I obviously screwed the setup -- screwed up the setup to that. That was the promise that he made at the RNC, which to be fair, didn't even last through his own speech at the RNC to where he is now, just kind of owning the idea.

Now let's play what he said this morning. Not just about Kamala Harris, but kind of going to Donald Trump and some of his greatest hits. OK, we don't have that soundbite. Let's talk about --

MCKEND: Dana, I'll just pick it up, you know, the Harris campaign is characterizing this tone as him being flustered and lashing out. And I can tell you, the more that we hear Republicans, the former President tried to frame this contest in racialized terms, in terms of gender. I think it only sort of adds rocket fuel to the Harris campaign, because you have people that are going to become even more animated.

You know, when they hear things like, oh, she's a DEI candidate. Well, you have voters that are going to say in kind, well, we'll show you a DEI candidate. We're going to go ahead and we're going to vote for her in the fall.

So, they have to strike a really -- they have to walk a tightrope here in the way that they frame their messaging against her. Because what it has the effect -- what it can do, in effect is really animate a debate -- a base that was previously very defeated.

TAUSCHE: But I think in talking to Democrats, I don't think they were any illusion that Donald Trump would not revert back to vintage Trump. I mean, there was an expectation that the unity would last over the course of the convention, maybe there would be some spillover effect, but that it certainly would not be the characterization of the campaign going into the fall.

And even to that end, when Joe Biden, the president was on the campaign trail in Las Vegas, the gloves were off for him. He was saying that that Donald Trump was lying like hell. What the hell is the matter with this guy? I mean, he amped up his rhetoric even before the convention was over. And so, it just seems like it was -- it was destined to be short lived even as it happened.

BASH: No question on that. It could not agree with you more. I think anybody who has been living on planet Earth would not be surprised. The issue now is how they are turning inside the Trump campaign to focus obviously, not on Joe Biden, and not on the age thing and all the things that they had ready to go, but on Kamala Harris.

CALDWELL: And it sounds like -- it seems like they are struggling to find something that will stick. They are testing all sorts of things. It was laughing Kamala, and now it's lion Kamala. There's the DEI stuff that they're attacking her for the border, Israel and Gaza over the weekend.

But I was talking to a Republican pollster yesterday and I asked if Kamala Harris would bring -- would highlight any of Trump's weaknesses. And this pollster said, well, it depends actually on how Trump responds. If he goes -- if he goes low, then it's going to backfire on him because this is what people remember about Donald Trump. This will bring up those feelings that they don't like about Donald Trump.

BASH: The race, the amnesia.

CALDWELL: Exactly. Like with Joe Biden -- when he was attacking Joe Biden, the attacks were kind of real. People thought, yeah, but he is old. Like, is he able to do the job for the next four years? We don't know. Now with Kamala Harris. She's kind of a blank slate for most people, and Trump is -- he has a choice to make, and I think we know which one he's going to make.

BASH: He's kind of already made it.

CALDWELL: Yeah.

BASH: All right, everybody standby. Coming up. Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to the White House for a critical meeting as a senior Biden administration. Officials says, they're closer than ever to reaching a deal on a ceasefire and bringing hostages home. We'll talk about that after a break.

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: About an hour from now, President Biden will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And sources say, the president is expected to forcefully urge Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire for hostages' deal with Hamas.

[12:20:00]

CNN's MJ Lee joins us now live from the White House. MJ, what are you hearing from your sources about the posture that the president is going to take and how successful he thinks he might be with the prime minister?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, as far as bylaws go, this one obviously is expected to be quite consequential. And coming at such a pivotal moment, I am told by sources that the president is expected to be perhaps as forceful as he has ever been, in urging Prime Minister Netanyahu in private to accept the ceasefire deal that is currently on the table. A deal that would finally put an end to a war that is now just two months shy of reaching its one-month mark.

And it isn't just the bilateral meeting where the president would have the opportunity to exert that pressure. Right after that meeting, he and the prime minister both will sit down with families of American hostages that are still believed to be in Gaza. And that is another setting where we certainly expect that he is going to get the prime minister, a lot of a hard push from the president and these families to accept this deal.

As one senior official put it to me, we're closer than we've ever been. It's up to the Israelis to accept it. And of course, Dana, there is no ignoring the fact that this comes just days after President Biden announced that he is going to be dropping out of the 2024 race. This is a war that has cost him so much politically here at home. And now there is the question of how the war coming to an end, shaping potentially a huge part of his one term presidency legacy, Dana.

BASH: Yeah. It's going to be such an important meeting -- set of meetings that are going to go on in the building behind you. Thank you so much for that, MJ. My panel is back here. And as the president is -- as we said, really trying to -- hoping that part of his legacy will be to end this and to set up a much better future for the Middle East, in particular, Israel and Gaza.

One of the key questions is how the vice president is going to sort of maneuver this going forward. I know you have some new reporting. I want to get to that in one second. But first, I just want to maybe give a little bit of a window. This is something that happened yesterday, right after Netanyahu spoke and said that the people who are protesting, if though many of them he called useful idiots, others he called, you know, straight up supporting Hamas.

We can show what happened at Union Station, which is very close to the Capitol. I believe we have that video. You have people spray painting, right outside the train station. Again, you can see this from the United States Capitol, about Hamas. And also, believe you can see there the upside-down red triangle, which I should note for those who don't know.

Number one, is used by terrorist organizations to put a target down. And number two, was used, Kayla, by the Nazis to put -- to use as a symbol on prisoner uniforms in concentration camps that they are other. The vice president, through her official office just released a statement.

And I want to read part of it. I condemn any individuals associated -- associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews, pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent, and we must not tolerate it in our nation. I condemn the burning of the American flag, which also happened. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.

I should say that, not only did they desecrate it, they raised the Hamas flag over the united the -- D.C. Union Station in a way that you could see from the Capitol.

TAUSCHE: Well, that -- I think that statement was very clear. It was very specific about the acts that she condemns at a time when she is trying to distill her own policy in this situation. At an event earlier this year in Selma, Alabama, she called more forcefully for a ceasefire than anyone in the administration up until that point had, which caught some officials off guard.

According to my reporting, and one person described it as more Jamaal Bowman than Joe Biden, who has been very vocal about his steadfast support of the State of Israel. Jamaal Bowman, of course, a member of the squad, a progressive lawmaker who just lost his primary. But I think that sort of encapsulates the position that she's in. She has a very progressive stepdaughter. She has a Jewish husband, who is a staunch supporter of Israel himself.

BASH: Some reporting about her conversation last night --

TAUSCHE: That's right. Yesterday.

BASH: Yesterday.

TAUSCHE: Yesterday afternoon. The finance committee chair that previously worked for the Biden campaign, now Harris campaign was asked in no uncertain terms, by dozens of Wall Street donors. What is your policy on the economy? What's your policy on Israel? Where is she on that issue?

[12:25:00]

And I was told that Rufus Gifford, who was helping that call for the campaign said, give us a few days. We need to iron that out. They needed to figure out where she stands on some issues, where previously she needed to be fully aligned with Biden and the Biden administration. And now, she might want to take a slightly different tone down.

MCKEND: Dana, she might be able to navigate this in a way that President Biden could not. You know, she seems to be holding largely the same policy view. But what we didn't see from Biden sometime is this outpouring of compassion for Palestinians. And she has showed that. And that is why we see progressives, at least willing to listen to her. They aren't, you know, shutting her out.

There were some progressive, some Muslim Americans who weren't even entertaining President Biden anymore. Now she can go back to those communities and say, hey, give me a shot. I am trying to take a more nuanced position. And I think that that's what we're getting from what we're seeing from her.

CALDWELL: There are 30 uncommitted delegates going to the convention and they're uncommitted because they voted uncommitted. So many people voted uncommitted in the primaries. I talked to one of those uncommitted delegates earlier this week, and they said that they are watching very closely what -- how Kamala Harris addresses the Gaza situation and Israel.

They thought that they had hoped that she would be a little bit different. She would be different than President Biden, but 30 delegates also doesn't sound significant. But in elections that are extremely close in 2020 was won by less than about 100,000 votes in a handful of states. Those votes could matter, considering almost a million people voted on committed in the primaries. And so, you know, it's going to be fascinating to see if she does separate herself from the president. And even very small, significant ways.

BASH: I mean, it's one -- it's one thing to thread the needle, which she did here, and absolutely condemning in no uncertain terms, Hamas, which is a terror organization, and the use of clearly antisemitic imagery versus having compassion for people who are in harm's way. And, you know, we'll see what she does. The whole question that's going to be her policy, which is I know what you're getting at, Leigh Ann.

Everybody standby because coming up. President Biden has something to brag about today bigger, much better than expected economic numbers out this morning. And of course, the key question is still what it has been for months and months. Who is feeling it? Stay with us?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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