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Inside Politics

This Morning: Harris Campaign Touts $200 Million Haul; Trump And Vast Test Out Harris Attacks AT Minnesota Rally; GOP Scrambles To Adjust To New Reality Up & Down Ticket. Harris VP Hopefuls Audition with Just Days Left; Vance Comment Clean-Up Dominates First Days on the Trail; Menendez Set to Collect Two More Paychecks Before Resigning. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired July 28, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:11]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Shock and awe.

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When we fight, we win.

RAJU: Harris consolidates support among Democrats.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: She's experienced. She's tough. She's capable.

RAJU: While Republicans mine her past comments.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She is now trying to get rid of her record, but she can't.

RAJU: With just 100 days to go, can she sustain the momentum?

Plus, veepstakes. The potential picks audition for the job.

GOV. TIM WALZ (D), MINNESOTA: These are weird people on the other side.

RAJU: As they fan out across the country --

Do you actually want this role?

What is Harris looking for?

And scramble.

TRUMP: She was a bum three weeks ago. She was a bum.

RAJU: Trump hones his attacks.

TRUMP: They say she made Bernie Sanders look like a moderate.

RAJU: As J.D. Vance confronts his past.

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment.

RAJU: INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU (on camera): Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

A hundred days from today is Election Day and the race has completely changed from just last week. And it now very much appears to be a cliffhanger. Democrats are moving swiftly to try to brush aside weeks of internal turmoil when President Biden was on the top of the ticket, now trying to capitalize on the jolt that Vice President Kamala Harris has given to the campaign.

Now, this morning, Vice President Harris's campaign announcing she's raised a staggering $200 million since President Biden dropped out and endorsed her last week. Now, two-thirds coming from first time donors and also announcing 170,000 new volunteers have signed on.

And just yesterday, at a fundraiser in Massachusetts, she tried out a new line pushing back on the former president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: You may have noticed Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record, and some of what he and his running mate are saying. Well, it's just plain weird.

(LAUGHTER)

HARRIS: I think that's the box you put that in, right?

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, the 2024 campaign had been a remarkably stable affair for more than a year. Then in the last two months, everything has changed, and now, the two parties are in a new phase in an all out battle to define Kamala Harris in the eyes of undecided voters.

Now, CNN's Alayna Treene was on the trail last night in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where Trump was with J.D. Vance, ramping up their attacks on Kamala Harris.

So, Alayna, what was -- what is the former president's strategy in taking on the vice president? ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, Manu, it's definitely still a work

in progress. I think. And you could kind of see that last night that, you know, Donald Trump is still workshopping some of the lines and trying to figure out which lines are the best that work against her, and that in his effort to define her.

Now, we did hear him sharply escalate those attacks. They also grew increasingly nasty throughout the evening. He called her, you know, radically liberal, said she was much worse than Joe Biden.

He also focused heavily on trying to attack her positions on immigration, crime, inflation, all issues I know that the Trump campaign is urging him to focus on because they believe Republicans and Trump specifically is better on those issues than Democrats.

Now, I want you to take a listen to some of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If a crazy liberal like Kamala Harris gets in, the American dream is dead.

She made Bernie Sanders look like a moderate.

We have a man that can't put two sentences together, and now we're replacing him with worse than he is, a dangerous person who's not smart. You know, she couldn't pass a law exam, right?

Kamala wants to be the president for criminals and illegal aliens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, now, Manu, one thing I found very notable was, well, two things. One was that at one point he had said that you know, some people had told him after his assassination attempt that they thought perhaps he would be nicer during these speeches. He said, actually, I think I might be worse. And then he continued to ramp up those attacks on Harris.

But he also at one point was doing something we've seen at basically all of his rallies. He was going after Joe Biden as well, trying to mock him. And then he abruptly stopped himself and said, actually, I don't want to focus on him. That's over.

And it kind of exemplified what I've been hearing from senior Trump advisers, which is you know, they're still trying to adapt to this and figure out what the best way to go after Harris is.

Remember for the entire election cycle thus far, they really have had the same playbook going after an unpopular 81 year old man, and now they're trying to re-imagine that. And so I think we're going to continue to see Donald Trump workshopping some of these different lines in the weeks ahead -- Manu.

[08:05:07]

RAJU: Yeah, call it the kitchen -- kitchen sink strategy, that is. And I'm sure we'll see a lot more of that.

TREENE: Yeah.

RAJU: Alayna Treene from St. Cloud, Minnesota -- thank you for that.

And here with me to break this all down is a great panel this morning. Annie Karni from "The New York Times"; Astead Herndon also from "The New York Times"; "Reuters'" Jeff Mason, and Jasmine Wright from "NOTUS".

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining me.

So, Jeff, you were on the campaign trail with Kamala Harris last -- yesterday --

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: Yeah.

RAJU: -- when she was at this fundraiser. You heard the strategy there from the former president. Now, it's just pretty much all out effort to throw everything at her, try to define her in the way that he wants voters to see her.

How is the vice president dealing with the onslaught that is coming from Trump?

MASON: Well, one thing she said this last week that she didn't I don't think -- I heard the line come out of her of her mouth yesterday at this fundraiser, but one thing she said was, bring it on and you definitely got to bring it on energy from her. I mean, the crowd at this fundraiser was just delighted to see her.

She used a few lines from the stump speech that she's unveiled within the last several days about knowing his type, knowing who he is, having been a prosecutor, having been an attorney general. And then -- and then she brought out the new weird quote, which I think is resonating with people.

And I think that's all part of her strategy, is just to say, look, we are different. I'm happy to debate this guy. I'm happy to stand on my record and she's standing to some of the attacks that you were referencing. She's -- she's talking about her record.

Now they're going to delve deeper into that. They're going to delve deeper specifically into her record as vice president, which we all know from the first couple of years of her tenure, was sort of a shaky start. But she's going back further than that, talking about her time as a lawyer, talking about her time as a prosecutor and happy to put that up against a convicted felon.

RAJU: It'll be interesting because she has to -- she has this fine line, she's walking of sorts, right? She's trying to distinguish herself from Joe Biden as a candidate, although very much part of the Biden administration, of course. And just a sense where the race stands right now, according to just the overall top line, we'll dig a little bit deeper into the numbers in a second, but several polls out this past week as she's jumped in this race essentially tied right now.

I guess the big question that I have is that has she reached her peak in terms of this is where the race is going to be with him, is a polarized country. It is going to be neck and neck, or do the Harris team actually think that there's actually room to grow beyond, you know, 49, 48 type race?

JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS 2024 REPORTER: Well, I think if you would ask them, they would say it's only been seven days, right? So I think that theoretically, they believe that there is room to grow. There is room to expand their base. There is room to grow their pot of money and there's room to grow their volunteers.

I think if you've seen kind of those amazing numbers that they've been able to put up on the board, $200 million fundraising, 178 new thousand -- thousand new volunteers, X, Y, Z. So I think that they feel that there is room to grow.

But I do think that time is coming to pass when they should put out, or they have to put out these messaging points, they have to sit her down for a big interview. They have to do things to go beyond just that natural momentum and energy that we've seen over the last week to expand, to show voters who she is, to show voters how she would govern in these certain places. Now, I talked to one source over the last week who said, you know, we are trying to do that, and we're building the plane as it flies.

So I think that you're going to see more of these kind of notable, statements from her calling Donald Trump weird, saying, I know him, I know his type because I'm a former prosecutor. But then you're also going to see her expand in terms of policy. We've seen them put out statements on where she is on fracking. We've seen them put out statements on where she is on tax hikes.

So you're going to see those dribble out more and more. But time is of the essence for them. And so they're going to really have to put out more on the board. So those independents who feel like they don't know her finally might feel like her.

RAJU: And you make a good point about when she may actually do a big interview as well.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I think that's going to be an open question. That's some of the places where she's most struggled. Think of that Lester Holt interview --

RAJU: Yeah.

HERNDON: -- in the first couple of years.

RAJU: She didn't really do a lot of it.

HERNDON: And she shirked back from doing interviews partially because of that, and in reaction to that, I think that's a good point.

But I would also say maybe Donald Trump is the one who has hit his ceiling if we look at some of those numbers. He's the one coming out of the RNC. He's the one who just had, you know, you typically have the bounce. He's had as high as favorability in some time.

It was always the premise of the Democratic strategy here that as we get closer, some of the more extreme Trump statements and rhetoric and policy planks will lean in for people and that will cause him to get dragged down. That's always been possible, considering how far outside he and the kind of planks of his base are from the median voter. I think that's the reason Project 2025 has resonated with so many people like that.

But it's Harris who I think has the upside right now, still is going into the DNC, has a VP pick in her future, and then also when we look at the kind of voter numbers.

[08:10:01]

The people she has -- that Joe Biden was struggling to bring home are already people who are showing more interest in her, Black voters, low income voters, young people. These are all places which that ceiling can still grow.

RAJU: Yeah. And if you look at the numbers about the enthusiasm, there's clearly a lot more enthusiasm than there was for Joe Biden. And just -- you look at Harris, how she's doing versus Trump post- debate versus, you know, versus Biden. I should say, compared to Biden. She's down by three to Trump, according to the CNN poll, two in "The New York Times" poll, two in "The Journal" poll. You can see it was a healthier margin that Joe Biden was losing by to Donald Trump.

And then the enthusiasm gap much different. Many more voters are willing to support her because they are voting for Harris, 57-43 for Harris, that was a flip for Biden. More were saying they're voting for Biden simply because they wanted Trump nowhere near the Oval Office.

And then there's a larger question about what exactly is the map? What is -- how does Kamala Harris actually run and try to get to 270 electoral votes?

This was Joe Biden's path to victory in 2020 is where he ultimately got 306 electoral votes. And you look at the swing state polls right now, that also came out this past Friday from Fox News. She is ahead in that state of Minnesota where Trump was last night.

And every other race is a narrow -- very, very narrow, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, much different than the race when Joe Biden was in.

ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I think underneath the very close race, the polarized country where this is always going to be a tight race is, one, I think the numbers of people who are happy that Joe Biden dropped out and happy that the Democratic Party coalesced so quickly on Harris, are astronomical. And so, people are happy.

She has a line, also: we're running as the underdog. So I think that helps energize voters, energize people to get out there who think this is a close race. That helps her.

To Astead's point about Trump's ceiling, he just survived an assassination attempt and came out with what's a typical conventional -- convention bounce is what we're seeing in those numbers right now.

Harris, both, it's an unknown. This is a really unique situation. So it's both scary and a huge opportunity. We don't know like what her numbers could be. There's still so much enthusiasm.

As we said, if she starts to do the interviews, there are going to be hits. Could that come down?

Will the Trump campaign find a salient, attack on her? They are clearly trying to define her as far left. They are trying to veer away from these DEI charges, which have failed in the past, which even Republicans are trying to encourage people not to do, and focus that she is a far left San Francisco politician.

If that works, we don't know. She could come down.

RAJU: Yeah.

KARNI: But I think that the enthusiasm. No one has any regrets about dumping Biden for Harris, and people want to get behind this candidate.

WRIGHT: And I think if we're looking at the map one second, Manu, if we think we're looking at the map, they don't necessarily see their path as the path that Joe Biden took in 2020. I think that they're looking at states like Arizona, they're looking at states still like Pennsylvania, but also Georgia and Nevada, and hoping that potentially a VP candidate that would appeal to that more Middle America would be successful in those states that maybe Joe Biden was successful.

RAJU: And we're going to dig into the VP in a minute. I do want -- you're talking about the comments that people that have Kamala Harris in the past say, these are the kind of things that Republicans are already talking about, things that she said back in, especially in 2020 when she was running to become president, was courting the left flank of her party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NORAH O'DONNELL, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: You're considered the most liberal United States senator.

HARRIS: I -- somebody said that and it actually was Mike Pence on the debate stage.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you for defunding the police?

HARRIS: How are you defining defund the police? We need to re-imagine how we are achieving public safety in America.

Listen, I think there's no question that we've got to critically reexamine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing, and we need to probably think about starting from scratch.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, that's the stuff that she -- it'll be interesting to see. Does she stand by some of those things or clean them up?

MASON: Sure. And she'll have an opportunity to talk about that if she does sit down for an interview. And I think as everyone has been saying, even if it's -- if it's not an interview, right away, her campaign is very cognizant of the fact that she needs to start articulating some of the policy things that are her policy ideas in contrast to or in line with Joe Biden.

RAJU: Yeah.

MASON: And it's been seven days. I mean, the email address that the campaign is still at JoeBiden.com, they're -- they're still finding their feet a little bit on that. But I think we'll hear more about policy going forward.

RAJU: No question about it.

All right. Coming up next, it's not just President Trump scrambling to adjust after this wild week. I speak with lawmakers who are grappling with that seismic shift up and down the ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-NM): I have utmost confidence that she will carry the state.

RAJU: What does that mean for a race like yours? Would have been harder if Biden were on the top of the ticket?

[08:15:00]

HEINRICH: Yeah, it would have been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: The two parties are scrambling to adjust to the new reality of Kamala Harris as a presumptive Democratic nominee. For Democrats in swing states, they are confronting this decision whether to align themselves with Harris or stay away from her. And for Republicans, the question is how best to land a line of attack without alienating women and voters and minorities in America's suburbs.

Now, last night, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance were in Minnesota, a state that Biden won in 2020 and Trump narrowly lost in 2016. But is a state still within Trump's reach, with Harris at the top of the ticket. Brand new polling out this weekend shows Harris there, currently leading in Minnesota by six points.

[08:20:05] So has Trump modified his message in any way? My panel is back. I'll let you guys guess if he's modified his message to how he's courting voters. But this is just a taste of things that he had said over the last day, not just about Harris, just about his claim that he makes, which are questionable at best.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If they don't cheat, we win this state easily, okay? They cheat. They have no shame. They cheat.

Get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore, four more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.

If they win this election, every one of you will be gone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, Trump is Trump. He's not changing. It's a base election for him, no matter who is at the top of the ticket. Just the goal is, go after Harris, try to, you know, throw everything against her. See what sticks and then get the base out and hopefully narrowly eke it out.

HERNDON: Yeah. Every time we've asked the kind of question of Trump modifying his message, the answer is no, because that's not who he is. He wants to kind of put together this, I think, a vision of America that closely hews to the version of Trump we see at the rallies, the one that talks about this in the existential terms, saying if we -- if they lose this election, the country is over saying if they don't win, it's cheating.

It's the same type of messages we've seen from him consistently. And I think it's important to remember these are unpopular. I think there was a sense when Joe Biden was in the race that Donald Trump was this electoral lion, and that Joe Biden was the -- and that Joe Biden was weak, when reality, the numbers have told us that Trump has always been very vulnerable because messages like this are seen as extreme and seen as out of touch, and frankly, folks, you know, getting indicted a bunch of times isn't a good thing to be president.

And so I think now that that has been exposed with someone else on the top of the ticket, you see Trump kind of flailing to find a message. But in Minnesota, he is playing an old playbook. That was a place where, you know, Republicans were doing better in rural communities. That's the reason why things like 2016 was closer.

But as Minnesota and the suburbs around it have trended bluer and bluer, they've gotten further and further away to the point where you have a Tim Walz on Vice President Kamala Harris's VP list, who's been a fairly progressive governor and is popular for it.

RAJU: Yeah.

HERNDON: And so, Donald Trump is working in the past, and that very much plays into what Democrats are trying to do now with the past versus future message. They have are only hamstrung themselves by having Joe Biden be the vessel for that. Now they're free of it.

RAJU: Yeah. And the question is, does he actually try to change whether he's going to try to win a state like Minnesota? Now that Harris is at the top of the ticket? Well, it'll be interesting to see if there's a shift. I want to turn just quickly to the down ballot issue about how Democrats are dealing with this and grappling with the fact that they have a brand new nominee. Will they align with her? Will they run away with her?

This is how a couple of swing state demo Senate Democrats dealt with this question. When I posed it to them earlier this past week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: You're supporting her 100 percent, right?

SEN. BOB CASEY (D-PA): Oh yeah. We already said that Sunday.

RAJU: Why are you not endorsing Harris yet?

SEN. JON TESTER (D-MT): Because process -- we're in the middle of the process. It's not over.

RAJU: You're in the middle of the process?

TESTER: Yeah.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Jon, do you want me to block?

RAJU: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

RAJU: Can you tell him why he isn't endorsing Harris?

SCHUMER: I've got important news for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: That was Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, stepping in in front of Jon Tester, deciding that, you know, actually.

And if you didn't hear Tester clearly, he's saying that we're in the middle of the process. He would not endorse Kamala Harris.

KARNI: I think that overall, let's just be clear, Democrats in the House and the Senate are thrilled. They -- we both are on the Hill every day. I mean, they were in a deep depression over the Biden was going to not only lose the White House, but lose both chambers of commerce -- of commerce -- of Congress.

We've seen some excited. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, she did not campaign with Biden when he went there. She was with Harris when she went there. So some of them are excited that this will lift them up. Martin Heinrich, he was worried. He's a these second tier Democrats.

RAJU: Yeah. Suddenly, New Mexico is going to be in play potentially.

KARNI: Right. New Mexico, they worried that these second tier states were going to be in play. That should never be in play. They're back. They're excited about Harris.

But then we see some of the vulnerable Democrats, who have really tough races, kind of trying to stay out of it.

In the House, we've seen like a Jared Golden in Maine, a Mary Gluesenkamp-Perez in Washington state. These are the most vulnerable Democrats in the House, not wanting to say anything or trying to distance himself from her. I think they -- they, I mean, they don't want to be tied to a progressive candidate.

They have to take a more moderate stance. But I think overall, and -- Tester is a vulnerable senator, they don't want to be tied necessarily to progressive policies.

RAJU: And that is actually the question I put to the leaders of the campaign committees in the House this past week about whether or not they would actually try to, and the Democratic side, and -- will they run away?

[08:25:07]

Should they -- would they encourage their vulnerable members to run away with Harris? They stump with her and how the Republicans see it as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Is it a good idea for those vulnerable Democrats to align themselves with Kamala Harris?

REP. SUZAN DELBENE (D-WA): You know, our races have all been local races. They're about our candidates and the strength of our candidates.

RAJU: But you don't think this will be nationalized?

DELBENE: I think every on these congressional races, district by district, this is going to be about the candidates we have and how they're standing up for their communities.

REP. RICHARD HUDSON (R-NC): We're prosecuting them based on their votes.

RAJU: You're going to tie them to Harris.

HUDSON: We're going to tie them to the policies they voted for.

(END VIDEO CLIP) RAJU: What was interesting, as Annie was referring to, there were some House Democrats who voted with Republicans this past week on a resolution to criticize Kamala Harris over her role in immigration in the Biden administration. They were Democrats in the toughest races, aligning themselves with Republicans. So it shows you they're still calibrating the politics of their new reality here.

MASON: Absolutely. And on immigration, for what it's worth, she has an answer, and it's the answer that the White House has been saying for weeks. Or how long has it been since that last piece of legislation failed? I mean, she's she will talk about that, but it is a weakness for her. And there's no question that the Republican side is going to drill down on that and call her a failed border czar.

And, you know, they still have to work on -- on a strong line.

RAJU: Yeah.

MASON: In general, I think she's going to point to that piece of legislation that that the White House says Trump torpedoed.

RAJU: Yeah. What are you hearing about that? Because you've been covering the Harris campaign very closely. How is she going to deal with all these immigration attacks? We have not heard a ton from her about this yet.

WRIGHT: Right. Well, I think it's going to be incumbent on her to try to one refute the border czar title, say that I was never the border czar, that I was only dealing with. It's a very long explanation, but diplomatic efforts, concern with the root causes of migration --

RAJU: You can't really --

WRIGHT: -- border, blah, blah, blah.

RAJU: You can't really fit that on a bumper sticker.

(LAUGHTER)

KARNI: No, it's not that convincing that no, I wasn't the border czar. I was dealing with root causes. I don't know.

WRIGHT: But I think it's never been convincing. And that's why three years later, it is still an issue.

And if you remember back to 2021, this is not something that she wanted on her portfolio. Her office was really in a conflict with the West -- with the West Wing, on not giving her this immigration because they knew it was a loser. And now, three years later, here we are.

But I think that they're going to try hard to push back on it. Whether or not that actually works is up for debate, but I think that they're going to try to push very, very hard because they recognize that that is a vulnerable spot for them.

RAJU: And you're hearing the surrogates push back, but when does she start to talk more about that? There will be questions that will come up in the days ahead.

All right. Coming up this weekend, VP hopefuls are hitting the trail. So who has the edge as Harris narrows down the list?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:32:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: Vice President Harris' team has been undergoing one of the most accelerated VP vetting searches in modern American history. And within ten days, she will have to settle on a running mate who could help make or break her candidacy.

Now as the intense process unfolds behind the scenes her possible VP picks have been publicly auditioning on the airwaves this week and on the campaign trail this weekend, sharpening their attacks on Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. JOSH SHAPIRO (D), PENNSYLVANIA: You could not have a clearer contrast between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And let me tell you something. He's pretty afraid.

GOV. TIM WALZ (D), MINNESOTA: These are -- these are weird people on the other side.

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: Donald Trump seems to be drifting away from his own nominee because he's had so many weird views that he's expressed.

I mean, he's had the worst launch since Sarah Palin.

GOV. ROY COOPER (D), NORTH CAROLINA: Donald Trump is obviously worried.

GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D), KENTUCKY: J.D. Vance is a phony. He's fake.

SEN. MARK KELLY (D), ARIZONA: I have two daughters and a granddaughter. I really worry about their rights if Donald Trump is elected again and J.D. Vance is his vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So Jasmine, you've been doing a lot of reporting about just what Harris is thinking about.

JASMINE WRIGHT, NOTUS 2024 REPORTER: Right.

RAJU: And how she's evaluating it. You have a story that says, what is she looking for in a VP. And so a Democrat close to her and quote saying, "I think finding a balance defined in lots of different ways is going to be key. This is all going to be about the vibes at the end of the day.

So what did you take away from your reporting? WRIGHT: Yes. Well, I think maybe paramount among all other things is

that she wants somebody that she's comfortable with. She, I think enjoyed that relationship, particularly towards the end, even as in the first two years, her office and the West Wing had a lot of tension, she still enjoyed that relationship with President Biden.

Obviously, we heard him last week say I love you to her while she was at campaign headquarters. So she could -- she wants to mirror that. And I think that there are a couple of people on the short list like Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, like Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, that she has existing relationships with, which would be potentially a good place to look.

But I also told -- I was also told by a source close to her that she has told her advisors that she wants someone who can balance a ticket, that someone who has -- that someone that is more of a governing partner with the highest level of executive experience that is -- that could be a global leader really taking this quite seriously.

So I think that there are a couple of different ways that she is looking at this, but it is all influenced by the process that she went through three years ago and by her first two years in office.

One person close to her told me that she recognizes the best ways that she was utilized and the worst ways and she doesn't really want to repeat those mistakes that potentially those West Wing aides made with her.

RAJU: And just a reminder of who the people they're looking at, there's a list of the potential Harris running mates. Larger list, and there are several of those on the list. But who has got the edge?

[08:34:46]

RAJU: Maybe Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, maybe it's Roy Cooper, maybe its Mark Kelly, the senator from Arizona, maybe it's the governor of Minnesota, Governor Walz.

Who do you see as like -- that would obviously -- the objective number one is who will get her 270 electoral votes. If you're on the Harris camp right now, of those candidates who gets her there?

ASTEAD HERNDON, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I think the list itself is a tell. This is a collection of the most diverse set of white guys possible.

I think somewhat they were thinking about that in terms of balance. They were thinking in terms of the demographic noise here. But also when hearing Jasmine lay that out, that reporting, I'm reminded of some of the things we were hearing from President Biden as he was picking his own VP.

They often say, I'm looking to not repeat the mistakes. I'm looking to have someone who sets me up like this.

But the reality of the politics we know is that sometimes when, you know, folks are talking about looking for a governing partner, that was the same thing the Biden White House was using to say, we're looking for someone who's not going to make him look too old, right.

And so some of these things are ways to insulate the president from maybe a number two that could be seen as someone who can take over the party or things like that.

So I think what we're thinking of like a governing partner or Harris kind of stabilizing force, we should not just be thinking about the next four years, but potentially Harris is the person who's going to be leading the Democratic party for the next eight years.

And so I think that this is going to be seen in a long period of time and so I think that's the thing that we should be thinking about here is that relationship is going to matter because she is now set up for someone who is not just 2024, but if successful, will very likely be the Democratic nominee again in 2028.

This is a shift in the party and this new roster of people has been unleashed partially because I think a lot of Democrats were thinking they didn't have this back then. Where were these people?

They were there the whole time. It was just that they were not empowered because they were frankly being sent out to talk about a ridiculous message.

They were sent -- they were being sent out to defend a premise that wasn't really plausible. And so now that they have something that they can defend, I think you're seeing a roster of Democrats that people are frankly excited about.

RAJU: Yes. And who could actually run again for president next -- in four years if Harris comes up short.

HERNDON: Sure.

RAJU: So who's going to deliver some of the key states. One of the names of course, that's being buzzed about is the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro. Just look at the numbers from the Fox News poll, 61 percent favorability rating total among voters in that state. 52 percent of Independents support him as well according to that recent poll.

But how does the left deal with that. There are some issues including on the issue of school vouchers that he doesn't exactly align himself with the Democratic Party.

This was what one Congressman Maxwell Frost who was a top surrogate for the Biden campaign, supports Kamala Harris, said about Josh Shapiro.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAXWELL FROST (D-FL): Josh Shapiro has been really good on ending gun violence. I have some concerns around teachers and vouchers. My mom is a public-school educator. But I'm sure that's all being considered and whoever she picks is going to be the right person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: What do you think about it?

JEFF MASON, REUTERS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: So there's going to be pros and cons for everybody. And there are going to be things about each candidate that somebody within the party is probably not going to like.

A lot of that is being feathered (ph) out right now in the vetting process. And I know that the campaign has not made any decisions about weeding out amongst that big list.

They're still waiting for the vet to finish. But yes, there are going to be things that help and hurt certain candidates. I think one other aspect that is worth noting is they're probably also thinking about who's going to contrast with J.D. Vance. And I think that's one reason you're hearing them talk about executive experience and experience, period. Somebody who has -- has a governing record already that can be set up not only as someone who could succeed Vice President Harris or help Vice President Harris in office and be ready to govern day one.

But also have a record that stands up against this younger senator, who reportedly President Trump is perhaps regretting having put on the ticket.

ANNIE KARNI, CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": I was just going to say I don't think that picking someone who the left has concerns about is a problem. I mean, she's looking to balance the ticket.

The attack on her is going to be that she's this far-left prosecutor from San Francisco, from California, from this big blue state. She -- the list includes Mark Kelly as a moderate centrist. No one could accuse him of being left -- a lefty.

Like Andy Beshear is a red state governor with this big white family that -- he looks like a Republican, like that's what she wants here. So I think that criticism from someone like Maxwell Frost maybe is a plus.

RAJU: Yes. I mean that's good politics.

Yes, it's such a good point.

All right. We're going to see.

Up next, new insight of how voters are feeling about the Republican nominee for vice president, J.D. Vance, after some very bumpy first days on the trail. So what are Republicans saying?

[08:39:30]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Maybe the worst and most dishonest thing that Kamala Harris has done, and it is a long list, my friends, is that she helped cover up Joe Biden's declining mental capacity for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that was J.D. Vance last night ramping up attacks against Vice President Harris. But he's been forced to spend a chunk of his two short weeks on the ticket cleaning up old comments that are coming back to haunt him including on Friday when he was confronted by comments he made in 2021 where he criticized people in power who don't have kids.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made.

Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I've got nothing against cats. The substance of what I said, Megyn (ph), I'm sorry, it's true. It is true that we've become anti-family. It is true that the left has become anti-child.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:44:49]

RAJU: Enough to clean it up? I mean, saying the -- like the left is anti-child. That would affect (ph) a good swath of the country.

KARNI: This is sort of a disaster rollout, I think. I mean, he is spending -- it looks like -- it raises questions about like how much did the Trump campaign really do any vetting in their process?

J.D. Vance was picked at a peak moment for the Trump campaign where they thought that Biden would not drop out, where they did not pick a candidate to expand his appeal. They picked someone to carry out to be the next standard bearer of the MAGA movement and to play to the base.

Ironically, Tucker Carlson was one of the people really pushing for Vance and it's on his show that he makes this comment that is now going to turn off women voters.

This is and now they're pitted against Harris, who is, doesn't have children of her own, she's a stepmother. But this whole conversation of attacking Harris as a woman who is not -- didn't have her own children is not a great place for the conversation to be going when this is going to be about suburban women voters.

RAJU: Yes. I was about to say, probably not the best day when you're trying to win perhaps the most demographic her in the election.

(CROSSTALKING) KARNI: No. No. This is not -- this a bad conversation for Republic.

RAJU: You're talking about -- I want to read just part of what the conservative "Wall Street Journal" editorial board said about what you're saying about J.D. Vance being pegged and the concerns on the right on this issue.

"An old political saw is that the best VP choice is the one who gets applause upon announcement and then is never heard from again. You can tell that does not apply to Mr. Vance since Mr. Trump is being asked if he still believes he made the right choice.

He says he does, but the Trump campaign can't be happy about having to defend Mr. Vance instead of focusing on Kamala Harris' many extreme views."

MASON: Look, I mean, part of what's interesting about that question is those of us who've covered President Trump and for that matter the country that's watched President Trump knows that he's somebody who second guesses.

And comes back and thinks, oh, I shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have done that. So that, I mean it's fascinating that that question is even being asked.

But for sure it's not an ideal position for him to be in at a time when he did have some momentum going into that to the RNC and certainly a lot of sympathy after the assassination attempt.

And now you're talking about cat ladies.

RAJU: Yes.

MASON: That's not -- and the answer is I don't like -- I have nothing against cats. That's --

RAJU: It's pretty funny but it's not going to win you votes. Give you some votes.

MASON: Not ideal politically.

RAJU: Exactly.

So but look, there's still a good swath of the country who has really no opinion of J.D. Vance.

This is from a CNN poll from last week. 38 percent of registered voters have no opinion, have never heard of him. Independents even higher, 47 percent.

So look, obviously it's not a great rollout, but he's had time here to change the narrative about him and what he brings to the ticket.

HERNDON: Yes, the vision of J.D. Vance is not defined. The problem for J.D. Vance is as people see more of him, it's not clear that they like him more. And so those numbers could actually sink further and actually, I think intensified this sort of question.

You know, Republicans have a problem because what they -- what Vance represents is a part of the MAGA movement that has become completely engulfed in this kind of version of masculinity and this rhetoric about controlling women and their bodies. And it plays directly into what Democrats want to talk about in this election.

And I think even more than that, Vance is someone who is frankly untested on the national stage and represents, I think Trump's over- confidence in this race. His believed that he was running against a Biden that frankly had no electoral path. And all of that has been flipped on its head.

When we go forward, I think it's going to be an open question -- I mean, I actually would say this. Trump has done a lot of work to position himself on abortion in a different way from a lot of other Republicans. And what Vance does if you think even more than that is undo a lot of the work that Trump was trying to do over the past year.

And so now that he's embraced things like national abortion bans, that he's talked about kind of that thing at the forefront policy position of his it becomes much easier for media to ask Trump, ok, the things you've been saying about abortion for the last year-and-a-half still true or not. And so that's -- his messing him up on the policy front and on a kind of political front.

RAJU: Yes. Very quickly.

WRIGHT: Yes. And I think when you talk to people around Harris, they're kind of excited about this or giddy about these comments. Of course, they're offended by the childless cat lady comments and other more personal, more gender comments.

But they see that as a place for them to move forward, for them to push their own policy.

RAJU: I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about that from the Harris campaign. And if there is a vice-presidential debate.

All right. Bob Menendez announced this week he would resign his Senate seat. But why is a senator who is now a convicted felon still collecting a paycheck?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Bob Menendez does not belong here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:49:38]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: Senator Bob Menendez was convicted earlier this month on 16 charges in one of the most brazen bribery and corruption schemes in years. And for acting as an agent of the Egyptian government. So why is the New Jersey Democrat still a senator and collecting his taxpayer funded salary?

Now last week, Menendez did announced he would resign, but he said it would not take effect until August 20th.

In a letter obtained by CNN, Menendez claimed he wanted to allow for a quote, "orderly process" and to quote, "close out my senate affairs".

But as he has faced mounting legal bills, Menendez also has a financial incentive to stick around for an extra month, two more paychecks. In fact, Menendez has not even voted in the Senate since May 9, that's 80 days ago.

[08:54:49]

RAJU: Meaning by the time he collects his final paycheck on August 20th, it will have been more than three months since the senator came to Washington to do his job. U.S. senators, of course, make $174,000 per year.

Now, his Democratic colleagues say Menendez should resign immediately. But the Senate is not planning to vote to expel him ahead of his resignation date next month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Does it concern you that he's still collecting a paycheck around here?

SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): I have been calling on him to resign for a long time and I wish he were doing it more promptly.

RAJU: He's still collecting a paycheck here. Is that appropriate?

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Well, I think I called on bob to resign a while ago.

WARREN: Bob Menendez does not belong here. He should resign immediately. He has been convicted of corruption and there is no place for him in the United States Senate.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): He needs to resign. Yes, he needs to.

RAJU: What about waiting a month.

KAINE: We're not -- we're not in session after next week, so it's sort of --

RAJU: He's still collecting a paycheck.

KAINE: We're not in session after next week. There's no Senate business that will happen after next Thursday.

RAJU: But it's a paycheck, but he's getting a paycheck.

KAINE: I hear I hear what you're saying. I've answered your questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Menendez's office did not respond to our request for comment. He has said he plans to appeal his conviction.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X at mkraju. Follow the show at INSIDE POLITICS.

If you ever miss an episode, you can catch up wherever you get your podcast, just search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. Jake's guests include Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tom Cotton, as well as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. And we'll see you next time.

[08:56:25]

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