Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Harris, Walz Appear Together A Energetic First Play; New Poll: Harris Leads Trump By 3 Points, Within Margin Of Error; Republicans Attack Walz As A "Left-Wing Radical"; Harris And Walz Kick Off Battleground State Blitz; Trump: I'll Debate Harris "In The Pretty Near Future"; Weird Vs Normal Debate Spreads To Key Senate Race. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 07, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, taking Minnesota nice on the road. The new Democratic ticket is heading to two crucial swing states. Kamala Harris hopes coach Tim Walz will give her a blue-collar boost, while Republicans try to paint her running mate as a left-wing radical.

Plus, will there be another debate? Donald Trump is changing his tune, saying he'll debate Vice President Harris in the quote, pretty near future. But can the campaigns actually agree on the details? And the squad is shrinking. Again, Cori Bush will be the second of its members to lose a primary this year. Now she's vowing revenge against a pro- Israel group that boosted her opponent.

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

We start in the must win state of Wisconsin, where Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will be arriving shortly. Likely trying to channel the energy and excitement we saw last night in Philadelphia as they appeared for the first time as running mates. And while the Democratic ticket travels from swing state to swing state, the Republican ticket is trying out attack lines on Harris's new VP pick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (voiceover): This is a ticket that would want this country to go communist immediately, if not sooner. He's very heavy into transgender, anything transgender he thinks is great, and he's not where the country is on anything.

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a guy who wants to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens. This is a guy who wants to take children away from their parents if those parents don't consent to sex changes for minors.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: CNN's Eva McKend is in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where Harris and Walz will speak before heading to Michigan for another rally. Eva?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, they are here to outline the choices facing voters here in the blue wall. They are hoping that by deploying their Midwesterner to talk to other Midwesterners, that he can make the argument. Then listen, that Republican ticket headed up by Donald Trump, they are not like us. A Republican administration would weaken unions, a Republican administration would pursue tax cuts for the wealthy, and that a Harris, Walz administration would be principally concerned about the people like you in this crowd.

Dana, it's really instructive to look at the policies that the governor pursued in Minnesota, a generous Child Tax Credit, free college tuition for families making under $80,000 a year, as well as expanding the supply of affordable housing. He was able to sell that to swing state voters, and so they are hoping that he can replicate that here.

And then I'll leave you with this, Dana. I have had the opportunity to talk to some college students here in Eau Claire, and they told me that many of them are actually from Minnesota. Many of them are from Illinois, Michigan. They're from all over. So, this idea that he can speak to voters across the region, they say, is really a smart strategy. Now, after this Wisconsin rally, they head on over to Michigan, and then they go to Phoenix and end the week in Las Vegas. Dana?

BASH: Eva, thank you so much for that. And we got our first look at how the Democratic ticket will campaign together. That happened last night when Vice President Harris and Governor Walz spoke at one of the most energetic rallies Democrats have seen in years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S., (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We love our country. And I believe it is the highest form of patriotism to fight for the ideals of our country. Do we believe in the promise of America? And are we ready to fight for it?

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Even if we wouldn't make the same choice for ourselves, there's a golden rule, mind your own damn business. You came here tonight to sit at the very top because you love this country and you're not going back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: A tiered for the nose leads here with me now are some terrific reporters, CNN's David Chalian, CNN and Bloomberg's Nia-Malika Henderson, and CNN's Alayna Treene. Hello everybody. Nice to see you in person again. Been on the road a little bit.

Let's just do a snapshot of where this race is according to a brand- new Marist poll. No clear leader. I mean, it says 51 to 48, but if you look at the margin error, it's anybody's race right now, David?

[12:05:00] DAVID CHALIAN CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah. I mean, listen, Kamala Harris has snapped this race back into contention. A race that was slipping away from the Democrats just -- I don't know, 17, 18, days ago when Joe Biden was still the Democratic nominee. It is head spinning when you think about. It's only been two and a half weeks. And this is an entirely new race and that is the problem for Donald Trump.

I mean, this is -- this is the reality. If indeed -- and we'll see how the American people sort of respond to this in the fall. But if indeed, the truism that presidential elections are really about the future and not about the past.

What the Democrats have done here by ridding themselves of their unpopular incumbent president and putting together a ticket of new faces and new energy that is enthusing the Democratic base has set up this contrast now of -- they are pointing towards the future, and Donald Trump is literally arguing to restore a previous administration.

And so that now is the dynamic in which this contest will take place, and that is why you hear the Trump team working so hard to paint this new energized Democratic ticket as outside the mainstream of American politics, as far too left and far too liberal to be able to appeal to the widest swath of Americans.

So, will this be decided on ideological grounds? Or will this be decided on the notion of the future versus the past? That is -- I don't have the answer to that question yet, but I think that is the question that will be put before people this fall.

BASH: No question, because you mentioned it. And I mean the way that Republicans are trying to figure out how to characterize this ticket as it is now formed. Let's listen to some of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TOM EMMER (R-MN): This guy who tries to come across as the affable Midwesterner, is a left-wing radical.

GOV. DOUG BURGUM (R-ND): Minnesota is the California in the Midwest.

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): They put in this guy Walz, who's basically an Illinois style, very leftist Democrat.

VANCE: Selecting Tim Walz is another sign that she doesn't care what the American people think. She is only in this to obey the far-left radicals within her own party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Nia?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, POLITICS & POLICY COLUMNIST, BLOOMBERG & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Listen, good luck. It certainly sounds like almost every presidential campaign that Republicans have run over the last 20, 30, years, right? San Francisco liberal, soft on crime, soft on immigration. You know, they're mixing in the idea that this guy is too pro trans kid, because his state is a place where trans kids can get gender reassignment surgery.

We'll see if it works. I mean, I think their worry is they do have to sort of attach him to Ilhan Omar to make these --

BASH: Who's in Minnesota.

HENDERSON: Who's in -- he's in Minnesota. They have to attach her because she's brown, because she's Muslim and she's a Minnesotan, because he's this affable white guy. He's coach, right? He has all of these sort of -- sort of attributes that make this a hard argument for them to make.

Listen, it was also a hard argument to make with Joe Biden, right, because he was an old and affable white guy and a family guy. So, they're going to try to make it stick. I think it's going to be really hard because again, this guy is like your friendly neighbor. He's like Mr. Rogers or something. So, we'll see how it works.

The other thing is, the candidates they have on the other side aren't great, right? This is a campaign that sort of works when it's a normal Republican, right? Donald Trump is not a normal candidate. He's 81 years old. He was sort of the architect of January 6.

CHALIAN: He's only 78.

HENDERSON: He's 78 -- he's 78, sorry. You're right, 81 is the other guy, but he's almost. So, I think it's going to be harder for them. They're completely back on their heels. You see, Donald Trump has one campaign event, I think this week in Montana. He was talking to Fox News. I don't know if he's in his pajamas in his basement, but he's certainly not making how campaign appearances that you would think one would need to make at this point in the campaign.

BASH: Yeah. So, let's hear about what you're hearing from your sources. You cover the Trump, now Trump, Vance campaign for us. And it does appear as though, understandably, that they are trying to kind of work through how do we approach this new ticket because it's only 24 hours old?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Absolutely. And it's not just that, it's only 24 hours old. But remember, it's only been a couple of weeks now since Biden ended his campaign. And it's been very clear from my conversations with senior Trump officials that they are still struggling on how to define her. And that they are struggling on which attacks work best against her.

And what I've been told from my conversations yesterday with them is that they do see Walz and her announcing him as her running mate, as a new opportunity to try and define them together as one ticket. And what they're trying to do is say, he has only pushed the ticket farther to the left.

[12:10:00] Now, I do think they -- as you mentioned, will have some trouble with that. If you look at his record in Congress, his 12 years in Congress, he did some very bipartisan things. He voted with Republicans to strengthen the border. He tried to push down the national deficit. He was backed by the NRA, although they later pulled that support.

But what I'm told is, they're really going to be harping on his last four years -- the record over the last four years, and what he's been doing as a governor. Where he was? I'd argue, far more progressive with, you know, enshrining abortion rights into law, having that gender -- protecting gender affirming care, universal gun background checks, all of that. But to your point, I do think it's still a struggle. They really do not know what is the best way to attack them.

BASH: Well, he came in to Congress, and Tim Walz was elected in 2006, came in a 2007 beating a Republican in a moderate district, representing that particular district. Now he's the governor of the entire state with a barely, but as a Democratic legislature, so he has the opportunity to push through some policies that would be different from what he had to deal with.

CHALIAN: Some of those policies that you mentioned that they're on their list. But enshrining abortion rights, universal background checks, they actually

(CROSSTALK)

CHALIAN: They may be on the progressive list, but they are quite popular.

BASH: Right. Well, I'm glad that you said that because if you look at his appeal, let's just stay with Minnesota, right? Because that's all we have to go on here. If you look at 2012 and 2016, Obama and Trump counties, OK. These are the counties that Obama, Trump and Walz won, all of those. Then if you look at 2022, he won two of those counties, only Blue Earth, which is his home county, as you pointed out, and Nicollet.

So, there are lots of things that happen between then and between 2012 and 2016 and 2022, the riots in Minneapolis and so forth. Also, he became much more well known because he was running for a statewide seat. But what does that tell you about what they hope he can do to appeal to these kinds of voters in other states that are battleground states.

CHALIAN: Yeah. I mean, he had a larger margin of victory in 2018 when he ran statewide, than he did in his reelect in 2022. And you can see, he has had proven appeal, obviously even more so in the Republican leaning district with independents and some Republicans because you don't win a district like that without that.

I mean, when -- you know, so they are hoping he can take some of that appeal and sell that properly, but they're not -- my sense from the campaign is that that is not on a policy ground, that that is going to be the whole coach thing that we are going to hear a lot of, you know his line yesterday, never underestimate teachers, right? This is something you're going to hear time and again, because a teacher like him, a high school teacher, also coach. That's something very familiar to every -- literally, every American across the country. And yes, there are some teachers you don't like for your kid, or some teachers, you really that your kid loves or whatever.

But everybody can understand what that is. That's a relatable figure. That's why, when Barack Obama put out a statement, and he said the guy talks like a human being, yeah, I thought it was so revealing, because it's like, yeah, most of these people we cover don't.

BASH: No. Yeah. Well, that's Dean Phillips was on the show yesterday, saying that his superpower is that he's normal. Now, Republicans, of course, will push back on the question of, what does normal mean based on his policies. But you're right. It is all about communicating an appeal for him right now.

HENDERSON: Yeah. And you saw that on display yesterday at this rally where he said, you know, the golden rule is to mind your own damn business, and that's why he was picked, right? He was on cable news in the weeks before this pick in sounding very normal. He went viral on Twitter. And I think, you know, he is going to resonate with a wide swath of Americans, particularly older white Americans.

If you look at Biden strengths initially, to the extent that he was in this race, he was -- because he was doing well among some of these older white Americans who might have questions about whether or not they want to back a brown woman, quite frankly. And so, they have this validator in Tim Walz, somebody who looks like them and sounds like them.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, in that you just made me think of something else, which is, he's not the candidate. It is Kamala Harris. And people are going to vote on her. He's going to be the validator.

Everybody standby, because first he would, then he wouldn't. Now things appear to be back in limbo. Donald Trump takes a new position on whether he will debate Kamala Harris. Plus, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is my guest. And we'll talk about how Tim Walz can help Democrats in her critical swing state.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Donald Trump signaled this morning that he's likely to make a deal with Kamala Harris to debate next month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (voiceover): I don't know how she debates. I heard she's sort of a nasty person, but not a good debater. But we'll see, because we'll be debating her. I guess in the pretty near future, it's going to be announced fairly soon, but we'll be debating her. I think it's important for the country that we debate. Now where it is, you know, I'm all for Fox. I'd like to see it on Fox. I think Fox would do a really good job. But the two people have to agree.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:20:00]

BASH: It was just a few days ago that Trump threatened to reject any debates with Harris unless she agreed to do it on Fox. Harris said, no. Alayna, what are you hearing from inside the campaign about their thoughts on this? I mean, it sounds like, now he does want to do it, which makes sense. But is it that he wants to do it or that he's more afraid of what would happen if he says no, and avoids it?

TREENE: I think he actually does want to do it, from my conversations with Trump's team. And this has been honestly, since it was clear that she was going to become kind of the torch bear following Biden's exit and he does genuinely want to debate her. He does actually believe that he has an obligation. He thinks that it would show a good contrast. Now, whether all of his team agrees with him is another thing.

But I do think what we saw in that interview with him this morning is that he leaving the door open now to not having it or needing it to be on Fox News. Over the weekend, he said, I will not debate Harris unless she shows up to the September 4 Fox News debate, which Harris had never agreed to.

At the end of it, it is interesting to see, because they're both using these as lines of attack. What Donald Trump is trying to do, and his campaign has tried -- been trying to do since the trying to do since this weekend, is argue that -- she's not agreeing to this Fox News debate because she's afraid. She's afraid that the questions will be harder and all of that that comes with it.

The Harris campaign on for their part, are saying what happened to anytime, anywhere, any place. Now, Trump's response to this, and I think he genuinely believes this, is that that was an agreement that he had with Joe Biden. That does not mean that he agreed to that with Harris. But at the end of the day is the question of, will you actually debate?

I don't think there's any question that they view a debate with Harris as being far more concerning than a debate with Biden, particularly after what we saw in June. But I do actually think that they want to have this debate. The question is, on what terms?

BASH: So, there's the debate over the debate, and then there is the content of what they are still trying to kind of figure out on both sides. We talked a little bit about it in the last segment, and you framed it really well about going forward and going backwards. But when you look at the policies and the approach of both of the tickets.

I think it was Van Jones who was talking last night about the -- he framed it as negative populism, or maybe the approach -- the populist approach to fear on the Republican side. And the happy populism that you see emerging even more that Tim Walz is on the ticket on the Democratic side. Who knew that populism was going to be -- forgive me, so popular?

CHALIAN: Well, I think anybody. There has been a populist streak coursing through American politics for the better part of a decade now, in a more robust way. I mean, you all remember, in 2016 we talked a lot about the bizarre overlap at sometimes between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. And there were some people -- there were some voters we would be talking to that were sort of deciding between those two during the primary season, and it was because of this populist streak.

Now, I obviously, Walz is leaning into the whole joy thing. He thanked his first line last night to Kamala Harris was, thanking her for bringing the joy back. And there's no doubt that Democrats are feeling joyous in this moment. And I think it speaks to the contrast of what they were feeling for the better part of the last year.

But I do think Donald Trump's populistic populism policies are a little more fleshed out than I believe we know what the Harris, Walz sort of policies will be. I think it's to be determined how truly populist their approach would be to the economy, certainly not. I don't think, to foreign affairs. So, I think there, you know, will get that fleshed out overtime.

HENDERSON: You know, in some of this populism is about being an outsider versus an insider, right? And somebody like Walz, he can sort of claim that because he's a Midwesterner. He grew up in Nebraska small town, a farm boy, and then Kamala Harris, because of who she is, because of her background, she's sort of claiming that too.

We'll see what their actual policies are. I don't think this is going to be an election determined on policies at all. Very rarely our campaigns and elections, presidential elections, determined on policies. They're determined on emotions and feelings.

And I think you are going to have a contest over what feelings people are trying to invoke. Is it fear? Is it anger? Is it hatred? Or is it joy and uplift in unity. And you hear Kamala Harris talk about this in her speeches. This idea of what kind of country are we going to be? Are we going to be about lawlessness and anger and fear, or are we going to be about unity in the rule of law?

CHALIAN: We've seen both approaches work.

HENDERSON: Yeah. No, it's true. I think that's right.

BASH: It is Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

HENDERSON: Exactly, exactly. But both emotions and those are what's going to determine, where Americans want to be. We'll see in November.

TREENE: And it is funny, though, I will say, as much as it does seem like to both of your points, that really the Harris and now the Harris, Walz's campaign are not focusing on policy. That is what Donald Trump's team want them to do. That is, I mean --

[12:25:00]

(CROSSTALK)

TREENE: We know that Donald Trump struggles with that. I think it's very clear when he has speeches and he's supposed to talk about --

BASH: --and ABJ. Yeah.

TREENE: He goes off script, but that's actually what they're going to be deploying Vance to do. That is really what his top priority is. What they have assigned him to do is to talk about policy, specifically, of course, the areas like immigration, crime, inflation, the ones where they think Republicans do better.

But you've seen him. Even today, he was in Michigan first. He will be in Wisconsin later. Talking about immigration and really making his whole speech about Harris and immigration, really not even spending much time going after Walz.

BASH: I want to ask you about a down ballot race in Michigan where the Democratic ticket is going to be today. Now it is now set. The Senate race is now set. Mike Rogers on the Republican side. Elissa Slotkin on the Democratic side, former congressman, current Congresswoman. Listen to their approaches last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: For everyone who believes our country is better than our current politics, I ask you to give me a shot. My message is simple, join us on team normal.

FMR. REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: They just want normal. They want their border closed. They want their community safe. They want the drug trade stopped.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So is this Midwestern or is this Tim Walz's already having a huge impact on the lexicon of politic.

CHALIAN: But you can tell them that they're running in a very divided battle graph state.

BASH: Yeah. Would you see the use of the word normal?

CHALIAN: Yes. But what I mean by that is, they know that -- you know, they've got to avoid being labeled or running in any way that could be determined to be the extreme or the edge or the fringe. And so, when you hear both the Democrat and the Republican really trying to own normalcy, you know, you're in a place where the extreme will be a big, huge negative for them, and battleground Michigan is exactly that kind of place.

BASH: OK, everybody standby. Coming up. We are going to talk about another big race that happened yesterday, another blow for the squad. Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush becomes the second member to lose a primary this year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:00]