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Trump Back On Campaign Trail As Allies Beg Him To Stay On Message; Trump's Lead On Economy Has Shrunk Since Biden Dropped Out; Walz Defends Milary Record; "I Am Damm Proud Of My Service"; Trump Calls Harris' Rise "Unconstitutional" And A "Coup"; Trump Attacks On Harris STR Fears He'll Question Election Outcome; Emhoff: Republicans Will Engage In "Shenanigans"; Trump Struggles To Stay On Message As He Slips In Battlegrounds. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today on Inside Politics, dollars and cents. Donald Trump heads to North Carolina today for a speech. His advisers say, we'll focus on the economic failures of the Biden, Harris administration, at least that's what his campaign hopes he'll focus on.

Plus, why are African American men drifting away from the Democratic Party? Our friend Zolan Kanno-Youngs is here to share his reporting on a growing gender divide and what he calls the elephant in the room. Black men who hesitate about voting for a black woman. And are Republicans already laying the groundwork to claim the election is stolen. We're going to look at some of the language Trump is using about how Harris became the nominee.

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

A shot of good economic news this morning, and anything that's good for your pocketbook is good for the Harris campaign. The inflation rate fell to 2.9 percent, the lowest in more than three years. That makes it more likely the Fed will lower interest rates next month, which means lower rates for mortgages, car loans and credit cards.

But while prices may be rising more slowly, they are still rising. And they're almost 20 percent higher than when Joe Biden took office. Voters remain sour on the economy, which Republicans see as the key to their victory. Later today, Donald Trump will be in North Carolina, where he says -- where his advisers rather say that he will zero in on what they call the Biden, Harris administration's economic failures.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in Asheville, North Carolina. And Kristen, you've got some great new reporting on what to expect, at least according to the campaign from Donald Trump today.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. That's right, Dana. So, we're here in Asheville, and it is very important to note they are not billing this as a rally. They are billing this as a speech. We have seen pictures of inside the venue. It is not standing room. These are a seated speech. And yes, there is room for hundreds of people, but it is not your typical kind of ramped up rally atmosphere.

And the reason why I am told they are doing this, it's the beginning of a series of these events that's going to be a little smaller, again, not a rally, but build a speech that is particularly focused on policy. As you noted, this one is supposed to be focused on the economy. We also expect these kind of speeches to be focused on immigration or crime. All of the issues that Donald Trump's team believes will help him win back the White House in November.

But of course, as you mentioned, the big question is whether or not Trump himself can stay on message? Of course, his campaign can say over and over again that these are the issues that are going to help him win in November. But if he stays away from those issues, then there's the big question mark.

And we have heard now from allies. Steve Contorno and I did a piece last night, talking to these allies about why they are so concerned right now. And what they are saying is they're concerned for a number of reasons.

One, they believe that Donald Trump is promoting fringe theories. They believe that it's possible that this could continue happening, particularly because they think he's more susceptible when he's in a place of vulnerability. Obviously, what we have seen in the recent weeks with Biden coming off of the ticket, the rise in poll numbers for Harris, the rise enthusiasm around Harris. That is a position of vulnerability.

The other part of this is they believe it distracts from the narrative. Take, for example, when we saw Donald Trump in Atlanta, Georgia. That was an opportunity for him to reach Georgia voters. Instead, he spent a lot of that speech attacking Governor Brian Kemp, something that his own allies told me upset them. Kemp is a very popular Republican governor in a state that Donald Trump needs to win.

So, what his team is focused on, and what the people around him are telling him is that the most important thing that he can do right now is stay on message. And that is why we are told he is going to be doing these kind of various events, Dana.

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BASH: Thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it, Kristen. I want to bring in some other smart reporters on this and other stories we're talking about today. The Boston Globe's Jackie Kucinich, Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times, and Catherine Lucey of The Wall Street Journal.

I just want to say, we obviously got the purple menu -- memo, I should say. I have butterfly envy, and there's a debate. And yeah, you can tell us at home whether Catherine's jacket is purple or blue, but I'm going to go with purplish blue.

Back to the important issue at hand that Kristen just set up so well for us, which is what the Trump campaign is hoping that he accomplishes today in North Carolina. By the way, North Carolina being a state that -- I don't know four weeks ago, they thought they pretty much had locked up, and now the Democrats are hoping that it's in play for Kamala Harris.

So, what are you hearing, Jackie, from your sources about the goals inside the Trump campaign on this critically important issue, the economy?

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: When you talk about Republicans, and I think Kristen got to this. They say this should be a very easy pitch to make to voters. They say, you know that based on inflation, based on her role in the White House, and based on some of the things that she said when she was running in 2019. This is someone. And you've seen it. You see it in some of the ads that are running from Trump and his allies.

This should be someone. That should be very easy to put in, kind of the liberal box, right? And someone who is backing policies that might not be working. However, they're candidate is former President Trump. And he is -- he can stick on a teleprompter, and maybe he will today. But the problem is, the minute that those words get taken away, he fills it in with his own words, and those aren't necessarily helpful to the larger goal of winning the election.

BASH: I want to play a little bit of what Trump has said on this issue of the economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to get rid of inflation. Inflation has hurt the Hispanic population so badly, but it's hurt everybody. But the people that you, largely your listeners, have been horribly hurt with inflation. Inflation has been caused to a large extent in terms of the region by the United States's policy on energy, and we're going to drill baby drill. She's never going to do anything about inflation. She has no idea. She doesn't even know what it means. The word it means.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Catherin, there's whole debate about the whole question of drilling and whether that really does have any impact on inflation. Most people say, it's not really related, but that's a whole other conversation. This just on the raw politics of this. Again, if the Biden -- excuse me, the Trump campaign had a candidate that focused for the most part on that, they would be thrilled.

CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Yes. I mean, polling shows that while Kamala Harris has improved on Biden's numbers a lot, Trump still does better on the economy. People trust him more on the economy, and that's been true this whole time.

BASH: I don't want to interrupt you, but because you brought it up, I do want to put on the screen exactly what you screen exactly what you're discussing, the polls. We see Trump was up plus nine on the question of the economy in a Marist Poll, now only up plus three at New York Times/Siena poll, in May 22 percentage points he was up, and now just nine. Please continue.

LUCEY: So, it's not -- he's not doing as well against Harris as he was against Biden, but he's still -- this is still a really strong issue for him. Voters still trust him on it. And every minute, I think his advisers feel, every minute he is spending, talking about the economy, hitting Harris on inflation and tying her to Biden's policies, which are, you know, have been unpopular voters. That's effective. Less effective, obviously, is a lot of what he does spend his time talking about. So, the question is, can he focus on this?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That's the problem, right? He hasn't spent every minute trying to attach or even a majority, I mean, often in terms of staying on message and trying to attack the political vulnerabilities of what was the Biden, Harris agenda. The economy, and I would put immigration there as well.

When you look at the polls, he has not been able to continue to just stay on message. Discipline isn't something we associate with the former president often when it comes to politics. I think we all knew that. So instead, you see him sort of attacking crowd sizes, and you know, he's saying -- making false accusations about the crowd sizes of Kamala Harris or looking to insult her name, the pronunciation of her name.

LUCEY: Biden is the candidate -- Harris is now the candidate, not running as Biden. He's spending a lot of time on grievances.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Overall, this campaign really hasn't been one about policy thus far. I would say that for both, both camps at this point.

BASH: Yeah. Well, the thing about the economy or really any issue is that it doesn't happen on one side in a vacuum. The other campaign does have an argument to make as well. We haven't seen a fulsome economic plan from Kamala Harris yet. We expect to get -- have a speech, which will presumably give us a lot of information on Friday. But in the meantime, her running mate, Tim Walz, gave a speech at AFSCME, a very large union, yesterday talked about the economy.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), 2024 VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He sets there and tell his friends, you're rich as hell and we're going to cut your taxes. I believe him when he says that, but he also turns around and tells workers, their wages are too high. And I'll tell you what. I think there's a lot of people think that they're on his side or voting for him. That when you put it to him like that, they start thinking things differently.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KUCINICH: That's one of the reasons that Tim Walz was picked, right? He's someone that can speak very plainly and speak to unions. And listen, Trump did himself no favors on that Elon Musk call the other day, where he started going after or praising Elon Musk for how he treats people who want to unionize. So again, like the Democrats are pitching a very pro Union message, but they're being helped by the Republican side because of Trump's off the cuff comments.

BASH: Yeah. It's Union, but it's also about the disparity between who gets textile class message --

LUCEY: It's a middle class message --

(CROSSTALK)

LUCEY: You're hearing a lot about paid leave --

BASH: Exactly.

LUCEY: Family policies. I mean, a lot of it is just a shift in emphasis that we're seeing from her. It's the same policies that Biden was advocating, but we're seeing -- or talk more about that, talk about her background as a prosecutor, talk about how she go after price gouging. So really aiming, I think, outside of policies that affect middle class families and bail pocketbooks.

BASH: Yeah. And you know, you're talking about -- and we're all kind of making the point rightly so, that Donald Trump is not the most disciplined candidate in the world. I do remember in 2016 between like Labor Day and the -- and the election that his people said, you've got to stay on message. And for the most part, again, this is in the context of Donald Trump and his world. He did it. So he is able to do it. It just -- I guess, depends on his head space.

I just want to switch to a very different topic, which is the attacks that Tim Walz has been getting on his military record, served for 24 years in the National Guard and the Republicans, specifically J. D. Vance, who also is a veteran has been saying that he lied about his record, something that the Harris campaign has said that he misspoke when he said that he used a weapon in war, he wasn't in war.

For the first time, we really saw Tim Walz try to explain and kind of speak to the attacks on him that happened yesterday as well. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALZ: I serve for the next 24 years, for the same reason, all my brothers and sisters in uniform do. We love this country. Then in 2005, I felt the call of duty again. This time of being service to my country in the halls of Congress. I am damn proud of my service to this country. And I firmly believe, you should never denigrate another person's service record.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: Jackie, when I spoke to J. D. Vance in your great home state of Ohio over the weekend. He said something similar to what he posted after that comment on social media, which is, I support your service. I thank you for your service. It's not about that. It's things that you didn't say that was truthful, and we'll talk about it on the debate stage.

KUCINICH: And I think that's probably where this will continue to be litigated, right? I mean, Tim Walz has been attacked for this in the past in different campaigns, and has managed to answer it. It's just -- if the answer is going to be good enough to the armed services community, right? I mean, that's who -- and that's the real question. I mean, the J. D. Vance and the Trump campaign came out with this early and have successfully, politically made this an issue for the Harris campaign to wrestle with.

BASH: It's going to be interesting to see the two of them on stage together about a whole host of issues. Everyone standby. Up ahead, unconstitutional and a coup. Donald Trump is already laying the groundwork for saying the election was rigged. If he loses, we are going to look at that rhetoric and the danger that comes with it. Next?

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[12:15:00]

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BASH: Donald Trump has been indicted twice over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And some of his recent attacks on Vice President Harris and how she became the Democratic nominee are stirring fears that he's laying the groundwork to try to do it again.

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TRUMP: This was a coup. This was a coup of a president of the United States. Actually, they forced him out. It was a coup. We had a coup. That was the first coup in the history of our country and it was very successful. She was the first one out, and that you can then be picked to run for a president seems -- seems to me, actually unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back now. I'm not a lawyer, but I do have a broad sense of the constitution. And I don't think the constitution says anything about political parties or how a nominee should be picked in a political party, which is exactly what the whole story within Biden and Harris. Biden going out and Harris being put in there.

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OK. OK, all right. So, just putting that aside, let's look at the big picture. Because every time I hear him or people who are allies of Donald Trump say coup or say, you know, I spent $100 million on Joe Biden. And look there, it was sort of a bait and switch. I think, oh, oh, what happens if he loses? Is this going -- is he telling us ahead of time what he's going to do after election day, just as he did in the 2020 election?

KANNO-YOUNGS: This to me, is almost the latest iteration in what we've seen for the past couple years now. The former president hasn't stopped in trying to sow doubt in Democratic systems in the elections and the integrity of elections, are really since the 2020 election, right? And now you see the latest iteration, which is trying to look -- basically put the focus on Kamala Harris now being at the top of the ticket as well.

You heard him use words like coup, what have you. But as you say, there's nothing in the constitution that backs that up, you know, obviously. And there's a process in place that is now playing out. They're going to follow that process in the DNC as well.

But I see this as just the latest step in something that I remember, the FBI and homeland security warning about, after DHS saying that continuing to make false statements about the election and the election process will have a ripple effect, and will have a negative ripple effect when it comes to perceptions across the country and people's trust in Democratic systems.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, look, he's pissed. He was running against Joe Biden and doing very well, and now he's not running against Joe Biden and this is how he reacts. Yeah.

LUCEY: He was ahead in the polls. He felt very good. And they had a plan to run against Biden, and that that's what he was doing. And then he's seen this huge shift, and this huge momentum shift, and so many things are clearly frustrating him, her crowds, the rally sizes. He take -- he puts a lot of stock in those things. So, they're seeing these big crowds come out, seeing the enthusiasm, seeing the airport hangar pictures like, those things are all clearly getting under his skin.

BASH: So that's the rhetorical angle of this. And then there's the what is happening on the ground in some of these key states that will determine the election. Georgia is an example. There is a new election rule in Georgia passed by the state election board. Counties now have leeway to delay reporting of the votes that come in. Election boards can demand more information and conduct inquiries before certifying results.

And in addition to that, if you listen carefully to that very long rally that the former president did in Georgia last week, it might have gotten missed because the focus was on him trashing the Republican governor. But he was praising three Republican board members who were appointed to their jobs this year, saying that they're on fire, that they're pit bulls for transparency, honesty and victory. And it made some people go, OK, so you working the refs here a little bit. KUCINICH: Well, the Democrat on that panel warned of how this could be misused in an election. And so, the difference between 2020 and now, or in 2024 is that it was kind of ad hoc, right in 2020? Now, there are -- there have been -- it seems like groundwork is being laid, potentially to at least slow down, if not, you know --

BASH: Well this is -- because this is based on a law that Republicans in Georgia passed after 2020.

KUCINICH: Exact, that's what I'm saying.

BASH: Yeah.

KUCINICH: And so that -- now that -- now that there's these, like infrastructures potentially in place to slow down or potentially, you know, cause chaos in the aftermath of the election.

BASH: And Doug Emhoff was at a fundraiser in Los Angeles yesterday, and he said, quote, you know, they're going to do lots of shenanigans. They're already talking about that. So we got to win, we got to protect the win. So we're going to need the lawyers. We're going to need volunteers.

LUCEY: Yeah. And that's not something that they're starting today. I mean, Democrats have been working on this for very long time -- the Harris campaign. When it was the Biden campaign had been gearing up for this. The idea that they need to be prepared in peace states that they need to have legal, you know, strategies ready, and so that is something that they have been working on.

BASH: All right, everybody. Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere you because we're going to talk about your great piece -- you all have great pieces. We're going to drill down on yours in a little while. Coming up next. Three weeks ago, Donald Trump did think that he was marching to an inevitable victory. A lot has changed. We're going to talk to two top Republican pollsters about their advice for the Republican nominee.

[12:25:00]

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BASH: It's been a tough few weeks for former President Donald Trump. A New York Times poll showed him trailing Vice President Harris in three key battleground states, where he had been tied or winning when Joe Biden was his opponent. And for days now, he's been focused on crowd sizes and relitigating old fights against his perceived enemies in his own party. Yesterday, he got some unsolicited advice from two former primary rivals.

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